Sanders: The idealists who won’t vote for Clinton

“‘Bernie or Bust!’ That’s the defiant rallying cry of the Bernie Sanders hard core,” said Brogan Morris in Salon .com. Polls find that up to 33 percent of the senator’s supporters are insisting they’ll refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination. That statement of single-minded devotion may seem naïve, given that the Republican alternative may be “a sub-Mussolini demagogue” named Donald Trump. But the Sanders diehards aren’t in the mood to compromise. Many helped sweep Barack Obama to power on a promise of hope and progressive change and were disappointed. U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, the criminals behind the financial crisis got big bailouts, “and race relations have deteriorated.” Clinton’s coziness with Wall Street, her slippery ethics, and her hawkish foreign policy record embody “rigged, establishment politics.” After falling for Bernie, his most enthusiastic fans refuse to settle for the lesser of two evils.

Sanders absolutists seem to think they’d be “protected from the consequences of a Trump presidency,” said Melissa Hillman in Qz.com. Does it matter to these privileged, white, college-educated purists that a misogynist, immigrant-bashing vulgarian would be “empowered to command our military, veto bills, and nominate people to the Supreme Court, impacting life in the U.S. for decades to come?” If you’re black, Latino, Muslim, or poor, said Michael Tomasky in TheDailyBeast .com, the consequences of a Trump or Cruz presidency could be disastrous. Republicans would “take a meat cleaver” to the safety net for the poor, repeal Obamacare, shut down affirmative action programs, pass restrictive voting laws, and try to deport 12 million immigrants. Many Democrats will be voting “to protect basic rights,” not to make a symbolic statement of their purity.

To win the general election, Clinton must reach out to those core Sanders supporters “and the senator himself,” said Julian Zelizer in CNN.com. Sanders “has inspired the progressive coalition,” a passionate group that Democrats “have too often ignored.” Through her vice presidential pick and party platform, Clinton needs to make concrete appeals to his followers that “are more than campaign rhetoric.” That political reality alone makes Sanders’ long-shot candidacy successful, said Paul Waldman in TheWeek.com. He’s set the agenda in the primaries, and if Clinton becomes president, she’ll have no choice but to be “keenly aware of the desires of her party’s base.”