The 30% Solution

Sanders said at the outset of his campaign launch that his plan was to win with a plurality--30%--of the vote. This is an incredibly risky strategy which relies on the rest of the vote being split up until the convention between other bucket-of-crabs candidates.

Perhaps Sanders figured that the corporatist capitalist Democrat party would field nothing but bucket-of-crabs back stabbers? After all, that dynamic (people staying in, no consolidation, etc.), was a heavy contributor to Trump winning the nomination.

It didn't happen. Despite a calendar that had Biden lose the first three races and Sanders either winning by a romp or losing by a nose (Iowa) in all of them, when Biden's magic ticket came up he punched it hard.

After that? Juggernaut.

What Now?
Unfortunately we will now see a concerted effort on the part of the Bernie Hard Core to sabotage the Biden nominee as hard as possible. The reason--the stated reason--is that should Biden somehow succeed it will be worse--a massive setback to the revolution. From the ChapoTrapHouse subreddit today:

This lays it out starkly and in plain language: Sure, Biden might seem better than Trump--but he'll be worse for the movement.

Left unsaid is that this was supposed to be true of 2016 and Trump should've ensured Sanders this time around. How'd that work out?

Right.

It's Not True
The bad news for the Bernouts is that the above isn't true--and it isn't honest. The problem is not that Biden winning will make people not want to expand health care: polling shows that everyone wants to expand health care and Biden is going to have to figure out how to do that within our system of governance.

No--the reason this is not honest--the tell--is that the hard-core Bernie people are hugely resistant to the idea that Russia hacked the DNC (often preferring to believe a crazy Hillary murdered Seth Rich conspiracy). These two things, support for Berning Down The Democrats and Resistant-to-Russia Facts travel together because they come from the same source: fear that the believer's movement is, in fact, irrelevant.

For the Bernie super-hard-core, Bernie lost in 2016 because the nomination was unjustly stolen from him by a corrupt DNC who knew the Horrible Hillary would lose but preferred losing to Trump rather than letting Bernie win.

Thus, when Trump drew the electoral equivalent of a royal flush, rather than a collision of all kinds of things (the Comey letter, among others) it was seen as chickens-coming-home-to-roost. It had to be. If Horrible Hillary lost because of bad luck--or, worse, foreign actions, then the narrative about her loss being Justice-For-Bernie dries up.

It makes them less relevant. If Hillary lost and Bernie-Would-Have-Won (an article of absolute faith on the Bernie left) then they are the heroes. If Hillary probably would have/should have won and Russia interfered, then, horrible, 2016 isn't about them.

That's a narcissistic wound--the negation of their primacy in the narrative--and that cannot be allowed--so they don't allow it. They make up some things to cover for their loss and drive on with the (self) righteous fury of a Lefty-Scorned.

But That 30%
The problem comes today when it is abundantly clear that Bernie's plan was never to really actually make his case--to win a majority of the Democratic voters--but rather to use his followers as a diamond-hard-wedge to break the Democrats and force them into submission--using their own rules against them.

In order to actually sell his plan he would have wanted to do things like: (a) register as a Democrat in 2016, (b) Repair his relationship with Barrack Obama who he was not especially friendly with previously, (c) Start looking at the Democrat's coalition (namely? A lot of black voters in southern states) as potential votes rather than an obstacle, (d) addressed the racism and sexism in his own movement--hard--prior to his 2020 roll-out.

These things would not have magically transformed him--but it was clear his movement had about as much contempt for the Democrats as for Trump and a not-great-record of winning (AOC candidates, for example, and Bernie-endorsements, haven't gone that far)--and that was never a strategy that you should expect to win. It's an underdog strategy.

So when the predictable thing happens? Instead of saying "We need a progressive movement that can appeal to black voters"? No. It's time to Bern It Down. Ensure Trump wins.

Eventually--eventually--things will get bad enough for us to win.