endorse Clinton to save his delegates... please provide something more than someone saying so in a youtube video

This meme is floating around the internet. I have seen it in several places. It makes no sense to me, frankly. Is it true that he no longer has secret service protection? If that is true, he is no longer running for President, no longer a candidate. I am concerned that this meme is intended to keep a dream alive, keep our energies focused on a goal that isn't going to happen. You don't endorse someone and then go on national talk shows to continue speaking about that endorsement if still a candidate. You don't lie to your supporters about how "progressive" the platform is when almost nothing substantive made it into that platform and you know it is meaningless anyway. You don't congratulate the evil one for a means tested tuition plan when you know that it is a step in the wrong direction and the slithering one is using,cynically, it to introduce the idea of means testing the safety net. Belief in Bernie's continued campaign is dissipating anger and keeping us passive.

He could have told the D's to piss off.

He could have abandoned this farce pre Philly, taken his delegates and his supporters and held a giant ass protest outside to announce a 3rd party run.

He could have partnered up with Stein and founded a serious progressive challenge to the corruption he just threw his lot in with.

He could have fought tooth and nail against the fact we just saw the single largest example of election fraud in the history of this country across the country.

But he didn't. And the fact he didn't fight the fraud to me is the most damning of all when it was plain to see. And now he's in the blah blah gotta beat trump rountine as he kisses Hillary's ring?

Reading that part of his letter made me physically sick to my stomach...

I know it's an unpopular opinion around here now, but screw him. He wants to lay down with the dogs, then he can have the fleas, and he shouldn't be surprised when some of us lose all trust and respect for him.

When the going got tough, when there was a real chance he could lose something, when the bullying got too intense principles went out the window and he caved. There's no oh he had too, there's no he's still fighting for us, there's zero zip zilch NADA but another example of another so called revolution laboring under the delusion you can change an nonredeemable, rotten to the core, cancer on Democracy that is the Democratic party as much as the Republican one anymore from the inside. When the system needs to be brought down on it's head, not propped up from within by someone who I feel almost does deserve the title of senator sheepdog at this point.

Though that could be the fact I'm still enraged beyond reason talking, but again, don't really care about that either.

(although I'm skeptical)

then Bernie should have made much more of an effort to lay the groundwork and educate his supporters about the reasons behind it before the announcement.

Instead, he sort of hemmed and hawed, dropped little hints as the platform process reached its disappointing conclusion, and then just announced he was endorsing her without any real explanation or Q & A.

If the Bernie camp had made even half the effort prior to the announcement to soften the blow, they wouldn't have to be spinning so hard now.

As it is, it's too little too late.

He implicitly gave his stamp of approval for what happened during the primaries, regardless of whether that was his intent or not.

I don't know whether Bernie absolutely had to endorse or not, but you can bet that there would have been riots in the streets if all of his delegates were forfeited just because he refused to endorse Clinton before the convention. He probably had to do it eventually if he planned to remain a Democrat, but doing it mere weeks before the DNC with the rhetoric he used (unlike his endorsement for Bill in 1996) still felt like a slap in the face. He probably just decided to take the best deal that he could get, and I honestly can't fault him for that, but I personally feel that it was far more important to fight the Democratic Party no matter what the cost.

The endorsement reminded me of something I read months ago from Harry Reid's digital director, Faiz Shakir, in a Politico article about Bernie's email list:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-fundraising-list-22...

Bernie usually finds a way to be helpful at the end of the day,” Shakir said. “That’s always been the case, whether it was the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank. There are places where he might have, initially, some concerns. At the end of the day, he’s found a way to be helpful. That’s his instinct, and my sense is he’d be similarly disposed on this, as well.

Meaning that the leadership relied on the fact that he would cave in the end. The patronizing idea that Bernie is "helpful" to the Democrats drove me nuts at the time, and even now it helps to illuminate how the people in charge of the party view him. When push comes to shove, they think they can break him by positioning themselves against a greater evil, which is part of the reason why I wanted Bernie to play hardball.

Holy cow - and he's on the DNC Committee, isn't he? Can he do that? He did!

This primary is CRAZY.

This November, we need change. Yet we are tied in a choice between Trump, who would be a neo-fascist catastrophe, and Clinton, a neo-liberal disaster. That’s why I am supporting Jill Stein. I am with her – the only progressive woman in the race – because we’ve got to get beyond this lock-jaw situation. I have a deep love for my brother Bernie Sanders, but I disagree with him on Hillary Clinton. I don’t think she would be an “outstanding president”. Her militarism makes the world a less safe place.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/14/barack-obama-us-racism-police-brutality-failed-victims

ETA: Thanks for posting this as an essay, polka!