First of all, I am a Bernie supporter. Yet, reality shouts at us that a Bernie victory, short of a Hillary scandal or polls that overwhelmingly put Bernie ahead of Trump and Hillary overwhelmingly behind, is mathematically impossible. So, as much as I would have like see Bernie sworn president, that's not going to happen. If this is so, the question is what to do next in order to not lose what Bernie has won for us.
If we consider the most likely outcome (no huge Hillary scandal and no Hillary badly trailing Trump in the polls while Bernie is clearly ahead), we have to make ourselves to the idea that Hillary is going to be the nominee. And fortunately these primaries has shown that where Bernie has consistently shown3 an advantage is in the young independent vote. And how Bernie has earned that advantage? Because of his discipline at keeping his message in the issue of economic inequality and because of his record of integrity. And that's where Hillary has consistently found wanting. So, especially if Hillary runs against Trump, that young independent vote can make all the difference between a Hillary presidency and Trump's Fourth Reich. So Hillary needs Bernie's endorsement in November and, I believe that is not going to be different in 2020. And I don't see Hillary as a person of deep convictions, so Bernie has plenty of room to get significant concessions.
Of course, there are Hillary fans who say that Sherrod Brown could be an alternative pick for vice president based on the stereotypical assumption that if Bernie, who is at the left, got the young independent vote, Brown, who is also at the left should have the same effect. This idiotic reasoning could end up being very dangerous if Trump is the Republican nominee. I can predict that Trump, a con man, is going to use his salesman skills to reduce his negatives at light speed. And that may make all the difference in front of a more scripted Hillary. Carter was ahead of Reagan before the debate and the famous Reagan phrase “There you go again...” And Gore was too smart for his own good, considering that the debate between former frat boy Bush and the enlightened Gore should have been the last nail in Bush's political coffin and ended up being completely the opposite. So I would not like to take that risk and Bernie's honest supporters should not be willing to take that risk either.
So, let's descend to our original question: What to do?
1. Stop attacking Hillary's character
I do believe that Bernie should stay in the race to the very end defending his position on the issues, but that he must stop the attacks, deserved or not, on Hillary's character. Otherwise he loses his best card to keep his movement alive because if Hillary is such a dubious character, how can a man of integrity like Bernie endorse her? Or, even if he endorses her, how could we expect that that young independent vote that supports him is going to hear his call to support Crooky Hillary? His endorsement would turn into impossible or ineffective and that may be enough to help Trump win the White House.
Instead, Bernie should give shape to a practical, efficient way of reducing the effect of money in politics either directly through campaign contributions or through the back door of super PACs and get Hillary to endorse that proposal as part of the bargaining.
2. Leaders make all the difference
When Obama gave his Cairo speech he sounded to me like Kennedy. Yet, he lack Kennedy's character and ended up defending Bush's failed counterinsurgency policies minus torture plus drones. Bernie is not going to be a nominee in 8 years, not even probably in 4. The cool protesters who surround him are going to crawl back to vote for Jill Stein and rejoice in victory when she debate in Democracy Now or gets again arrested for trying to break in the presidential debate. So this is a call to the serious people who surround Bernie, who were with him before the divas of some 70s exploitation movie snatched the microphone from his hands and took over his rally in that unfortunate rally we all remember. So, the question is who is going to succeed Bernie among the adults?
My first choice, of course, would be Elizabeth Warren (even though she has been reluctant to endorse Bernie). Getting her as vice president in the ticket would be a huge victory (in exchange of Bernie's endorsement) because that would give him the national exposure that would make her a formidable candidate in 8 years, not to mention that she has the same track among young independent voters. And, as I mentioned before, Hillary has a huge problem in this constituency, so that should keep her administration within a reasonable range of policy options so she doesn't end up hurting Warren's possibilities in 8 years, so she doesn't get voters tired of Democrats. If somebody could keep the constituencies that can make all the difference in 8 years, that person in Elizabeth Warren.
Of course, a third concession should have to be about what has been the core of Bernie's message, some concession about income inequality and there is plenty to choose there after decades of irresponsible deregulation, tax cuts and conveniently sloppy oversight.
Yet, there is always the possibility of Warren refusing to be such successor, and that would mean that we have to find one among the intelligentsia of the left. But if you are familiar with what nowadays passes for intelligentsia at the left (cool kids with happy smiles and the latest apps in the smartphones, repeating whatever slogan is considered cool in fraternity circles), that is not easy task.
3. Get rid of the cool protestors
I am not the mean critic of a high school play. There are millions of lives at the stake. So, Bernie, get rid of those idiots. Professional pillow fighters who dream of an October Revolution without bullets and guns (because, let's remember: they are cool) they swear that a war is coming, a cool, fun war fought with tweets in 140 characters and food fights, and apps. They live in a planet light years from ours, where the Southern Strategy never existed (And, to a point, they are like their equivalents at the right who believe that Jesus gave the Founding Fathers the original constitution -without amendments and with the original infamous 'three-fifths' clause, of course and that one day he will come back to take them to heaven, where segregation and immigration laws are properly enforced). They claim”Bernie or Bust!” and, in their profound imbecility, they forget that by 2004 more than a third of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein had been behind 9/11, that even after the debacle of the Great Recession the Republican Party didn't suffer the fate of the Republican Party after 1932, that had to wait a very long time to take over again one of the houses (while we gave them back the House of Representatives as soon as 2010). Yet, even then, after FDR's death, when Henry Wallace tried to run as a third party candidate, don't you remember how bad did it fare for him? And, of course, it is always easier to endure somebody else pain. When a Trump President can't provide on his absurd promises he will feed his base with the scapegoated Muslims and Mexicans but, of course their destroyed lives will be small potatoes compared to the suffering of the cool protestors, martyrs of that imaginary October Revolution fought with pillows, because they have sensibility and because they are cool.
The cool protestors had not been able to bring the Hispanic or the black vote, on which Hillary has won overwhelmingly in these primaries. So, what does Bernie loses by putting them in their place and clearly condemning those stupid calls for “Bernie or Bust!”? He is not going to win anyway but still has a huge bargaining card (young independent voters, again) that can take his movement to the next step. But, if he remains silent or, worse, endorses those imbeciles, he will lose that bargaining power and his moment will fall into new levels of apathy and oblivion, like Occupy, while the cool protestors move to their next choreography and their new temper tantrums. These happy pillow fighters consider themselves pivotal on Obama's victories of 2008 and 2012, claiming that such result would not have been possible had not been they so cool and had their toys not have the latest apps. But what happened then in 2010 and 2014? Some mean adult took their toys and put them out of their reach on the upper level of some shelf? What actually happened was that Obama, a great speaker, created huge expectations in 2008 and 2012 that were followed by huge disappointments by 2010 and 2014 and there were no real activists to prepare Obama supporters to run the whole marathon, just cheerleaders with happy slogans and flashy emails who asked you for contributions now and then.
It doesn't escape me that Bernie's success came too soon and too fast to get him prepared for the next steps. But now that his victory in the primaries is clearly not possible, he should move to secure that his movement moves to the next level so what has been won in the public debate is not lost.
4. Without good captains and lieutenants, good general can fail miserably
If instead of sticking to a pipe dream, Bernie moves to the next level already, now that he has such a bargaining power, General Bernie should create the first promotion of officers (activists) that make his movement a serious left wing inside the Democratic Party. Do you remember FDR telling his base that they had to push him to make Social Security possible? And, by doing so, FDR made Social Security possible. Compare that to Obama.
Alleging that he only wanted Republicans to put country first, hold hands with him and be his friends, Obama gagged the left that had brought him to power because the left could say something that hurt the Republicans' feelings and then the laws would not be bipartisan. And then they would not be his friends. So he sent his attack dog Rahm Emmanuel to do that job and Rahm succeeded at his task. Instead, Obama replaced activists with cool cheerleaders in what came to be known as Obama for America. They didn't take feedback because they had to be disciplined. But at the same time they were all for having fun and sending ingenious tweets. Unaware of policy but experts in the who-is-who of the political jet set. The result is that the legitimate rage created by the dysfunctional system that made the Great Recession possible not only did not disappear but also was capitalized by nothing less than the right that had caused that catastrophe in the first place: the Tea Party.
So, if you are a serious Bernie supporter, you have the cool protestors at the left, who think that it's all about the show of their temper tantrums, and you have the Democratic establishment at your right, cowardly and uncommitted, always willing to triangulate, while the equally cowardly Republican establishment still lives in fear of a Tea Party challenge. So, what about creating a new generation of New Dealers among new activists, what about a new brand of activists?
And, now that I am here, let me present this important point with an example. In the last two presidential elections, in my unfortunate contacts with Hispanic activists I found people telling me that they were supporting Obama because Obama was going to “pass immigration reform.” Unable to help myself, I told them that Obama was not a king, that that cause needed a more comprehensive strategy. And, invariable I was condemned to civil death. If you are an officer trying to take a hill where the enemy has a nest, you don't make your men rush the first 100 meters uphill and then turn them in exhausted shooting targets of the enemy's machine guns. You consider the distance and the terrain and decide your tactic based on that. But if you are a Hispanic cool protestor, you decide for the happy 100-meter rush. The problem is that, as any serious person could foresee, Obama didn't 'pass' laws and immigration reform was suffocated by the Tea Party's xenophobia conveniently helped by Gerrymandered districts.
So, if you are an activist and not a cheerleader, you prepare you people to go for as long as it takes depending on the terrain and the distance. Thus, an alliance with Carlos Gutierrez's PAC would have been great to help cowardly establishment Republicans stand to Tea Party xenophobes. Creating networks of real communications (not flashy, cool emails in condescending language but real communications) to keep the movement alive for the long haul, to make them feel that they were part of the fight and to keep them updated, talking to them as adults. Imagine union leaders keeping their networks alive and the spirits high so his people hold the line, knowing that victory depends on them holding the line for as long as it takes (And not on having fun like those idiotic cheerleaders tell you when they welcome you as a volunteer whenever they need people for a campaign or a photo op). It's not about having fun or looking sassy. It's about taking the hill because otherwise, if you are a cool protestor, you risk submerging that group in the apathy that, for instance, was typical of Hispanic voters in the generals (and is still a problem in primaries and midterms) in 2004 and before.
For the sake of your movement, Bernie, please be forceful with whom you have to be and, please, get rid of those idiots who can end up destroying all you have won for us.