We’re in agreement about the pledged delegates deciding the election. It would be a mockery of democracy if either candidate won with a minority of pledged delegates.

You’re right about the political fight ahead. It won’t come easy and it won’t come quickly. I think the internet has created a level of collective consciousness previously unseen. But those truly affected by this still constitute a minority of voters.

Each election that passes swells the ranks of connected voters versus TV watchers. In the Obama election of ’08 he was pushed over the top by internet savvy activism, but they were always a minority in a broader coalition. They were just the tip of the sword.

As time passes, that coalition will form a much more substantial part of victorious campaigns. Bernie may or may not win this time, but his coalition will bear fruit for many elections to come.

I never took part in Occupy, but my sense was that there was no agreed purpose to the protests. Everyone turned up for their own reasons, and made connections with other people, and eventually the thing drifted apart because it lacked a central driving goal.

But that was never the point. People came together and slowly realised that the injustices they faced had a common root cause. I think the Sanders campaign truly articulates the corruption that links the problems of modern society.

• His foreign policy is designed to go against the interests of the military industrial complex.
• His economic policy is designed to address the glaring inequities of the tax system and reintroduce a New Deal style safety net of the sort the Clintons gutted in the ’90s.
• His education policy addresses the moved goalposts of the modern world. Once upon a time, high school cost money, until the economy made a diploma the minimum requirement. Today that’s where we are with college degrees.
• His campaign finance policy seeks to address the mechanism by which all of this corruption of the collective interest has been allowed to infect the political process. That’s the taproot.

When you look at it from that perspective, you can see why so many of Sanders supporters find Clinton so nauseating.

Will she resist the military industrial complex? Not likely. In Obama’s cabinet, time and time again she was the extreme hawk in the room.

Will she reintroduce real progression in the tax system? It’s not likely. It’s not part of her platform to raise taxes on the wealthy significantly.

Will she reintroduce a social safety net? She seems unrepentant for having gutted the New Deal in the ’90s, so it’s highly unlikely.

Will she address the inaccessibility of college? She talks about refinancing student loans at current lower interest rates. What if interest rates rise? More importantly, she believes in the principle that a college education SHOULD burden you with debt unless your parents are wealthy.

Will she reform campaign finance? Certainly not. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Her faction runs on the patronage of her donor clientele. She raises more big money than anyone else. She said it herself — she’s not a natural politician. She isn’t a charismatic leader who has lots of moral authority and can rouse sentiment towards controversial goals. She needs the money. She needs the marketing.

So, that’s why Sanders voters aren’t at all keen on Clinton. The best that can be said of her is that Ted Cruz is a truly dangerous Ayn Rand pushing nutbar, and Donald Trump is as pure an example of fascism I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know what will happen in this election. Sanders has made tactical errors, sure, but he’s got better and better as time has passed.

Clinton has not. She would be the very first nominee of the Democratic Party with a net unfavourable poll rating. More people disapprove of her than approve of her. Even if she becomes President, she will have minimal political capital, at a time when inertia is killing the whole global economy.

Going negative on Sanders is tactically astute. It might get her over the line. But it’s strategically idiotic. That’s what Sanders’ campaign manager meant by her letting her ambition to be President be to the detriment of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders represents the base of the Party. You can’t win back Congress without them. Going negative on him exposes her to attacks (and she’s incredibly vulnerable), and more importantly, it alienates his supporters.

It’s not over. Clinton can still lose this. You talk about Sanders messing up, but my opinion is that Sanders has been tactically poor but strategically strong and consistent. Clinton has been tactically excellent but strategically awful.

57%. The margin Sanders won by in Wisconsin. Smaller than his margins in a lot of states, including big ones like Washington. If he gets that margin in the remaining states, he wins.

But even if he loses, the Democratic Party has been changed forever. The GOP can’t get anything done without the Tea Party anymore. That is exactly what the Democratic Party is facing from its liberal base. That’s what I mean by strategy versus tactics.