By John Krull

TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Bernie Sanders recognized reality.

That’s why the Vermont U.S. senator, an independent, ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. His withdrawal makes former Vice President Joe Biden the certain Democratic challenger to President Donald Trump in the general election.

Sanders quit because he had no path to victory – neither for the Democratic nomination nor in the fall campaign. The longer he stayed in, the more likely it was that he not only would imperil Biden’s chances of defeating Trump, but that Sanders would jeopardize the gains he had made with his two presidential runs.

Those were risks Sanders could not afford to take.

His most fervent supporters may indulge in dark conspiracy fantasies about Sanders’ defeat. They can blame the Democratic National Committee, moderate Democrats, the media and anyone else they want, but doing so doesn’t bring them anywhere close to the truth.

What Sanders tried to do amounted to a hostile takeover of a political party he refused to join for any purpose other than leading it. He wanted to maintain his outsider status while claiming the ultimate insider position.

If, in fact, that was what he was trying to do.

I long have had my doubts that Sanders really wanted to be president. Being president – or, at least, being an effective president – involves working with others, finding ways to keep people at the table, resolving differences, compromising in service of the greater good.

That isn’t Bernie Sanders.

His great strength – his appeal to so many voters – is the uncompromising nature of his personality. The man is a born advocate, relentless and untiring. He’s never been much interested in hearing and acknowledging, much less accommodating, the views of those who disagree with him.

His was the voice that refused, always, to be silenced, not the ear attuned to those who do not share his views nor the eye that seeks and secures common ground.

Winning the presidency would have put him in a position that prevented him from exercising his gifts while it exposed all his weaknesses.

His devoted supporters do not see it that way, of course.

Sanders’ unwillingness to compromise or consider other points of view prompts them to see him as a beacon of purity in an impure world. They believe he – and he alone – can cleanse the land and allow them to maintain innocence.

That’s why they entertain absurd notions that victory somehow was stolen from their champion. They never ask themselves how he possibly could have gained victory over the combined forces of the Trump White House and Wall Street if he could not persuade millions of Americans who agree with him on many issues that he was the best choice.

Some complain that the DNC and moderate Democrats didn’t play fair. They contend that the DNC put pressure on moderate Democratic candidates such as former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar to step aside so centrist support could coalesce around Biden.

Such exercises in magical thinking overlook several things.

One is that Buttigieg and Klobuchar can count. They left the race as soon as it was clear as the numbers made clear they couldn’t win. They also know that they both are young enough to have several more shots at the White House if they don’t burn bridges along the way.

Another is that they also may have meant what they said – that they saw Donald Trump as such a great threat to American institutions that they would embrace, enthusiastically, any Democrat who would face him.

Still another is that Sanders didn’t win. It’s an odd political strategy that depends upon one’s opponents to commit self-destructive acts, but that’s what Sanders’ supporters demanded that Democrats who did not completely align with them do.

The Sanders supporters’ anger blinds them to the fact that his campaigns far exceeded expectations.

Thanks to his and their efforts, the debate in most of America is not about whether all Americans should have healthcare, but how this should be done. We argue now not about whether American families should have relief from the crushing financial burden of getting a college education, but how that relief should be applied.

Bernie Sanders and his supporters did that. They did what great advocates do. They changed the conversation

That’s a reality, one they should recognize.

FOOTNOTE:John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

The City-County Observer posted this article without bias, opinion or editing.