Don't Blame Him- Bernie is Just Being Bernie

The other day, I came home to find my dog had ripped open a pillow. He's two, he's playful, and I left him alone for a while. I was mad for about 30 seconds, and then I realized something- he was just being a dog. I should know that if I leave him alone for a while, he's going to do something like this. It's my fault for allowing the behavior.

I've spent the last two months being angry at Bernie Sanders and his campaign. I've been angry at the nasty tone they've taken towards the Democratic Party. I've been angry that he won't drop out of a primary race that he can't win. I've been angry at the incorrect way that he has vilified the Democratic process. It's become annoying to watch him tell his supporters he still has a chance when anyone with an iota of a clue about how the process works, and an ounce of honesty, knows he can't win. The whole thing has been maddening.

Perhaps it's time to stop being mad at Bernie Sanders for being Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist candidate in Vermont all of these years, has never been a member of the Democratic Party. In fact, he has stood his entire career as an alternative to what he believes to be an unprincipled, ineffective Democratic Party. He has existed in Vermont as an alternative to a national party that doesn't make enough progress to satisfy voters there, and he's never been anything but straight forward about that. That he is now standing there and doing the same thing he's always done during the Presidential race should not be shocking. He's usually there to make progress when it's needed most, but the rest of the time he is "critic in chief."

Perhaps, the blame lies with people like me. Democratic leaders from the local to the national level, we all rolled out the red carpet to allow him to run in the primaries, in no small part to avoid him running as a third party candidate. Was that the right decision? Tactically, yes, though perhaps I shouldn't have carried his petition (I don't really regret carrying for his delegates, just him). Perhaps we should have confronted him earlier in the race, and confronted his view of the Democratic Party. Perhaps, months and months ago, we should have confronted his record in the Congress, his view of the Democratic Party's effectiveness, and the plausibility of his proposals. Perhaps we should have, but we didn't. And so Bernie ran, and so his message sounded good to a sizable minority of Democratic Primary voters. I guess we can be mad about that, but we shouldn't be. We should be mad at ourselves for allowing it.