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I've been predicting this on The Original Political Mosh Pit for about three weeks:

Jane Sanders: If Bernie loses, we’ll form a new organization

Bernie will return to Congress with his head held high and he will have earned a good deal more respect from his colleagues.
And he will function as the flamethrower applied to Hillary's feet should she try drifting back over to the old Third Way camp.

I honestly believe we have not seen the last of Mr. Sanders, not by a long shot.

I wouldn't put it quite so violently, but he will serve as Hillary's conscience in dealing with Congress. And as far as the new organization some of his followers will form, they can work with Hillary where a Republican President would simply ignore them. It will be a good time to be a left-winger: Having a President that actually takes you seriously.

Interesting thought, that. It seems for the past eight years, while President Obama has been vaguely sympathetic to the left, he hasn't genuinely taken them/us seriously. There is, perhaps, such a thing as being too pragmatic.

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During many years of watching the slow-motion collapse of American society, I have often noted the parallels to the way the Roman Republic slid into greater and greater oligarchy, and then empire.

The Senatorial and Equestrian classes constituted the backbone of the Roman Republic. During the last century BC, greater and greater instability affected the power relations in these classes -- with riot and assassination and then civil war bringing in the reign of the oligarchs and the triumvirs -- while all the time the oligarchs made a great pretense of respecting the institutions of the Republic.

Sound familiar?

The power of the oligarchs in modern America likewise seems to be increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Perhaps we are entering into the time of the precursor's of the triumvirs -- the Clintons and the Bushes are suggestive -- and now Trump! (Perhaps one might compare the Kennedy brothers fate with the earlier and doomed Gracchi brothers -- the last flailing effort to bring stability to the Republic).

Of the members of the First Triumvirate, Trump reminds me strongly of Crassus -- who interestingly made his fortune in real estate! Both Crassus and Trump are obvious narcissistic sociopaths who think they can extend their financial success into politics and war. Crassus was determined to win military glory despite his incompetence in that field, and met crushing defeat and death in the Middle East. Considering Trump's mania about gold, one notes the story that his captors killed Crassus by pouring molten gold down his throat.

Of course, my analogy breaks down here. We have yet to see an American Pompey or Caesar -- but perhaps soon!
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Yes!!! Eliminating leaders and the resulting civil wars sounds a lot like Iraq and Afghanistan after GW Bush broke them.

To be fair, Obama helped break Libya and has done nothing much in Syria.


Gotta love American Exceptionalism.

He's been too obsessed with winning the respect of the other side.
He's almost been like one of those women trying to change an incorrigible man. It never works, but the woman might spend the rest of her life thinking, "If I can just change him...."

Awww crap, I had heard it was Pizarro who had molten gold poured down his throat but Crassus does sound much more appropriate. I just liked the Pizarro version because it would have been Indians pouring the molten gold down his throat.

With the Congresses he has had to deal with, even a nominally Democratic one, it is hard to see what more he could have done. I think he has accomplished quite a bit in stabilizing the economy largely by fiat. True he did not live up to what I hoped for, bvut then what President has?

Oh I heartily agree with you, Phil.
I just think he should have punched back a few times.
Notice how his popularity skyrocketed once he DID do just that.

Trump needs 240 more delegates. There are 571 left. Indiana accounts for 57, and it appears Trump is likely to get nearly all of them. First Read: Trump Is on the Cusp of Putting Away the GOP Race. Say he gets 40. He only needs to win 39% of the remaining delegates to get the nomination (514/200). (Clinton must win 35% of remaining pledged delegates to get a majority in pledged delegates.) If you want to "do it yourself", here's a dandy calculator from fivethirtyeight: Can You Get Trump To 1,237?

Personally, I see it as a Trump-Clinton race. Not sure what that will mean.