I disagree with his decision, but it is his decision. Bernie will drop out when he decides to drop out. His behavior before and after the drop out is more important than the act of dropping out, to be honest.
Bernie knows he won't win. This is his grand gesture at the end of a storied career of public service, his magnum opus. He is energizing and mobilizing the progressive base of the next 4 decades, showing them how they can have a powerful and immediate impact on the political landscape, and the remarkable value of activism.
I think it's beautiful and admirable.
I think the opposite.
The problem with the manner in which he is running is that he's put forth a lot of excuses for why he isn't winning: superdelegates, party corruption, money laundering, bank speech transcripts, low information voters, conservative states, etc. This isn't a promotion of activism or policy, it's a promotion of the idea that his will is the only will of the people, and the actual vote count is fraudulent. That the system is the problem and the only solution is to oppose it at all cost and tear it down, rather than learning how to work with the system and
how to work with other people, and change the system. It's an ugly, self-centered, self-righteous, ironically capitalist perpetuation of justifications as to why they are
right and everyone else is
wrong.
The class of the '08 election, the Obama class, were unified because of Obama's message of unity and Hillary's efforts and actions towards unity. We assume the Bernie class will eventually vote logically, but I sometimes wonder how deep the anti-establishment feeling runs to the point where they cannot be convinced of anything other than their own views. I also wonder how truly committed his supporters are to progressive policy rather than to the candidate; the example of this was noted in the difference in Bernie phonebanking at the BerniePB website. These volunteers logged 3 million calls in NY in a few days leading up to that primary, but once he lost the numbers now struggle to crawl past 10k.
Bernie has disappointed me several times but the honest first time I felt disappointed was when his purported youth revolutionary vote didn't materialize to help him win. I've been following politics since 2008, and I expected certain things but in my heart I also challenged the world: Prove me wrong. Prove to me that America really is ready for such a strong pivot to progressive ideas. The primaries so far have disappointed immensely in that regard both on the side of the Republicans, who have essentially chosen Trump, and on the side of the Democrats, where Bernie is too inept and lacking to harness and lead.
The progressive base of the next four decades was not mobilized or built by Bernie Sanders. Obama laid the foundation, and his successors will build on that and strengthen it.
