WHAT BERNIE AND HIS SUPPORTERS NEED TO DO NOW, IMHO

I think it is game over for Bernie in the primaries; Joe Biden's delegate lead is insurmountable in the real world. What he needs to do now is drop out of the race, put his full support behind Joe Biden, something he has repeatedly said he will do, and urge - no, command - his supporters to do the same.

This is not what die-hard Bernie supporters want to hear. I am a Bernie supporter, but will easily slide over to the Biden camp for a number of reasons. What bothers me a lot is hearing that some young voters will choose to not vote at all rather than vote for Joe Biden in the general election (déjà vu 2016?).  This is absolutely the wrong thing to do! Let me explain why.

 I understand the passion of young Bernie-supporting voters (and, actually, all Bernie supporters) for a political revolution. I have written about that in this blog. I was young and radical a half century ago (now I'm old and radical). In my younger years, the existential threat to human and other life on Earth was nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It didn't happen; we're still here. My wife and I were co-chairs of the first Earth Day teach-in in 1970 at University of California, Irvine. I look at the schedule of talks and panels from that event 50 years ago, and I wonder if much has changed since then. Some things are better, some are worse, and climate change has become the existential threat for the present and future generations. 

We protested the Viet Nam war, and we felt responsible for the decision of President Lyndon Johnson not to run for re-election. We were activists for civil rights, women's rights, labor unions and other "radical" causes. More recently we supported LGBTQ rights and freedom of marriage. 

The point is, I understand the passion of Bernie supporters to make fundamental changes to the American system in the name of justice and equality. But what I want to say to young people is that, because of my age and experience, I also understand politics better than I did as a young activist. Unfortunately, no young person wants to hear that from an old man! 

I know now that change is usually incremental, even though it sometimes can be faster. I now know that we need to be careful what we ask for. For example, we got rid of Lyndon Johnson, but what we got was Richard Nixon. And in retrospect, most of us realized that Johnson, for all his warts, was one of the best political operators in our nations history; in other words, he knew how to get things done, and he got a lot of important things passed.

At this very moment in time in America, the man who occupies the presidency is an existential threat to American democracy. We certainly can all agree that Donald Trump needs to lose the 2020 election. If the Democratic Party, and all no-Trump voters are divided in November, if a significant number of no-Trump voters decide to not vote instead of vote for Biden, Trump has a better chance of being re-elected, and the damage to America and the world will be worse than anything we have seen since 2016 under Trump and the Trump Republicans. 

Joe Biden is a good person and a very experienced politician. He has the potential to be a good President. He is not a Democratic Socialist like Bernie Sanders; however, he is a liberal who has been tugged to the left on a number of issues by Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. 

Here is the best game plan for Bernie supporters after Bernie drops out of the race:

1. Actively support the campaign of Joe Biden in ways that are comfortable for you. 
2. Vote in the 2020 election, and vote for Joe Biden.
3. Encourage everyone you know to vote, for Biden. 
4. (This is critical) Don't stop being politically active. The advance of Democratic Socialist ideas and policies has never been as recognized and popular in America as they are right now, thanks to Bernie and all of you. Don't squander that progress; build on it. Put pressure on a Biden administration to do the right things. Elect more progressives and socialists to Congress. Continue to build the movement - don't turn your backs on it. 

Nobody said political change would be easy. Every generation of activists has to work hard to keep the gains made by those before them, and to pave the way for change by those who follow. We have seen tremendous steps backwards by the Trumpsters, who have as a primary goal undoing everything accomplished by Barak Obama and other Democrats. We cannot allow them to win; you cannot allow them to win.  

Joe Biden is not the candidate you want, I get it. But dropping out of the political system by shirking your responsibility to vote is a cop-out. How would you react if the players on your favorite sports team stopped playing in the middle of a game and walked out because they were losing? 

Bernie Sanders has accomplished amazing things as a candidate in 2016 and 2020. He has set a very critical policy agenda for the political revolution that is desperately needed in this country. I hope he stays in the game of politics as a leader in the progressive, Democratic Socialist movement. I think President Joe Biden will have to pay attention to Bernie and his base. His voice will be your voice in the Senate and party politics for awhile; however, at some point in the near future, Bernie will retire. Who will pick up his mantle? Your voice needs to be heard. The power of your vote is needed. 

Don't give up. Don't lose the gains made by the Bernie-led movement. Keep your head, and your vote, in the game. You can do this (and you don't have to tell anyone that you heard it from an old man!). 

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