If you’ve paid attention lately, you’ll have noticed something that is being amplified by the media and The So-Called Resistance. The idea of a brokered convention to withhold the nomination from Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and hand it over to a more “unifying” candidate, which is nothing more than code for an establishment candidate.  

The Democratic Party has been in scramble mode, especially after the Nevada win, which shows that Sanders is carrying a more broad and diverse coalition than his previous campaign effort in 2016. The old games of 2016 of Bernie lack diversity would no longer hold up, so now they are trying a new game. 

Trying to Find a White Knight

The Democrat establishment is currently looking for alternatives that would be more palatable to their donors because nothing says Democracy better than pandering to rich white men who want to protect their financial interests. But, how do you get people to accept such a thing? 

They know that if Sanders marches into Milwaukee with more delegates, but not enough to clinch the nomination, they will have to find a way to make it look like endorsing another candidate is the right thing to do. That’s why the Democratic Party is laying out the message that Sanders will hurt down the ballot candidates when it comes to holding the House and winning the Senate.

We’ve already started to see the spin on the debate stage with former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg trying to use fear as a motivator to stop a Sanders nomination. He challenged Sanders by saying:

“It adds up to four more years of Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, and the inability to get the Senate into Democratic hands.”

This same message is being pushed hard by major media outlets. If you do a simple web search, you will find numerous op-eds, articles, and blogs pushing the same message as Buttigieg to stoke fear into primary voters that all gains of the midterms will be wiped out by Sanders’ candidacy. 

A big indicator of the new game comes from a New York Times article that also echoes this sentiment by talking to superdelegates who share a similar view. Other local media outlets speak to other candidates, such as Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who wouldn’t rule out the idea of accepting the Democratic nomination.

The odds remain that Sanders will most likely walk into the convention with the highest number of delegates. They will not be able to deny that on the first ballot, but the second ballot is where the Democratic Party will come to a crossroads regarding who they are more reliant on: the donor class or the coalitions they have relied on for years, such as people of color and the youth vote. 

The party itself can’t have it both ways with a contested convention. 

Democrats often fail to win when they are not able to mobilize people of color and younger voters to the polls on election day. We would not have had Clinton or Obama administrations without high turnouts. 

If Sanders is denied the nomination, the next Democratic nominee will be doomed no matter who is decided to lead the party in November. The Bernie Sanders platform may not be what the guy on Wall Street wants, nor what the upper-class white suburbanite wants when they are only politically active come election time as they sip on wine and watch MSNBC. However, it’s what the two most crucial voting bases want from a nominee, hence their support of Bernie Sanders. 

The Democrats won’t be able to blame dirty tricks, especially voter suppression, for their loss when they decided to suffocate their own progressive candidate.