Can't You See This Is All About Me?

A commenter on aimai's excellent post had this to say:

You have learned absolutely nothing about the Sanders campaign/movement. It has always stood for something more than the man. Always.

Okay. So let's take a look at Bernie's demands:

Sen. Bernie Sanders called Tuesday for a “fundamental transformation” of the Democratic Party that would include new leadership at the Democratic National Committee, electoral reform and a progressive agenda....

Sanders also called for open primaries -- in which independents could vote for Democratic candidates -- and for doing away with superdelegates, the party officials and leaders who are free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention. And he argued for same-day voter registration. [emphasis added]

So Bernie's conditions for helping stop the most dangerous major-party nominee since the Civil War are a) getting rid of a party chair he has a grudge against, b) changing the process in ways that would have helped his campaign, and c) adopting his positions and making his issues the highest priority.

But it's not about him.

Keep in mind that there is nothing at all principled about his 'electoral reforms'. If this were about principle--about making the process more democratic--he would call for eliminating caucuses, the most egregious form of voter suppression in the whole primary system. Open primaries are more likely to favor moderate-to-conservative Democrats in future elections--especially if they're in states where the GOP primary is closed. Same-day registration is a good idea on the merits, and diminishing the role of superdelegates might be, but that's not why Sanders is supporting them; he's supporting them in order to retroactively validate his own campaign.

You could say his call for a "progressive agenda" isn't all about him (though it does seem to assume his role as arbiter of all things "progressive", as opposed to give-and-take about how best to achieve progressive ends), but every other demand is all about him and his campaign.

As I said before, I think he'll ultimately be irrelevant. But it is galling that, thinking himself irrelevant, he would threaten the whole anti-Trump effort for nothing more than his own ego.