I'm glad that Hillary Clinton won New York and by such a big margin. And I
sure hope that Bernie Sanders throws his weight behind her sometime soon.
Has he done damage to
the Democratic Party he has never belonged to and which he used solely to run his
campaign? Maybe. But maybe not. Hillary Clinton ran hard against Barack Obama in 2008 right up until the end and his still won. But he hadn't had to deal with an unceasing GOP hate and misinformation campaign. And she hadn't climbed on board that campaign to try and take him down.
Bernie said he didn't want to play dirty but he let his supporters do
it. Overtly or covertly he fed the beast of hatred and now many have believed
their own misinformation and convinced themselves and others that Clinton is
the devil incarnate.
I don't know if Sanders can turn back the
clock on that. It’s going to affect the outcome between Clinton and Trump. And
it could mean that Congress stays in the hands of the GOP. I think Americans will feel the effects of that for a long, long time.
If Sanders supporters hadn’t,
to all intents and purposes, enlisted in the GOP campaign against Clinton, the
GOP candidate and Party would have been thrashed in November. Congress could have changed hands. All the good work done by Barack Obama
would have been built on and enabled further.
Now? It could be another four
years of stalemates and obstacles to forward movement. It will be ironically tragic if this is Bernie Sanders' biggest contribution to the 2016 Presidential election.
