Let Bernie Go.

The age old question of "Jey, why do you hate Bernie so much?" Has finally been answered.

Amidst a crowd of Democrats chanting for a new generation of leadership, a familiar face who’s thought to be friendly stands. He cheers alongside them, chanting for a political revolution. He calls for “Establishment” Democrats and those who have clung onto leadership as a lifeline to step aside and make room for a new wave of progressive congressmen. Progressives, young men, and less reliable voting blocs cling to him as a beacon of hope. A friend, no?

You step closer and see an 83-year-old man. He has an army of white men with mustaches and septum piercings behind him. They all speak over you, yelling about an “establishment” that stole an election from them. You gasp, shocked. How could this happen?

Then you realize, the 83-year-old man is Bernie Sanders, a man who has held Federal office for thirty-five years. Nothing was stolen, nothing was rigged. In 2016, he lost by 3,707,303 votes. In 2020, he lost by 9,399,953 votes. 

It’s time for us to get real about Bernard.

Bernie’s relationship with the Democratic Party as a whole is sour and complex. His political career began in 1981, when he ousted a Democratic Mayor in Burlington by just ten votes. After being sworn in, it quickly became clear that he had a scorned relationship with city politicians, with reports that he wanted to “destroy Democrats” at the local level. At a Socialist Scholars Conference in 1990, Bernie stated he would never run as a Democrat, claiming it would make him hypocritical. He spent decades railing against the party, and even today, he continues to. Despite running behind Kamala Harris in his home state of Vermont, Bernie took to Twitter after the 2024 election to claim that the Democratic Party had “abandoned the working class”.

The position Bernie seems to be speaking to us from looks higher than everyone else at first glance. Here is a man who wants to give everyone healthcare, let everyone go to college, and had a bird land on his rally podium! He sinks back down to everyone else's level when you remember he has never passed any unique legislation in Congress. Besides some post offices, the one thing Bernie has passed is the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013. While it is a wonderful piece of legislation, it is also one that is passed annually. Senator Patty Murray sponsored the legislation in 2011, and a Republican Congressman took on this responsibility in 2012. For comparison, over the course of his 36 years as a Senator, Joe Biden sponsored more than twenty pieces of legislation that went on to become law.

Bernie’s supporters argue that he presents bold new ideas and pushes for “real change”. But slogans without action are just that: slogans. Politicians aren’t activists, they’re politicians. Raising awareness and shifting the Overton window are both important, but they are missing from the job description of “legislator”. Without formal action, Bernie is just loudly screaming at other people to do the work while wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars on virtue signaling. Medicare for All has been introduced repeatedly, costing $17,000 each time, just to go nowhere. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton worked across the aisle with Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch to pass the Children’s Health Insurance Plan. Today, over seven million children and expectant mothers can see a doctor as a result. While no one is suggesting that CHIP is the end of the road for healthcare reform, it’s worth acknowledging that it did more than a bill that failed to make it out of committee.

Of course, the conversation about campaign finance reform is a significant one. It is no secret that lobbying and corporate interests block progressive legislation, but instead of walking and chewing gum at the same time, Bernie has opted to stand outside of the club and yell at everyone who goes inside. While on the campaign trail in 2019, he suggested significant campaign finance reform, but his Senate record shows no proposals that materialize those ideas. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ro Khanna have both proposed robust reform for money in politics, but Bernie has yet to draft anything of his own.

Interestingly, Medicare for All, Bernie’s signature issue, is not Bernie’s unique legislation. Universal Healthcare was first introduced to U.S. Politics by Theodore Roosevelt, and Hillary Clinton famously led a task force in 1993, intending to make healthcare accessible to all Americans. Even the official bill, “Medicare for All,” was first introduced by Representative Conyers in 2003 without Bernie as a cosponsor.

Claims that Bernie inspires new voters are also without concrete evidence. The 2008 Democratic Primary saw far higher turnout than 2016, with the number of votes in the 2020 and 2008 primaries about equal. In 2020, South Carolina saw the highest increase in new voter turnout, but the majority of these new votes went to then-candidate Joe Biden.

His claim to fame cannot rest on a record of race or gender-based issues, either. When asked about race relations, he repeatedly pivots to billionaires. In response to a question about a rise in racial violence on the campaign trail, Bernie touted an “economic agenda that appealed to all people” as a solution. While the connection between racism and classism is valid, a Presidential hopeful should be able to answer tough questions about systemic racism independently. His history also includes a tone-deaf comparison made in 1986, when he stated that poor white Vermonters were like Black people in South Africa: “They don’t vote, aren’t involved, and don’t care about the issues”. In 1978, he claimed, “the vast majority of the people of the world and of this country are living in a slave-like condition not terribly different from what existed in this country before the Civil War.”

The shortcomings when it comes to social issues even became visible in his own Presidential campaign. Various women who worked on the 2016 campaign detailed having to share hotel rooms with unfamiliar male coworkers, being touched inappropriately, and making thousands of dollars less than their male counterparts. When asked about the reports, Bernie apathetically said, “I certainly apologize to any woman who felt she was not treated appropriately, and of course if I run we will do better the next time.”

Historically, marginalized communities have often been told by socialists and communists to focus on class issues rather than race issues. White progressives state that racism and sexism are merely “distractions” from the true issue of class. Knowing this, it’s fair to assume that maybe these demographics had a hunch about Bernie’s “focus on economic issues”; Hillary Clinton won women over by an average of 11 points and won Black voters by over 70. In 2020, Joe Biden largely mimicked these margins, even winning women in Michigan by 23 points.

To make matters worse, when journalists, voters, or anyone else dared to question Bernie’s lack of support among these demographics, his online army resorted to bullying. After writing a piece criticizing the candidate's stance on reparations, journalists faced threats and harassment. The “Bernie Bros” even gained enough of a reputation to get a moment on the debate stage in 2020. Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren pressured Bernie to claim responsibility for his supporters after they made attacks on women in the leadership of a Nevada Union that opposed Sanders’ healthcare plan. Despite Sanders clearly stating that “if there are a few [supporters] who make ugly remarks, who attack trade union leaders, I disown those people”, the online attacks continued. Black voters who opted for another primary candidate were called “low information voters”, and women who supported Hillary in 2016 were “voting with gender, not policy in mind”.

So, if it isn’t his track record of getting things done, it isn’t his strong relationship to Black voters, it isn’t his history of standing up for women. What is it?

Populism. Simple messaging. “We’re gonna get it done, even if it means breaking the rules!”

Sound familiar? It should. The Democrats have been searching for their own Trump all along, but he seems to be right under their nose. Over 200,000 voters who selected Bernie in the 2016 primary opted for Trump in the general. The reason is no secret. The two men are simply sides of the same coin: winning voters through rhetoric, not substance. The new trend in politics of quick, snappy slogans with little record to substantiate them didn’t uniquely start with Trump. While Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton had detailed plans outlined on their campaign websites for how to take action, Bernie failed to spell out just how he would get a divided Congress and a conservative Supreme Court to jump on board with all of his bold proposals.

The comparison between Bernie and Trump doesn’t just end there. Let’s not forget in 2016, when after failing to secure enough votes, delegates, or superdelegates, Bernie refused to concede to Hillary Clinton. After a nasty primary where Bernie staffers were caught trying to breach Clinton campaign data, Bernie opted to “take [his] campaign for transforming the Democratic Party to the convention” and encouraged supporters to still vote for him in the last contest of the Primary. Notably, this is unique to 2016. In 2020, he suspended his campaign in early April and endorsed Biden just days later. The difference may seem stark, but when you consider it next to the dismissal of claims of harassment from former female staffers, it makes a lot more sense.

The claims of the 2016 primary being rigged are fishy at best, and bogus at worst. Amidst financial concerns, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz signed a fundraising agreement with the Clinton campaign in 2015. While Chairman Tom Perez insists that the joint fundraising agreements were the same for each campaign, allegations that the Clinton campaign signed an additional financial agreement that handed them DNC staffing decisions have been repeatedly made, although no concrete evidence has ever been found. The major gripe from Bernie voters in 2016 surrounded Superdelegates, but even without them, Hillary Clinton still would have won the nomination. Regardless, significant changes were passed by the DNC as a result of the incident, with Superdelegates being stripped of their power.

Even with the changing of rules, Bernie lost even worse in 2020. He failed to perform strongly enough in the early states to secure a significant lead, and when the majority of moderate candidates dropped out and opted to endorse Joe Biden, it was over.

Unfortunately, much like their fearless leader, the infamous “Bernie Bros” still largely refuse to admit defeat. They cite conspiracy theories centered around Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and a boogeyman “establishment” that doesn’t exist. These theories distract them from their core issue: Bernie just isn’t that popular with Democratic voters.

After losing two primary elections, Bernie’s legacy is simply a generation of voters. Not just any voters, but unreliable, demanding voters. 1 in 4 Sanders voters in the 2016 primary vowed not to support Clinton in the general, and a quick calculation will show you that Jill Stein voters were the mathematical difference between the first woman president and three conservative Supreme Court Justices. Even today, these voters remain unreliable for Democrats. The majority of Bernie’s “new” base is young voters with little knowledge of how politics works, which would explain why, in 2022, many of them blamed Joe Biden for the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Bernie’s lack of explanation sells well to voters because he doesn’t propose himself as the solution; he points to a “democratic establishment” as the simple culprit for every issue Americans face today.

Today, Bernie Sanders appears to be the very thing he allegedly hates: A member of the top 1% who has held onto power in Government for far too long and rails against the possibility of new leadership. When asked about known progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez running for Senate, Bernie nearly got up and walked out of an interview. Instead of championing the next generation, he has officially filed paperwork to run for reelection in 2030, when he will be 89 years old.

After almost a decade, it’s time to stop chanting along and start seeing Bernie for what he truly is. The image young people have of a martyr with a history of championing progress lacks substance. When you strip back the bells and whistles, you’re left with an actor who has spent his thirty-five years in Federal office mastering grievances, not legislation. His legacy is not tangible progress, but division and unreliable voters. The Democratic Party’s fragile path forward is not lit by angry, empty chants but by good governance and a large coalitions that come together to win elections. Candidates should concede and endorse at the end of a primary, not go on right-wing podcasts to air out their personal frustrations years later. Ultimately, Bernie Sanders is a critic, not a builder, and we already have enough of those.