Bernie Sanders Drops Out of the 2020 Democratic Primary

Bernie Sanders and me here pictured together in New York City, October 2016

Well, you could kind of see this coming. The writing was on the wall ever since Super Tuesday, when it seemed that Joe Biden consolidated his frontrunner status - a status he had seemed to lose just weeks before - when he seemed to convince first Pete Buttigieg, and then Amy Klobuchar to drop out of the race just before that Tuesday.

He won the majority of the races on Super Tuesday, and then took over as the new (old) frontrunner, becoming the presumptive favorite to win the Democratic nomination.

Ever since then, establishment Democrats have been piling on support for him. Bernie Sanders kept fighting, but fighting the establishment is always difficult.

Frankly, I am not convinced that Joe Biden has a better chance against Trump than Bernie would have. Trump seemed to suggest as much in January, expressing quite a bit of concern about how tough Bernie would be. The polls suggested as much as well, as Bernie fared better against Trump than Biden, which was also the case in 2016, when Bernie polled better against Trump than Hillary did. Yet, the establishment Democrats insisted that he was a liability, and many of them could not wait for him to drop out.

Some of them, I saw, actually blamed Bernie Sanders for endangering Wisconsin voters in the primaries earlier this week. And frankly, there was a level of outright hatred - there is no other word for it - that I found simultaneously disgusting, sickening and alarming. 

Now, we have Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee. I also believe that Trump wanted Biden to win, because Biden feels to me like a liability for the Democrats, just like Hillary Clinton was. Trump has already attacked him on seemingly being too easily confused, and showing signs of possible dementia. Despicable, yes. But when has being despicable ever stopped Trump and his supporters before, or so much as even given them pause for thought.

Personally, I am not shocked or anything by this. The bad night I had was on that Super Tuesday, when it dawned on me that the establishment Democrats had, once again, put whatever differences that they had with each other aside, in order to prevent the nomination of someone who could have represented a real change. Bernie Sanders could have been the new FDR that this country needs, just in time for the greatest crises (yes, more than one) that his country has faced since at least World War II.

Again, I reiterate that Biden would be better than Trump, but that is not saying much. And let's be honest: I think that Trump has a better shot against Biden than he would have had against Bernie. Hope I'm wrong, but there you have it. The establishment Democrats wanted this, and made sure, for a second election in a row, that they got their way. And for a second time in a row, they might regret having gotten what they wished for.