A lot of people lately have been commenting on how the anti-Trump protests could hurt Bernie Sanders' election chances. I thought I would share my views on this issue from the perspective of a campaign manager. Caveat: this is not my *moral* opinion on how things are or how they should be. This is my political opinion of the effect of anti-Trump protests on Sanders' electoral viability.

A few points about the situation:

1)The Sanders campaign is not creating these events.

2)The Sanders campaign cannot, politically, even if it wanted to, disapprove of these events as HRC has done. He's politically finished if he does, because

a) it would prove HRC's point that he doesn't care about racism, and
b) it would destroy the idea of a political revolution. People would say (and rightfully so) "So, your "revolution" isn't for me, then, is it? Since you don't care whether Trump advocates for sending people like me out on stretchers?"

3)All that remains for the Sanders campaign is to figure out the best possible reaction to these events, and he's found it:

a)support the protesters,
b)place the blame for violence on Donald Trump, whom 62% of America dislikes and distrusts, (and who does in fact bear a lot of responsibility for the violence at his rallies)
c)create a strong message for coalition and against division,
d)and otherwise stay out of it.

Therefore, the critique of these events has nothing to do with the Sanders campaign and what they should or should not do; they aren't the originators of these events, and they've already chosen the best reaction out of those available.

So when folks criticize these events, the critique is actually talking to the protesters, not the Sanders campaign. Given that, here's a few points:

1)Although some of the protesters are Bernie supporters, far from all of them are. A lot of them support (and trust) no candidate.
2)These events are not spurred by a desire to elect Bernie, but from a desire to make it clear that beating up black people, Arab-Americans, etc. is unacceptable.
3)The protesters who are NOT Bernie supporters aren't going to give a damn whether he wins or not, so a critique based on that will mean nothing to them.

So when folks criticize these events, the critique is actually talking to a subset of the protesters--the ones who support Sanders--not all of them. The critique is asking the Sanders supporters at the protests to stop going to anti-Trump protests. Suppose that actually came to pass--what would the results be?

1)It would widen the gap between the grassroots movement for racial justice and the Sanders campaign, and
2)the protests at Trump rallies would continue w/smaller numbers of protesters, and
3)the people protesting would not chant "Bernie" while they're doing it.

This is the best that the folks making the critique can hope for to come out of the critique--assuming that Bernie-supporting protesters would value Bernie's win over fighting for racial justice (which is how they see their protests of Trump). I'm not sure that those protesters consider Bernie's win more important than racial justice. When you're willing to risk being beaten up for something, your commitment is pretty damned strong. Probably a lot of them would, rather than stop protesting, stop supporting Sanders instead. Even if they did stop protesting, and the chants of "Bernie" stopped, the meme that Bernie is sending those people to Trump's rallies would likely continue for some time, b/c Trump and the media would keep it going.

In my estimation, the gain that you guys could get out of this critique, even if your critique was remarkably successful/influential, is pretty small--in exchange for the damage done to a very fragile coalition, which would be pretty large. That's assuming that having liberals or progressives explain electoral viability to people willing to risk limb, and maybe life, for their cause, would have the impact you want--an assumption I don't make.

So my conclusion is that:

1)There are things we (liberals & progressives invested in electoral politics) don't control. The anti-Trump protest movement is one of them.
2)There are things Bernie Sanders and his campaign don't control. The anti-Trump protest movement is one of them.
3)The best Bernie can do is to choose a strategically sound course and steer his campaign between various electoral dangers. He's doing that.
4)Once that sound course was chosen, I'd be surprised if Bernie spent 5 minutes this weekend worrying about the effect of the protesters on his electoral viability, because he wouldn't spend time worrying about things outside his control. Not when it comes to viability, anyway. He might worry about people getting hurt, but that's a moral issue.
5)At the risk of sounding like a preachy, moralistic prat, if we are worried about Bernie's viability, we should spend some time today phone-banking or participating in other forms of GOTV. Worrying about things outside our control is, electorally, a poor choice.

I probably do sound like a preachy, moralistic prat, but I really feel that getting upset over this has no benefit. Even if all the worst prognostications are correct, we can't do anything about it--beyond what Bernie's already done. And given that Trump is one of the least popular people in the country right now (62% unfavorability ain't chicken feed), there's less danger than there would be otherwise. People simply don't trust his version of events--a fact that Bernie is using to his advantage:

@BernieSanders: "Send them. They deserve to hear what a real, honest politician sounds like."