Source: AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Anyone else experiencing déjà vu? Sen. Bernie Sanders
(D-VT) has dropped out of the 2020 presidential election. He will, however,
remain on the ballot in the remaining races and collect as many delegates as he
can.
"I wish I could give you better news," Sanders
said from his home in Burlington, VT on Wednesday. But considering he's now
behind former Vice President Joe Biden by 300 delegates, he admits "the
path to victory is virtually impossible."
We've seen this story play out before. In 2016, the
progressive Sanders gave the establishment Hillary Clinton a run for her money,
but the Democratic Party had already paved a clear path for the more recognizable and more
electable former secretary of state. A sizable number of his supporters
were still bitter about it in 2020.
"I don’t trust the Democrats," one Bernie
supporter in New Hampshire said. "I think they’re two sides of the same
coin. Although they don’t want Trump to win, they would rather have him than
Bernie I think. And they’re probably going to screw him."
"I think they're terrified of him," Amanda from
Sandy, Utah added. "And they don't want him to be the candidate because he
is anti-establishment, even though I think Trump won because he is
anti-establishment, so pinning two anti-establishment candidates against each
other would be really, really fun."
Sanders had promoted some radical proposals throughout
his campaign such as the socialist Medicare for All plan, while Biden has
suggested Democrats take a more moderate (in comparison) approach by building
on Obamacare.
Democrats' hopes now rest on former Vice President Joe
Biden, who has done little more than provide gaffe-heavy interviews these past
few weeks. He had a disastrous start to the 2020 primary, having lost in both
the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary. Sensing that Sanders was heading
toward the nomination, Democrats rallied around Biden and in a matter of days
held his coronation. It happened almost overnight.
Sanders thanked his campaign staff and his supporters for
helping him in his quest for "economic and racial justice." He
claimed that the current coronavirus pandemic reveals how "absurd"
the current employer-based private health insurance system is.
"Few would deny that over the course of the past
five years, our movement has won the ideological struggle," he added.
Well, some would deny it.
When Sen. Sanders dropped out of the race in 2016, he
endorsed and campaigned for Clinton. On Wednesday he said he'd work with Biden
to defeat "the most dangerous president in our lifetime."
A parting message from the president.
“With Bernie Sanders suspending his campaign, it’s all
but official that the Democrat establishment got the candidate they wanted in
Joe Biden, as well as the candidate President Trump will destroy in
November," Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement
on Wednesday.
"President Trump is still disrupting Washington, DC, while
Biden represents the old, tired way and continuing to coddle the communist
regime in China. Democrat elites shoved Bernie Sanders to the side for a second
time, leaving many of his supporters looking for a new home.”
