Bernie Sanders Throws Supporters Under the Bus — Again

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that his supporters were, in fact, “living in their parents’ basements,” as his former rival, Hillary Clinton, had said at a secretly-recorded fundraiser in February.

It was the latest betrayal in Sanders’ continuing capitulation to the Clinton machine, which began with the first Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas last October, and became impossible to ignore at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.

The first days of the convention were marked by spirited protests by Sanders supporters from the floor of the Wells Fargo Arena. Supporters were particularly outraged at Clinton, given the revelations by Wikileaks that the Democratic National Committee had colluded with the Clinton campaign to deny Sanders a fair chance at winning the nomination.

But even as party officials literally turned out the lights on Sanders delegates to drown them out, Sanders did nothing in their defense.

Instead, Sanders did Clinton the honor of personally handing her Vermont’s delegates, even as hundreds of his delegates walked out of the hall in protest. Still, Sanders supporters were not ready to blame him for what had happened. At private meetings between the delegates and their candidate, there were hugs and tears, but few questions about why Sanders could have allowed millions of voters to believe in his promised “political revolution” when he had no intention of leading one.

Though he is technically “independent,” Sanders has proved he is a Party man. There is apparently no amount of corruption by Hillary Clinton that would arouse his condemnation, and no insult to his supporters that would provoke him to rise to their defense. His “political revolution” was little more than a vanity project, and possibly an AstroTurf operation designed to lure otherwise discouraged Democrats back into the voting booth.

Sanders’ new vacation home does not appear to have a basement.