When he promised an “important message” to his supporters Thursday night, most people thought Bernie Sanders intended to announce his concession to and support for Hillary Clinton.
Apparently, those people thought wrong. In a rambling, 20-minute address to live-stream viewers that was basically a Bernie Bro Facebook rant come to life, Sanders insisted that his “political and social revolution” would continue and though he’d work to defeat Donald Trump, he declined the opportunity to endorse his opponent.
Sanders insisted that his mission is to “transform the Democratic Party,” rather than to earn its nomination, and to that end, he made a series of demands on the DNC that he hopes will influence the party’s platform when the platform committee meets in July. Sanders wants the party to commit to raising the minimum wage, to opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to breaking up “big banks, and to “creating a nation of social and economic justice.”
He did not go into specifics on exactly what he meant by a nation of social and economic justice, but he pledged to provide details going forward through the convention.
This is a risky move for Sanders, who has no hope of earning the nomination and has, according to sources, quietly dropped his bid to upend the nomination process at the Democratic National Convention. He has also stopped working to convince superdelegates to switch their allegiances.
At this point, he and his remaining supporters look like insurgents, intent on undermining the Democratic candidate who will compete in the general election and fracturing a party that should be focused on defeating Trump. To his credit, at least, Sanders will help in that effort: “The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated…I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time.”
Sanders also seems to have a few tentative events lined up, so it’s possible that we could continue to hear him rant live and in-person for months and months to come.
