By Bronte Price, PoliticKING
The hashtag #BerniesBadEnd is trending on Twitter, after a New York Times op-ed by the same name was published, criticizing the way Bernie is handling his increasing losses.
The Democratic Senator from Vermont needs to win 65 percent of the remaining pledged delegates in order to take the lead over Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates. "What our polling suggests is it is going to be a very steep climb," Sanders told reporters Sunday night.
Bernie Sanders' campaign has laid off more than 200 workers, according to campaign manager Jeff Weaver. The campaign recently is downsized from its 550 member team to between 325 to 350 workers. Weaver added that at one point the Sanders' staff was made up of more than 1,000 people.
Twitter users have been speaking out against the candidates’ behavior as he continues to rack up losses. One Twitter user referred to him as a high-school boyfriend. “Bernie is that high school boyfriend who refuses to acknowledge the breakup #BerniesBadEnd,” they tweeted.
50 years after his crushing loss, Bernie kids still show up at the stadium #BerniesBadEnd#FeeltheBernpic.twitter.com/JO7QE5Yts7
— George D. (@xdelmar59) May 2, 2016
The op-ed, authored by Paul Krugman, which sparked the hashtag, describes Sanders’ decline as “really depressing."
“This is really depressing,” Krugman writes. “Sanders claiming that there will be a contested convention, and suggesting that the nomination fight was rigged. Can someone tell Bernie that he’s in the process of blowing his own chance for a positive legacy?”
In order to clinch the nomination, Sanders would need to persuade a majority of superdelegates ,who are overwhelmingly in Clinton’s camp, to switch to his side. Sanders has repeatedly referred to the superdelegate system as being "rigged." However, recent data suggests that even if superdelegates voted in line with the people in their state, that would still not be enough for Bernie to win the nomination.
Krugman explains what he sees as the more graceful option for Sanders to bow out of the race. “Here’s how the narrative could have run,” he writes, “although he fell short of actually getting the nomination, Sanders did far better than expected, giving him and his movement a good claim to have a big say in the Democratic agenda for 2016 and perhaps setting the movement up as the party’s future.”
“But to take that position — to turn defeat in the primary into a moral victory — he would have had to accept the will of the voters with grace.”
What Krugman says we are getting instead, is “an epic descent into whining.”
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ora Media, LLC, its affiliates, or its employees.
