BERNIE DIDN’T WANT IT.

This week I had a front row seat to a highly entertaining live show. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Bernie Sanders supporters congregating around City Hall in Philly, all going through the Kubler-Ross stages of death in real time. There was mostly anger and denial on display. Some depression. Not a lot of bargaining yet. And the only sign of acceptance was a slow decrease in numbers as the week wore on.

What made this performance so surreal was not the wistful whiff of Sixties nostalgia that wafted overhead like patchouli and vape fumes. It was how anyone could not have seen this coming for the last 15 months.

As the consummate outsider, Bernie’s destiny was written the day he declared. Not just because the Party Powers that Be were allied against him (although they plainly were). But because his entire career has been dedicated to resisting winners.

From his first political campaigns as a member of the Liberty Union Party, Bernie has branded himself proudly as an agitator with the stated goal of pushing the Democratic Party to the left while refusing to join it. Although he caucused with the Dems and voted with them consistently throughout his congressional career, until his decision to join and run last year, standing apart was what made him stand apart.

Of course history teems with examples of successful revolutionaries who then had to make the awkward transition to leadership, but for Bernie to even dream about having that problem he would first have to trade in his fist-waving for handshaking and ass-kissing. To his eternal credit, he defied the fundraising odds and brought in those famous $27 donations by the dumpster load. But as Bernie knows better than anyone, money isn’t everything. if he wanted the party’s nomination, he was going to have to actually join the party. Pay some dues. Play by some rules. And drink at least a sip of the Kool-Aid.

Some of his supporters seemed shocked to learn that political parties are not objective public entities. They’re private clubs that make up their own rules. Super delegates? Caucuses? Floor fights? Lots of weird practices have evolved over the years, most intended to protect the party from threats within. Winning within the system means working within the system. And when Bernie made the decision to run as a D., he knew he was signing a Faustian compact.

The thing is, while the rules may be arcane and unjust, there is something fundamentally important about the need to follow them — because it requires teamwork. Forging alliances, building bridges, cutting deal and doing solids. The reason they matter is that these are also the qualities of leadership. No president, especially one whose ideology is going to set off alarm bells among legislators in the congressional majority, has any shot of advancing his agenda without building coalitions, recruiting a range of viewpoints and compromising lots of pawns to protect his Kingship.

True to his character and principles, Bernie had no intention to play that way. And consequently, no way to win.