Dear Bernie,
You are toast and we smell the burn.
We are shutting you down. We are not “corporate” or “Wall Street” or “millionaires and billionaires.” We are just everyday Democrats – African-Americans and white suburbanites, college-educated and no college at all, liberals and moderates and conservatives, and we have decisively spoken. This is not a conspiracy. This is the voice of democracy telling you to stand down for the greater good.
There is no “revolution.” There is, instead, a shared burning desire to rectify America’s most disastrous mistake, to oust the dangerous autocratic imbecile who would do even greater damage in a second term. We’ve decided that your opponent has by far the best chance to make that happen. The longer you deny reality, the more you threaten to undermine our shared urgent mission. Park your pride. Please respect our national civic emergency.
Face the inescapable facts. Last night in Michigan – the most delegate-rich contest, the primary state you won in 2016 – 57 percent of the voters said their top priority was beating Trump; those folks chose Joe Biden over you by 26 percentage points. Statewide turnout was 25 percent higher than four years ago, and statewide, Joe crushed you by 16 points. The kids under 30 may love you, but, as always, the kids don’t vote en masse. Truth is, a whopping 63 percent of the Michigan electorate was 45 years old and higher – and among those voters, you were rejected in a landslide. The left may love you, but the left is small – no matter what impression you and your followers get from Twitter. Truth is, 78 percent of the Michigan electorate was “somewhat liberal” or “moderate-conservative,” and those voters rejected you in a landslide.
Joe won the college-educated by 14 points. Joe won the non-college-educated by 14 points. He won union households by 18 points, and non-union households by 12 points. He won men by 4 points and women by 23 points. He won whites by 11 points and blacks by 39 points, and we really shouldn’t need to tell you that if you’re on the receiving end of a landslide among black voters – yet again – you should pack your bags for Vermont and seriously reassess.
And when Michigan voters were asked who’d they trust in a crisis – you or Joe – he got the nod by 19 points. Joe may not be exciting, but we Democrats have had enough excitement these last three years. So have a lot of Republicans who can’t abide Trump any longer. Surely you noticed that in swing Macomb County, one of the Republican mayors said that Trump is “deranged” and he endorsed Joe as a safe harbor. Joe, not you, can draw those crossover voters in November. Joe is comfort food, like mac and cheese.
So please. Don’t make the same mistake you made four years ago, when you stayed in the race against Hillary Clinton long after it was obvious to everyone that you’d never surmount her delegate lead. That was not helpful. Last night you didn’t win a single county in Michigan, Mississippi, or Missouri. That should be sufficient impetus to be helpful. Please start now. Tell the kids that there’s nothing more important – for their future, for this nation’s future – than uniting with us Democrats to fight our common enemy.
We’re currently mired in a national crisis, and there’s only one issue on the voters’ minds. If you do want to stay on the trail, we suggest you simply ask Americans who they’d trust more in 2021 to combat the coronavirus: Donald Trump or Joe Biden? Trump, who fired the Obama-Biden pandemic response team, or Joe Biden, who’d respect science and rebuild the team?
So join us, Bernie, because there’s not a moment to waste. And thank you in advance for your service.
Outstanding piece. Succinct, straightforward, filled with statistical evidence. I hope his staff puts it front and center. Thanks.
Calling Trump America’s greatest mistake is peak white person.
This is a nation that is built on slavery, that nuked a surrendering nation twice, that built a forever-war economy and created a soldier class through the inaction of the citizenry. A nation where we can’t close schools because too many students are homeless and depend on their schools for their one meal a day.
Shame on you. Just because it scares you doesn’t mean it’s the biggest problem we have to conquer as a people. Trump is a symptom of problems caused, exacerbated and ignored by American exceptionalism, ignorance, and apathy. It’s high time the older generations woke up to their responsibility for our current climate, economic and cultural catastrophes-in-the-making.
“Nuked a surrendering nation twice”?????
What the f–k?
Last I remember in the history books America used some primitive nuclear weapons against Japan….a country that was NOT surrendering. Until the US leveraged a new weapon against them. Hiroshima: home of the Japanese version of Scapa Flow, home to the 2nd Army…..clearly a MILITARY target. Nagasaki: home of some major arms industries.
Dear Mr. I-have-a-hyphenated-name: I don’t mind you holding the views you do. I do mind that you distort history for reasons that appear to be personal to you. My father’s first ship in the Navy was the USS Osmus, named after Frank Wesley Osmus, an American aviator at the battle of Midway, shot down by the Japanese, ‘rescued’ by same, tortured, beheaded, and heaved overboard by the very same asshats you are defending as a surrendering country.
Out of idle curiosity, when you look in the mirror does a sack-jawed yokel with vacuous expression stare back at you?
I strongly wish that someday you may be rescued by a surrendering country.
This is wrong. Though I have supported Joe Biden from the get go, Bernie Sanders has every right to campaign for President. He is running an honest campaign raising issues with which I agree. The shame is, the majority of voters, those that vote in the General, are not ready to accept or finance Bernie’s solutions.The root of Obama Care was introduced over 20 years ago. Even Obama had to modify his original plan to get it through Congress. And who ever becomes the Party nominee, probably Joe Biden, will need the support of everyone to get Trump’s ass out of the White House chair. Don’t assume it will be easy. In elections I’ve learned to run scared.