Decoding Bernie: what Sanders really means when he says “the struggle continues”
LOS ANGELES — In her speech last night at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of speaking in “code.”
She could have said the same thing about her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.
After making thousands of his supporters wait until nearly 11:00 p.m. local time, the Vermont senator finally stepped on stage in a cavernous hangar at the Santa Monica Airport to deliver his post-primary remarks.
The day’s results had been disappointing. Despite wins in North Dakota and Montana, Sanders had not been able to overtake Clinton elsewhere. Not in South Dakota, where he had a real shot. Not in New Mexico, where he had thought that young Latinos might boost him to victory. Not in New Jersey, which Clinton won by more than 26 percentage points. And, worst of all, not in delegate-rich California, where Sanders had spent the last two weeks campaigning his heart out in the hopes that an upset would weaken Clinton’s superdelegate support and propel him to Philadelphia with the wind at his back.
Instead, by the time Bernie took to the podium, it was already clear that Clinton was headed toward a bigger romp in the Golden State than the polls or pundits had predicted. (With 69 percent of ballots counted, she currently leads Sanders 56 percent to 43 percent.)
In Santa Monica, Sanders’ fans were anxious. Would their candidate continue to insist — as he had insisted from one end of California to the other in the days before Tuesday’s primary — that Philadelphia would be “contested” and that “our job from now until the convention” is to convince superdelegates to swing the nomination to him? Or would he concede that Clinton had clobbered him in his make-or-break state; defeated him by nearly 4 million votes nationwide; and finally earned a majority of pledged delegates, thereby by removing any incentive for the superdelegates to switch sides?
Would Bernie bow out?
At first, it seemed as if he might. “It has been one of the most moving moments of my life to be out throughout this state in beautiful evenings and seeing thousands and thousands of people coming out,” Sanders said, sounding elegiac. “Let me thank all of you for being part of the political revolution.”
The crowd held its collective breath. But then, suddenly, Sanders shifted gears — and announced that his campaign was not, in fact, coming to an end.
“Next Tuesday, we continue the fight in the last primary in Washington, D.C.,” he said. The room erupted; the cheers were deafening. “We are going — we are going — we are going to fight hard. We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C.”
More cheering.
“And then, we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
Even more cheering.
“I am — I am pretty good at arithmetic, and I know that the fight in front of us is a very, very steep fight,” Sanders added. “But we will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate we can get.”
In Santa Monica, supporters were heartened to hear that, as Sanders put it in the final line of his speech, “the struggle continues.” In the press, journalists marveled at Sanders’ “defiant” tone in the face such daunting delegate math. Some even described him as delusional.
“There’s reality,” tweeted FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten, “and then there’s whatever world Sanders is in.”
But Sanders isn’t delusional; he’s negotiating. And the proof was right there in his remarks.
You simply have to decipher his code. Anyone paying close attention Tuesday night would have noticed, for instance, that when Sanders said that he would “continue to fight,” he didn’t say he would continue to fight for the nomination. He said he would continue to fight “for every vote and every delegate we can get.”
Where do you get votes and delegates? In the primaries. And there’s only one primary left — next Tuesday’s contest in Washington, D.C. Yes, Sanders said he would “fight hard” to win it. But he specifically did not say anything about superdelegates or “continuing to fight” for them after the D.C. primary — which is what he was saying before Tuesday night.
When Sanders did look beyond next Tuesday — to the convention in particular — he made sure to choose his language carefully. Yes, he promised to “take our fight” to “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” But he also specified which fight he meant: the one for “social, economic, racial and environmental justice.” In other words, the campaign for Sanders’ goals — his policy prescriptions — heads to the City of Brotherly Love. His campaign for the nomination? Probably not.
Speaking in code means saying one thing that different listeners can interpret in different ways. That’s likely what Sanders meant to do Tuesday night. In order to maximize his influence over the Democratic platform and reform the primary process in Philadelphia — his real objectives at this point — Sanders needs leverage. He needs something that Clinton and the rest of the Democratic establishment wants. And what do Clinton & Co. want? Sanders’ supporters. To keep them in his corner — and to scare Clinton into thinking they might never come around — Sanders rhapsodized about the “struggle” and how it “continues.”
In short, he probably wants everyone to think he’s a little delusional. That’s the point. That’s how you negotiate from a position of strength.
But Sanders also doesn’t want to deceive his supporters. So he hedged his language to signal his true intentions and to lay the groundwork for the end of his campaign.
When will that campaign end? Only Sanders — who has allegedly been defying his top aides for weeks now — knows for sure. Its final act, however, will likely begin later this week when Sanders travels to Washington, D.C. Over the weekend, President Obamareportedly told Sanders that he would be endorsing Clinton as early as Wednesday; Sanders apparently asked Obama to wait and requested a meeting Thursday at the White House.
Obama is not only the most powerful person in the Democratic Party; he’s also been an officially neutral figure, having refused, until now, to endorse either candidate. If anyone can broker a deal to bring the party together, it’s the president.
And make no mistake: a deal is what Sanders wants. Now he just has to name his price. Our guess is that he’s heading to the Oval Office Thursday to do just that.
