Do You Like Apples?
How do you like them apples?
A young man who was simply aghast at my article Returning To My Premise: Iowa Was as Good as It Gets For Bernie Sanders was quick to pound his prideful chest after the Nevada caucuses: ‘Do you like apples?’ he declared. And yes, I do know the Good Will Hunting reference. I even know the reference Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were referencing when they made the reference in Good Will Hunting. I doubt that this young crusader for howdy doody’s big boy prize does, though. See ‘institutional’ knowledge is clever and useful in so many ways.
I didn’t respond to that because it would have been wasting valuable breath since I was pretty clear that Sanders’ happy days of triumph would be short lived, and that discourse with howdy doody’s big boy would have been wasted time before I even hit ‘send’.
Hardcore Sanders acolytes don’t have the capacity to grasp the long game, but I do. As it turns out, it wasn’t a very long game because Bernie Sanders got his ass handed to him in South Carolina. And of course, the bros and broettes got nasty about that, tweeting mean things to black folks and those of us who tried to tell them the numbers were simply not on Bernie’s side.
These young folks who do not know the rules, who do not do any due diligence, who do not acknowledge or respect institutional knowledge or analysis, and who simply do not understand people, have been quick to hang their fortunes on every single battle as if it were decisive. But when I said that it was over for Bernie Sanders in Iowa it was because a deeper look at the numbers made it clear that he cannot survive the opposition of a unified Democratic party.
Even if Elizabeth Warren had ultimately aligned with him — which she will not because it would not be politically expedient of her to torch her own relationship with the party and because I suspect she secretly finds him repulsive — even with her delegates, he still would not prevail, by the numbers, at the convention.
And since he’s not a Democrat, one is baffled as to why he is so butthurt about that. Or why he expected otherwise when he only showed up at all to throw a turd in the punchbowl at a time when this Democratic experiment is literally under existential threat.
Sanders is the moron who said out loud that he would rather lose then accept help from Michael Bloomberg: he would rather subject this country to a re-elected Donald Trump than accept help from a man who’d made his own money legally — and paid taxes on it — in our financial construct and chose to use it to help turf that reprobate out of office. Obviously Sanders doesn’t understand how badly so many people are suffering under Trump, or how terrified of an unleashed Donald Trump many Americans are, because he is just THAT self obsessed.
And the bros and broettes have helped much in making sure that the party — writ large — cannot stand the fraud from Vermont or his followers.
So tomorrow is Super Tuesday and today Democrats united behind Joe Biden.
Biden wasn’t my first choice — reference Why I Prefer Kamala Harris — but he will do what is required to stop the cavalcade of carnage that is Donald Trump. And if Mike Bloomberg is clear that Joe’s got this, he will withdraw and put all his means and attention on the absolute destruction of the person of Donald Trump in the general election, cause you know, sometimes it takes a well armed village to get this job done. And this one will likely require carpet bombing via media.
Bernie Sanders has been nothing but a wildly unpleasant, insanely disingenuous disruptor who has encouraged an awful lot of mostly young white people to believe that showing their asses and being rude and aggressive and disrespectful is a strategy. Well Bernie’s old — he won’t be back — and the rest of these folks need to pull themselves together, grow the fuck up, and own that they are not the only ones with something to lose here. Actual people’s actual lives are on the line here and things get very real when that happens.
By the numbers, I stand by my premise: Bernie’s numbers are getting softer by the minute.
About the Author:
Gayle Leslie is a writer, political consultant, published author, actor, and policy wonk publishing extensively on Medium and other platforms. She is a native Texan, graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and Circle in the Square Theatre School in NYC. She wrote her serialized memoir, Dwelling in the Vast Divine Vol. 1 & Vol 2. You can follow on Twitter at @gayleleslie7
