Biden and Bernie

Biden won decisively in yesterday’s primary contests. Barring a medical catastrophe, he’s almost certain to be the Democratic nominee. The reason he did so well is that most voters believe that he is more likely than Bernie to defeat Trump and understand that this eclipses all other considerations. It’s now important for all people of good will to get behind Biden and work to defeat Trump, keep control of the House, and, if at all possible, flip the senate to Democratic control, so that the task of rehabilitating our country from the damage inflicted on it by Trump and Trumpism can begin. 

A danger is that many of Bernie’s boosters will be embittered and sit on their hands rather than support and vote for Biden. 

These are people –– and there are many of them –– who don’t understand that the perfect can be the enemy of the good. Many of them are too young to remember how Ralph Nader, running for president in 2000, claimed that there was no difference between G.W. Bush and Al Gore and peeled off a critical percentage of progressive voters. If Nader had supported Gore, Gore would have been elected president and we would have been spared the disastrous presidency of G, W, Bush. Trump is a far greater danger to American democracy and to the entire world than was G. W. Bush. I fervently hope that Bernie boosters will understand what’s at stake and will support Biden.

Biden has work to do too, which I’ll discuss tomorrow.