It's not easy being green

Don't make Bernie angry.  You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Yeah, Charlie Pierce punks it, but this Politico article has too much that sounds too right to be dismissed as the words of aides now desperate to find another job.  Take this, for example:

Top Sanders aides admit that it’s been weeks, if not months, since they themselves realized he wasn’t going to win, and they’ve been operating with a Trump’s-got-no-real-shot safety net. They debate whether Sanders’ role in the fall should be a full vote-for-Clinton campaign, or whether he should just campaign hard against Trump without signing up to do much for her directly.

They haven’t been able to get Sanders focused on any of that, or on the real questions about what kind of long term organization to build out of his email list. They know they’ll have their own rally in Philadelphia – outside the the convention hall—but that’s about as far as they’ve gotten.

“He wants to be in the race until the end, until the roll call vote,” Weaver said.

The only part that surprises me is the idea of opposing Trump without supporting Hillary.  And how does that work, exactly?  Write-in Bernie?  Vote for Jill Stein (in 20 states?)  What?  How does one oppose Trump but not support Hillary?  Don't vote at all?

And the reason to hang on is, apparently, so Bernie can re-write history:

The meetings in Philadelphia have already started, with the platform drafting committee set to have its opening session on Wednesday. The Sanders team is headed by Mark Longabaugh—Devine’s business partner, but who’s veered closer to Weaver when it comes to eagerness to headbutt. There are negotiations with the Clinton campaign and the DNC over what they’re going to force them to agree to, from speaking slots at the convention to long-term control over party operations to the order of early state voting (Aides say Sanders believes the race would have been radically different if the order were different, and more states were by themselves on the calendar instead of lumped together on super-ish Tuesdays).

“Everything is on the table,” Longabaugh said.

Tell me what chance Bernie would have had if he didn't carry the south, even if it weren't all on Super Tuesday?  What's next, move Vermont's primary to precede New Hampshire's?

And I love this bit:

“They would be very smart to understand that the best way to approach Bernie is not to try to push him around,” Devine said. “It’s much better if they try to cooperate with him and find common ground. They should be mindful of the fact that the people he’s brought into this process are new to it and they will be very suspicious of any effort to push him around.”

How about we just go around you, Senator?  Would that be alright?  Remind me, again, of what you have accomplished in the Senate?  Anything?  And as for your supporters, the ones you've "brought in to the party," it wasn't hard for NPR to find one who said he'd rather vote for Trump than Hillary (which takes us back to the original issue with you).*

Bernie is the servant, high priest, and acolyte of the Big Idea, and nothing is going to dissuade him from that:

Convinced as Sanders is that he’s realizing his lifelong dream of being the catalyst for remaking American politics—aides say he takes credit for a Harvard Kennedy School study in April showing young people getting more liberal, and he takes personal offense every time Clinton just dismisses the possibility of picking him as her running mate—his guiding principle under attack has basically boiled down to a feeling that multiple aides sum up as: “Screw me? No, screw you.”

The Big Idea cannot fail, it can only be failed.  We've got Tom Cotton and the Tea Party for that nonsense.  We don't need anymore of it.  You want respect, Senator?  You need to show some.  The primary wasn't all about you.  The election isn't all about you.   For the first time in your life you got some attention beyond the borders of Vermont, and it went to your head.  That's not enough reason for you to have any power in any political party.

The more I hear Sanders, the more I hear Trump.  He isn't even interested in his ideas, anymore:  he's just interested in power.  He doesn't like the process, so he wants to reshape it to suit him.  Problem is, he can't do that retroactively.  And why he should be able to do it prospectively is the question;  But don't challenge him, because that would be pushing him around, and you don't want to do that.

Apparently.**

*And according to a Pennsylvania poll, 10% of Bernie supporters will vote for Trump.  Tell me again how much clout he should have in the Democratic party, and how many voters he brought to the party.  And how many were supporting his ideas, and how many were just supporting his posture?

I mean, are these really people we need to be courting for November?

**And if this is all hogwash and Bernie is a victim of his staff, his advisers, and his supporters, then he's clearly unfit to be President.  Either way, this doesn't make Bernie look any better.