On a quiet Thursday afternoon about 3,000 of Bernie Sanders’ supporters packed into a skatepark outside of RFK Stadium in Washington, DC to watch him rally once again–many likely thinking that this could be their final time to see him before he suspends his campaign.

Image Courtesy of Scott Zimmerman

What was different about Thursday’s speech was, well, nothing. Filled with his normal rhetoric and fiery and inspirational pushes for equal rights and justice for all Americans, Sanders caught the attention of the crowd and continued to push his idea of the “political revolution.”

.@BernieSanders said exactly the right thing. Get through DC, take a break, get with HRC, get to work beating Trump.

— Steve Schale (@steveschale) June 9, 2016

Unfortunately, Sanders did not stray from his talking points and discuss his Thursday meeting with President Barack Obama where he reportedly indicated that he is willing to back the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. He also didn’t bring up the president’s endorsement of Clinton, which occurred just hours before he spoke. He made no mention of any of those events and no mention that it is time to unify as Democrats…instead saying that the results from California aren’t even all in yet.

So if @BernieSanders ultimately wins California (might still happen) & then Washington DC … DNC in Philly will be interesting.

— Ben Goren (@BanGaoRen) June 10, 2016

However, amidst all of the impassioned speeches and cheers from the crowd, you could sense the feeling of denial in Sanders’ voice, and you could feel that it was his last stand.

Instead of using the time and the platform to urge his supporters toward unification of the party, he further polarized them. Chants of “Never Hillary” echoed through the crowd as he spoke about big money in politics. But he is doing his supporters a grave disservice by telling them that there is still hope. The naiveté of the situation is troubling, and is going to leave a lot of die-hard supporters left feeling even more so that the entire system was against them.

Image Courtesy of Scott Zimmerman

Of the many people I met in the crowd, few said they are willing to switch to Clinton. Some said they would even vote for Trump, and many others said they just wouldn’t vote.

Sanders stressed that women (along with other groups) did not used to have the right to vote, yet now his silence–or in some cases contradictory rhetoric–is being inferred by many of his supporters as a signal to not exercise that privilege. By not owning up to the idea that his campaign is coming to a close, he is further hurting Clinton’s chances against Trump. As the Democratic party continues to be divided, it is hard to imagine what November will look like between Clinton and Trump.

Today, as D.C. votes, it will most likely be Sanders’ last day in the race. Even if he does not drop out, it will still signify a deficit that will not be overcome no matter how many times Sanders tries to say more people voted for him. There’s a message here for Sanders: you joined the presidential race to catalyze institutional change, but that does not mean that you can just pretend that there is a secret outcome that has been robbed from you.

Bernie Sanders refuses to concede the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton https://t.co/VB3QxknsOf by @yamiche pic.twitter.com/Byh5UHccBT

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) June 13, 2016

If Sanders chooses to stay and continues to cause division, votes will be split between the Democratic nominee and other parties, giving more power to Trump. So, if Sanders really want to see his political revolution happen, he may need to get a grip and work with Clinton this round until he gets his shot.

Image Courtesy of Scott Zimmerman

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Bernie Sanders’ Rhetoric is a Disservice to his Supporters appeared first on Law Street.

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton made history and secured the amount of delegates necessary to be the Democratic nominee. But while she celebrated her win, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders vowed to continue his fight for the White House.

And Sanders’ subsequent comments are a bit of a shame. While there are some positives to him continuing in the race, there are also some very powerful negatives.

First off, I think it is important to note that Sanders is playing a game that he is familiar with: while yes, he is an Independent, he has been in politics for almost four decades. When votes started going Clinton’s way, he claimed that the election was rigged and riled up his supporters over the notion that the system was out to exterminate him. He talked about superdelegates like they had never existed in previous primaries, and complained that they are undemocratic–while now saying that he is going to win the nomination by flipping superdelegates–something that he has yet to accomplish.

Image Courtesy of [Gage Skidmore via Flickr]

In addition, it is troubling that Sanders, who hails himself as a revolutionary, ignored the fact that Clinton had just made history as the first woman to receive a major party nomination, stubbornly refusing to even bring it up during his speech Tuesday night.

When the Associated Press announced that Clinton had enough delegates to clinch the nomination, anger poured onto social media from Sanders’ supporters who felt that once again, everything was against them–even basic math. His supporters called out that this announcement was a breach of journalistic integrity…because how dare the AP do the research and talk to every superdelegate (who according to Sanders supporters, apparently don’t even count at this point)? The superdelegates will be decided in July, they wrote, adding that there is so much time for the superdelegates to flip and that the AP was just in the pockets of the establishment.

@AP_Interactive @AP STOP REPORTING FALSE FACTS. You should be ashamed of the reporting you’re doing. Superdelegates don’t count until July.

— Jacob Sever (@JacobSever) June 8, 2016

Some of these people probably supported the superdelegate situation in 2012 when now-President Barack Obama was in the same position, and Clinton had conceded. That race was closer mathematically than this one.

The AP ultimately decided to issue a statement regarding the findings, in which the AP sasses the critics who claim the news organization just made everything up–implying that those critics do not understand how the American political system works.

We are at the point in this election where Sanders has the opportunity to do something incredibly influential for his many supporters: show them that sometimes you lose, but you need to get back up and keep fighting in other ways. He can either teach them to fall with grace, or to reject a system that probably isn’t going to be systematically changed anytime soon and stop participating forever.

Vox’s Matthew Yglesias put it well when he said:

Those lessons, clearly visible from Sanders’s own career, are that big change is hard and if you try for it you are likely to lose, but just because you lost is no reason to give up. It’s also no cause to whine about how you’ve been cheated or take refuge in denial that it’s truly over. You need to dust yourself off, move on to the next thing, and try to win more votes in the future.

If Sanders continues to hold onto, and reiterate to his supporters, that he will be able to pull off a miraculous win at the convention, then he is lying to his fanbase. Not only will he find difficulty in persuading Clinton’s superdelegates (who supported her before Tuesday) to switch to his side, but he would also need a whole lot of them to do so in order to make up for his deficit. However, the one thing he does have going for him is that people will listen to him, they will be fired up, and they will believe that he actually can win this–even if it is a far-reaching idea.

Yglesias added:

People who’ve already emotionally invested themselves in the Sanders campaign — already gone to rallies and argued with uncles and called out corporate media shills on Twitter — are going to be highly predisposed to align themselves with whatever tactical notions Sanders puts out there.

Not to mention that Sanders’ last ditch effort for delegates looks an awful lot like college students around the country scrambling to get an A in a class that they have a C in walking into the final: “Hmm…let’s see…I just need to pull off a 170 percent on the final to get an 89.5 in the class…I can do that!”

Unlike Sanders, however, college students, at some point, concede to their studies and focus on another subject that they know they will get a better grade in.

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Should Bernie Sanders Stay in the Race? appeared first on Law Street.

Hillary Clinton is white. I mean, I’m white, but Hillary is super white, like banana-and-mayo sandwich made by Dale Earnhardt Jr. level white. But much like her husband, Hillary is widely supported by black voters, who voted for her over Bernie Sanders in New York by over 50 points. Even in the face of this support, Hillary has been accused of pandering to minority voters, such as when her team posted a listicle explaining how Secretary Clinton is just like your abuela, or when she dabbed, whipped, and nae-naed on The Ellen Show. During a recent interview on The Breakfast Club, Clinton was told that when she acts this way, it reeks of her trying too hard. In her defense, she said it was not her idea. “It looks like I’m trying too hard because I am trying too hard! I can’t do it!” She admitted to dancing in private, but said that she had learned to avoid it in public.

Then, Hillary raved about Beyoncé, which in all fairness is a popular activity among all people. She has even said before that she “want[s] to be as good a president as Beyoncé is a performer:” a tall order considering that I’m still recovering from a Beyoncé concert that took place two years ago. But it was her last answer on the show that is raising some eyebrows (and catching some shade.) Clinton was asked what item she always carries in her bag. Without missing a beat, Clinton responded “hot sauce.” Funnily enough, that’s probably the same answer that Beyoncé gave to the question: “What’s 2016’s version of ‘surfboardt’ going to be?”

“Are you getting in formation?” Charlamagne Tha God asked, referencing the lyric in Beyoncé’s surprise southern-black-woman-pride anthem “Formation.” Clinton laughed, and responded, “I’ve been eating a lot of hot sauce — raw peppers, and hot sauces … because I think it keeps my immune system strong. I think hot sauce is good for you, in moderation of course, don’t go overboard.”

That’s right, much like an insane person, Hillary Clinton eats raw peppers–jalapeños, according to her staffers. Side note: is that the reason Papa John’s always adds those spicy green ones alongside my pizza? I always assumed those were delivered for late-night pizza party dare purposes. But it may be true that spicy food boosts your health: the LiveStrong website provides some pretty dope facts about the health benefits of spicy peppers.

Because he’s the walking, talking shouting version of a YouTube comments section, Donald Trump decided to lead the charge against Hillary’s phony claims of hot-sauce-having, saying:

It’s the same thing that she always does. She carries hot sauce like I carry hot sauce. It’s just, I don’t know, it’s just so phony and so pandering and so terrible.

The trouble is, Hillary was waxing rhapsodic about hot sauce for years before Beyoncé was. In a 1995 lunch interview with The Washington Post, she called hot sauce her “secret passion.” So maybe Secretary Clinton isn’t trying to become Hillaré, but Bey has simply paved the way for her to be open about her love of hot sauce. Chalk it up to yet another example of Beyoncé being a source of inspiration for Americans everywhere.

Sean Simon

Sean Simon is an Editorial News Senior Fellow at Law Street, and a senior at The George Washington University, studying Communications and Psychology. In his spare time, he loves exploring D.C. restaurants, solving crossword puzzles, and watching sad foreign films. Contact Sean at SSimon@LawStreetMedia.com.

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President Obama has officially announced that he will not be endorsing a candidate in the increasingly contentious Democratic primary between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders. This comes after some speculation that a recent op-ed written by Obama about gun control was essentially criticism of Bernie Sanders, but this morning on “Meet the Press,” Obama’s White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made it clear that no endorsement was intended, and Obama does not plan on endorsing a candidate in the primary.

McDonough referenced the fact that Obama’s actions come with plenty of precedent, stating: “We’ll do exactly what has been done in the past.” He also added that no matter who the nominee ends up being, he will be “out there” campaigning. According to Fox News this is pretty traditional behavior:

George W. Bush didn’t endorse his party’s nominee in 2008 until March 5, by which point Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had just about locked up the bid. Ronald Reagan didn’t endorse his sitting Vice President, George H. W. Bush, as the Republican nominee until May 1988. Reagan said he wanted to wait until the outcome of the nomination race was clear.

McDonough’s statement came after Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times late last week where he stated: “I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform.”

Some viewed this as an attack on Bernie Sanders, who hasn’t taken as hardline a stance on gun control as Hillary Clinton throughout his career in the Senate. A point of particular contention has been that he supported a 2005 law that would give gun manufacturers legal immunity in instances where their guns are used to commit crimes.

However, Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, indicated that the quote in Obama’s op-ed wasn’t any sort of reference to Sanders, saying:

The President was quite intentional about raising this issue as it relates to gun manufacturers, but that was not any sort of secret or subtle signal to demonstrate a preference in the presidential primary.

Earnest also pointed out that Obama wasn’t “intimately familiar” with Sanders’ voting record. So, while it isn’t surprising that Obama isn’t endorsing any candidate until the primaries are over, in this case it appeared that a repeat was necessary.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Jim Webb, a former Virginia governor, was running for the Democratic nomination. Now he’s probably not. We should all feel overwhelmingly neutral about this.

Here are the facts you need to know: Webb was doing incredibly poorly–polling at about 1 percent. He did participate in the first Democratic debate, but the only two things that people appear to remember about his performance is that he kept complaining about not getting enough time to talk, and he had a vaguely uncomfortable answer about killing a man while fighting in Vietnam to the question “who is the enemy you’re most proud of?” Yesterday, the media was vaguely interested in the reports that he may drop out of the race and launch an Independent bid. But today, the buzz is that Webb is going to drop out of the race altogether and “mull his options.”

He’s expected to hold a press conference later today to explain his decision to the public. Whether anyone will watch who isn’t a political reporter or stuck in a doctor’s waiting room and can’t figure out how to change the station is unclear.

Webb is almost certain to rail against the Democratic party and the media for not supporting him–an argument he’s been making for a while. For example, he claimed the Democratic debate on CNN was rigged, saying: “It’s very difficult to win a debate when you don’t have the opportunity to speak the same amount of time on issues as the other two did.” He also criticized the DNC, for embracing Hillary Clinton and not aiding the other Democratic candidates.

In the end, this is sort of a shame. Webb is further right-center than the other Democratic candidates in the field. He should have been a legitimate candidate (at least more legitimate than the pretty insane Lincoln Chafee) who forced the leading candidates to talk about issues that may not have come up otherwise. Instead, he came across as uninteresting and whiny.

So, Jim Webb joins the “Scott Walker List of Candidates Who Didn’t Do Anything Interesting Until They Dropped Out.” Whether he eventually re-joins the race as a Independent is essentially irrelevant–he’s not going to suddenly inspire a wave of voters or donors by changing his party affiliation from D to I. So cheers to Jim Webb–the Democratic field is about to get a little less crowded, but honestly, it doesn’t really matter in the slightest.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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