Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

The Democratic Party’s five point plan for neutralizing the defeated Bernie Sanders

By Bill Palmer | May 24, 2016

Bernie Sanders is on his way to losing the Democratic Primary race in a multimillion vote blowout, but instead of accepting that the vast majority of voters rejected him, he’s floating every nonsensical conspiracy under the sun and vowing vengeance against those whom he imagines prevented him from winning. That’s led some supporters of Hillary Clinton into an endless round of hang-wringing over Sanders, preventing them from paying attention to the now month-old general election season. But they have little to worry about, as the party is already putting a five point plan into place to prevent Sanders from causing any real harm:

1. Throw him a meaningless convention bone: The Democratic National Committee is allowing Bernie Sanders to pick five of the fifteen members [ http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/hillary-clinton-smartly-silences-bernie-by-giving-him-meaningless-concession/24874/ ] of the platform committee at the convention. He thinks it’s a victory. But it doesn’t give him any influence, because his people are only one-third of the committee and they’ll get voted down on every issue. Moreover he’s predictably wasted his picks on the likes of Keith Ellison, who is arguably more loyal to the party than to Bernie, and Cornel West, a self aggrandizer who couldn’t care less about Bernie’s agenda. Meanwhile, Benghazi hearings hero Elijah Cummings will be in charge of the committee. It’s too bad these committee meetings will take place behind closed doors, because the party could sell tickets to those who want to watch Cummings putting West in his place.

2. Privately threaten him: Smart people never offer a carrot without also brandishing stick. We don’t know precisely what the Democratic Party is privately threatening Bernie Sanders with even as it publicly gives him meaningless symbolic victories, but Senator Barbara Mikulski and others have begun hinting [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/23/bernie-sanders-risks-berning-bridges-in-senate.html ] that Sanders could be ostracized in the Senate for the remainder of his career if he fouls up this election. Because he’s not technically a democrat to begin with, the party can easily leave him sitting alone by himself while they break for meetings. They can also strip him of his committee positions. And because he has virtually no allies in the Senate to begin with, these threats can very easily be carried out. That’s before getting to the almost certain threat being made behind the scenes to run a well financed democrat against Sanders in the 2018 Senate race in Vermont, which could end his career.

3. Throw him an imaginary cabinet bone: Because his ego is insatiable, Bernie Sanders – despite being on his way to losing the primary race by a whopping fourteen percent [ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_vote_count.html ] of the public vote – is also demanding input on Hillary Clinton’s cabinet. This ludicrous demand makes him look like a jackass, and is likely chasing away his remaining reasonable supporters as we speak. But this demand is also easily worked around. Clinton has been running a progressive campaign from the start, since before Sanders even got into the race, and it’s a given that she’ll be appointing some progressives to her cabinet. All she has to do is tell Sanders that this or that cabinet pick was made in order to appease him, and he won’t know any differently.

4. President Obama strikes back: Sanders, whose own campaign is basically broke, is using what little influence he has left in order to raise money for the obscure democratic candidate who is challenging Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the primary race. It’s a small minded attempt at imagined vengeance, as Sanders has convinced himself that Wasserman Schultz somehow rigged the election against him in her other role as DNC Chair. But President Obama himself is now endorsing her, and he seems intent on making sure she gets reelected. There have long been rumors that Obama and Wasserman Schultz don’t like each other, but the idiocy of Sanders has apparently driven them to work together.

5. Simply moving on: Cable news is now giving Bernie Sanders about one-fourth as much coverage as he had been getting throughout the primary race, and much of his remaining coverage is merely devoted to explaining to viewers why he can no longer win. That’s prompted him to start saying and doing increasingly absurd things in the hope of getting bits of attention, whether that attention ends up being positive or negative. In that regard, Hillary Clinton has simply moved on and no longer even mentions him as she focuses on Trump. An increasing number of her most influential supporters have decided to do the same. After all, if no one is listening to Sanders and no one is talking about him, his absurd words don’t get him anywhere.


http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/the-democratic-partys-five-point-plan-for-neutering-the-defeated-bernie-sanders/24882/