Thread by @PalmerReport

Bernie Sanders reminds me of Robespierre. He has some righteous ideas. But he's a weakling, so he relies on a goon squad. But he can't control them. Then he tells himself that his goon squad's horrifying antics are justified, or have nothing to do with him, or aren't happening.

Bernie's goon squad has now decided that John Lewis, Dolores Huerta, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Fred Guttenberg, and countless other luminaries need to be destroyed – and their only sin is that they don't worship Bernie.

And Bernie sits back and tacitly encourages it.

Plenty of rank and file liberals who think Bernie's an embarrassment to the left are nonetheless afraid to call out his shit show, for fear they'll be targeted for retaliation by the goon squad.

Some media pundits are afraid to call out Bernie's shit show, for the same reason.

Look at the idiots, loons, and frauds that Bernie has chosen to run his campaign – a bunch of bottom feeders. Awful in 2016, even worse in 2020.

Now try to imagine Bernie picking a running mate, or filling out a cabinet. He would just pick bottom feeders who kiss his ass.

Try to imagine Vice President Nina Turner, or Secretary of Labor Susan Sarandon. You're laughing at how absurd this would be. Yet if Bernie were president, these would be his most likely picks. He's not suddenly going to get less awful at this.

But the real problem is that Bernie would never get that far. His polls vs Trump are about the same as anyone else's. But Bernie has never, ever been vetted in his forty year political career. Trump and the GOP could knock ten points off his poll numbers in the first week.

Trump is literally begging for Bernie to be the nominee, in tweet after tweet. There's a reason for this. Trump knows that Bernie is the only democratic candidate he could easily defeat. Trump wouldn't have much of a chance against any of the other candidates.

If you want to take Trump down, STEP ONE is to make sure we have a nominee who can actually beat him. That means making sure Bernie isn't the nominee – and we have to work on that now, before it's too deep into the primary race and we're stuck with him.

"I don't want to have to support a democratic candidate who's worse than Bernie, just because that candidate would have a better shot at beating Trump."

Okay fine. But Bernie would be a disastrously failed president, AND Bernie has the worst odds against Trump. So it's simple.

This isn't about ideology.

Warren is far left, she can beat Trump, and she'd be a successful president.

Biden/Amy/Pete are moderate-left, they can beat Trump, would be successful presidents.

Bloomberg is moderate, can beat Trump, would be successful president.

Bernie is far left, but he can't beat Trump, and even if he did become president he'd be an inept disaster who would fail to move the country one inch to the left. Just the worst of all worlds.

I've been waiting my entire life for the Democratic Party to have a capable candidate who's as far left as I am. But Bernie is the opposite of capable.

Every other democratic candidate, by virtue of competence alone, would do more in office to move America leftward than Bernie.

"Vote blue no matter who" is nice. But it's really just something Bernie's goons keep baiting us into diplomatically saying, even as they dishonestly kneecap every one of the superior candidates.

Yes, we'll all vote for the nominee. But first let's pick a viable nominee.

"Come on Palmer, just go back to chipping away at Trump."

The only path left for taking down Trump is the election. And if y'all sit back and let a toxic idiot like Bernie get the nomination, I won't be able to get him elected over Trump in November, no matter how hard I try.

So from now to Super Tuesday, let's all be brave enough to call out Bernie on his bullshit, even if his goons do come after us. Let's try convince reasonable people to vote for someone better than him. Let's get ourselves a real nominee, so we can take Trump down in November.

This is completely out of control palmerreport.com/analysis/this-…