He's been in Washington a long time, and he knows the dramatis personae better than any of us. He could honestly believe that LOTE is still the way to think about what is still a binary choice in this year's election. He's passed enough amendments to know that you have to play the game to get a piece of what you want, and it's possible he's made a deal with Hillary we won't see the fruits of until next year. He's no fool, and he's been pretty independent and honorable for someone who's been in Congress as long as he has.

I'm looking at his current behavior as a useful reminder not to put my eggs in a personality basket to make my political goals happen. Bernie's primary campaign was very important, and I think it will change politics in the years to come. But that campaign is over, and now he's doing something else. I don't owe him allegiance for his past campaign when he's no longer conducting it. He's back to playing the insider game in Congress, and I'll pay attention to what he's up to, but I don't feel the need to defend him or explain his actions away at this point.

his motives, or his current activities without more facts.
I really can't convince myself he is a sheepdog because he had no particular reason to be one. His senate seat is his until he retires, he is on some powerful senate committees...and working inside with the ptb democrats for decades, he would have known there was no pushing left opportunities.
He is about as moral a man as politics allows.
Facing down threats looks like the most credible explanation, but again, I just do not have enough facts to assess.
I do know this: he will not swing his supporters to vote for Hillary. He is making himself a hack politician.
He did matter.
He does not matter now.

working inside the system. It's just not voting Democratic.

Either he's treacherous, or he's under pressure. I don't see a third option.

This is the crux of your post, yet, other possibilities exist and a number of us see them. Even as to the primary, everyone may not see it as you and I do. Or, if they think this primary was utterly rigged, they may believe the same is true of every Democrat primary since primaries since the first one.

When it comes to motives, all anyone can do is guess to take the person solely at face value, or guess other scenarios. In either case, the guess may be right or it may be wrong, but it's still all guessing.

As I see it, what you are saying can be boiled down to: Sanders did not go Green (or indie, or other newer party) when you did. He did not draw the line when and where you did. Maybe he did not even see the primary as you saw it.) And, you are convinced that the way you saw things is the only way an honest person could possibly have seen them. Therefore, the only possible reason that Sanders would not have come out about 2016 differently than the way that you came out is terror or corruption, or both.

Based on that: "Therefore" Sanders cannot possibly have a good faith belief that voting to keep a Republican out of office, as millions of Democrats do every two years and as you and I did in the past, is the best thing he can realistically do for the country. "Therefore," Sanders is either terrified or corrupt. "Therefore," he was probably threatened. But, all the "therefores" in this paragraph rest on the premise that someone cannot possibly see things differently from you without being terrified or corrupt. I don't think that is sound. Your conclusion may be right, anyway, but, again, the correctness of a conclusion is a separate issue from the process by which one reaches a conclusion.

If Sanders had come down differently in 2016 than he has come down in the past 20 years, minimum, I personally would see a stronger basis to search for a reason for the change, be it corruption or fear or whatever. But you seem to assume there must be an extreme reason for him to have remained the same, even though you changed. Or, at least, an extreme reason for announcing a few days sooner than you expected that he would give his all to support the 2016 nominee of the Democratic Party in order to defeat the Republican nominee (same announcement he made umpteen times, from 2014 to July 12, 2016, anyway/em>).

Again, I am not saying you are wrong or right. I am looking only at how you got to your conclusions. Your conclusions could be 100% right (or 100% wrong): Anything is is possible. Sanders may have been threatened or beaten. He may have come down in the same place he has come down for 20 years because he loves the deals he has made with the Vermont Democratic Party 20 years ago and with the Senate Democratic Caucus when he ran for the Senate. He may even have come down in the same place he has come down for 20 years because he is a terrible person in some other way. I just don't see those things as the only possibilities. He could simply, honestly see things very differently than you see them. Or something in between. Or something else entirely.

As for my post about Sanders' evolution, it said nothing about Sanders' character. Showing with article after article and direct quote after direct quote that Sanders came to the same bottom line in 2016 that he has come to for at least the past 20 years is not stating any conclusion about anything. Your post did draw alternative conclusions about Sanders' character based on his not changing a 20-year pattern this time. My post, however, went out of my way to state facts without drawing any conclusions. For example:

Despite what counterpunch says, the deal with the Vermont Democratic Party could have been the cause of Bernie's seeming change of heart toward Democrats could or only correlation. I am not saying either way because I don't know either way.

Again, I mention this mostly because others have raised the issue of Bernie's deals with Democrats. I have no idea if his deals with Democrats contribute to his endorsing Democrats and I will not speculate about that point. Moreover, it may not be either-or: He could genuinely believe that supporting Democrats is the best course for the country, but he is not averse to making the best deal for himself when promising to support Democrats or to vote with the Democratic Caucus.

Near the end of a long post containing only facts, I stated:

In light of all the above, claims that Bernie was beaten and/or threatened to make him endorse Hillary seem unrealistic. On July 12, 2016 and at the 2016 Democratic National Convention near the end of July, he did what he has done and espoused since 1996 and what he repeatedly said he would do in this year. And, as I have stated in prior replies, all the above aside, men in suits are covered from their collars to the soles of their shoes. No one hired to "muscle" Bernie would have left marks on Bernie's face to fuel speculation that Hillary or the DNC had a 75 year-old progressive United States Senator beaten to get his support.

If beating seems unlikely, was Bernie threatened to do what he has preached and done since 1996? I don't know, but I doubt it. If anything, he may have made assurances and gotten agreements about his speech, the platform, his role in the convention, etc. before July 12--a negotiation.

"I don't know, but I doubt it" is the most personal opinion my long post expressed about anything (other than the foolishness of leaving marks on the face, rather than the torso or legs). That you saw my post as a statement about Bernie's character is also based only your opinion, quoted above, that there are only two possible explanations for Bernie's doing the same thing in 2016 as he has done for at least 20 years. I don't agree that there are only two and I don't agree that my post said anything whatever about Bernie's character.

BTW, I don't assume a single thing about you or your character because you not only were voting for Democrats to or through 2015, but also making it your "day job" (figure of speech). I also don't assume anything about Nader's character because he reached his limit well before you and I did. I don't even assume anything about Nader's character because Nader reached his limit well before we did, yet he now says Sanders is doing the right thing vis-à-vis Hillary 2016. I may not understand where Nader is coming from, but I don't assume anything about Nader's character simply because he is in a different place than I am (and in a different place that I thought he has been since the 1980s.)

Above all, the point of my post was that is September 19; election day is November 8. What we do between now and November 9 can be critical.

Brilliant essay and much needed. Every time someone argues that we should have known that Bernie would collapse because he said he would support the winner of the Democratic primary I feel like I've been sucker-punched again.

I am in Bernie's generation, have gone through many of the same phases as he has and as you describe, but I can find no reasonable explanation from our joint and collective history that explains his behavior in an honorable way (short of being disabled by threats, in which case he is likely disabled for the long run as well).

After Obama was elected and started trying to fashion a Grand Bargain based on Republican tax reform proposals, I attended a local MoveOn meeting (something I did rarely following its unquestioning support of his campaign.) The organization had said it wanted to know from the grass roots what priorities we wanted to follow. I went to the meeting with great frustration about the Obama sellout that had already begun, thinking there would be at least some other like-minded folks in attendance. When I asserted that tax reform is a Republican formula, I was shouted down. The response was that we had to support Obama and that the tax reform package offered him a quick 'victory' ???. There didn't seem even to be any understanding of why tax reform can't be the basis of a leftward movement, no matter how opportunistically they might be in looking for a quick 'win.' I raise this example to confirm your point of crossing lines.

I had worked for many years as a member of the Democratic Party and had worked to elect Bill Clinton twice. Have worked on many local campaigns and committees for selected candidates. When I didn't know all the candidates, I just pulled the lever for the Dem. But when Obama was elected I felt that a sea-change had occurred. Much of my previous work had been in directly organizing minority communities in urban areas. I think the reason the birther myth got legs is because Obama has no clear roots in the Black community here - literally or figuratively. He was always the favorite son of the powers we now refer to as the 1% (not accidental that Occupy occurred during his presidency). I kept saying at the time that Obama had none of the instincts of someone who grew up in urban areas or whose cousins and uncles had experienced the kinds of oppression that people in the 'hood experience everyday.

For me it was always a wonderment that it was always a stretch to think of Obama as having cousins and uncles -- where are they? I kept asking people who they thought his grandmother was. Not because I thought he was born in some other country, but because grandmothers have always been important to the Black identity -- as shapers of clear lines and principled struggle. Obama was never "of the people" in the way Jesse was. (Soon after, in his mercurial rise to power based on Wall Street support, Obama brutally insulted Jesse, as if to prove my point.)

I knew that once Obama was elected leftward criticism would be silenced completely. Some of my most left-leaning friends argued that we couldn't criticize a Black president because we would effectively be supporting racist arguments -- this in spite of the fact that he received more money from Wall Street than any other candidate up to that time. All criticism was verboten.
This is the reason for drawing the clear lines that you argue for. If politics is not principled, and if one cannot criticize someone who is female or Black or Hispanic -- no matter how much they threaten progressive policies and people -- then there is no reason to be in progressive politics at all.

It's because Bernie and I lived through the same histories that I choke when trying to explain what he's done. I know he knows better. We all know better. But it's not because of wanting to villify someone who lit a prairie fire -- it's because of the tremendous sadness and cynicism it creates in a newly awakened generation. Those who have come to the conclusion that they may as well support Trump and who perhaps have not yet struggled enough on the front lines to understand why that can't be a reasonable choice. The young paid staff in Bernie offices who didn't even want to know how the local Dem electoral machines worked, nor to learn of what obstacles they would encounter on election day.

Over all these years what I have come firmly to believe is that a struggle must proceed on clear principles in order to be successful. Unity can't be forged on personality, on Rock-Star-ism, on the lesser of two evils, or on adopting Republican programs because it's the only way our "hero-leaders" can get a win.

I agree that a line was crossed in this primary season for all the reasons you have so eloquently listed. To people who think this is rehashing unnecessarily, I say that we have to understand what happened in order not to repeat it and also in order to develop a clear set of guiding, bedrock principles for moving forward.

It's just not okay to say that we should have expected this from Bernie. Every ounce of my own moral fiber says this smells very bad -- what got us here in the first place is hero worship( including both Bill Clinton & Obama-ism in that), and with facing so many elections cast as a choice between the lesser of two evils. How many times have you been told to just hold your nose and vote for a Dem. who doesn't clearly reflect the will of the people?

Think of how Hillary would fare against anyone more principled than Trump. If the Dems wanted a coronation of their deeply disliked & distrusted figure, they needed an opponent like Trump in order to be able to advance the lesser of two evils argument. Maybe he's just a Clinton deal (a la the airplane summit with Lynch) that went bad -- the monster turned on the Frankenstein who created him -- and now they are having trouble finding a wooden stake big enough to silence him.

Thank you for your ever clear arguments and energy around building a coalition based on principles, reasoned debate and refusal to accept what happened as something that we should have expected all along -- certainly not from a strong and vigorous leader who argued tirelessly for a politics based on issues & principles.

up thread " not to put my eggs in a personality basket to make my political goals happen." I learned that lesson well from swallowing the bait and then getting switched by Obama's campaign. I did get my eyes opened and my head cleared when then Senator Obama voted for FISA. With Bernie I didn't make it through the primary he lost me with his Liberty U speach when he said the the Saudis should start doing their part in the killing grounds of the ME. I also thought he was way to 'nice' to the Mad Bomber and did not really stand up to her on the issues. Incrementalism is a myth, a lie.

Loved his stump speech but then again Obama's were great too. I did give a damn about her e-mails and also kept thinking why does he caucus with these corrupt war criminals anyway. Amendments to bad fundamentally anti-democratic legislation does not cut it and neither does symbolic filibusters. What really pissed me off was his claims that she won fair and square when even the non liberal Stanford University report said it was rigged. It's not just Bernie that gets my ire up about the Democratic so called progressives in congress the progressive and black caucuses both fold like cheap tents and all endorsed and kissed the Clinton's ring.

Now that he's running around stumping for her and lecturing young ones about 'protest votes', he can kiss my ass. So is lying about the party platform and Killary and saying he was in it to win another example of his touted integrity? The politics of persona and identity politics defeat the purpose of democratic representatives. I think Bernie's intent or motivation or even his betrayal is not important. What's important is 43+ million people turned out and supported taking on the oligarchical collectivist who own and run this country.

As my precinct boss at Obama's Oregon campaign headquarters said when I called to quit Obama's campaign the day after his FISA vote, remember Obama's not what's important what counts is the movement that's out there working for change. This was not Bernie's movement, it's been a long time in the making and he gave it a voice in the electoral system. The people who supported him already knew what was going down. It's not going anywhere because it's of and by people not Bernie, the DNC or even the phony corrupt Democratic pols on all levels who run as progressives.

Why spend all this time and energy pissing and moaning and grieving about Bernie? So what if he was sheep-dogging the liberals it did not work. It did not work because the people who flocked to his campaign are not stupid. Nobody but the really brainwashed, fear riddled and greedy think that Hillary or the whole party is anything but what it is, rotten and anti-democratic to the core. It's going to get worse, count on it, and people of good spirit need to figure out how to form coalitions and learn to develop solidarity with all the 99% globally. Focusing on pols, persona and shenanigans of the courtiers and the propagandist's is not going to put this humpty together again.

Take what you have gathered from coincidence

I was mostly hanging out with my friends Stoli and Campari in order to make it from the end of the DemConv to Election Night.....

Brilliant piece.

George