Will Bernie Bring His Supporters to the Dark Side?

On Meet the Press this Sunday, Hillary Clinton said she was ready to get together with Sen. Bernie Sanders and hammer out the details of their eventual unity.

“I think that Senator Sanders has every right to finish off his campaign however he chooses,” lied Clinton. “I do think there will then be the obvious need for us to unify the party. I faced the same challenge in 2008. I will certainly do my part reaching out to Senator Sanders, reaching out to his supporters and I expect him to do his.”

The chances of that happening appear to be dimming, not growing. While Sanders has always maintained that he will support Hillary if she gets the nomination, he is throwing an increasingly-venomous line of attack at the Democratic National Committee. With his chances of winning the majority of pledged delegates shrinking to nearly microscopic levels, he is pushing his “it’s rigged” theory harder than ever.

And the thing is, he’s so obviously right. The powers-that-be were not letting this one get away from them. It’s one thing to pick from a selection of impossible-to-distinguish Democrats; it’s another to pick this socialist from Vermont who is trying to generate enthusiasm from young liberals. That you just don’t do. They’ll get to your socialist agenda soon enough, Bernie. First, they have to make sure their power is protected.

So it’s not much different from what we saw in the Republican campaign. The only difference, really, is that Trump supporters overcame the systematic obstacles and Bernie supporters didn’t. And now millions of those excited supporters will be asked to get behind the Democrat equivalent of Jeb Bush.

Even if Sanders goes to great lengths to rile his supporters up for Hillary, it’s not quite clear if he’s going to be successful. Trump may be calling her “crooked” these days, but Bernie’s essentially been saying the same thing for six months. His supporters aren’t just buying into his radical vision for the country; they are fully convinced that Hillary Clinton is one of the most corrupt Democrats in Washington.

And now they’re going to shrug all of that off and plant a Go Hillary sign in their front yards?

“Whatever the differences are between me and Senator Sanders, they pale in comparison to Donald Trump and the Republicans,” Hillary said on Sunday. “And I think most of Senator Sanders’s supporters understand that as well.”

Substantially speaking, she’s not wrong. There is very little difference between her and Sanders on most of the issues facing the country. He’s just a little further down the “progressive” path.

But when it comes to character…well, that’s another story. Sanders may be crazy, but he seems sincere in his lunacy. Hillary’s lack of sincerity and her difficulty with basic concepts like the truth could be obstacles that not even a ringing Sanders endorsement can overcome.