The Democrats Have Unified. The Republicans Won't.

JULY 12, 2016 4:35 PM EDT
By Megan McArdle

There is something anticlimactic about the news that Bernie Sanders has finally endorsed Hillary Clinton, like finding out that some young Hollywood couple has tremulously announced their mindful separation. We expected nothing else, so it is tempting to respond “What on earth took you so long?”

The answer is that with the announcement of the Democratic Party platform, Sanders has gotten everything that he could reasonably have expected, and it is now time to hang up his spurs and turn to the serious business of getting Clinton elected. All of the speculation about whether Sanders was going to take his ball and go home, so useful for filling column inches, can now thankfully be put to rest. Sanders has issued a full-throated endorsement of Clinton, and I expect that he will campaign vigorously for her come fall.

The question, of course, is whether his supporters will follow him to the ballot box. They have been passionate in their vilification of her as a creature of the establishment, a soulless sellout, hopelessly compromised by her connections to everything from Goldman Sachs to her husband’s welfare reform, and interested only in obtaining power for its own sake, rather than in service of the revolution. How can they turn around now and vote for her?

My answer is “pretty easily.” Back in 2008, when it became clear that she was not, as expected, going to secure the nomination of her party, there was a lot of talk about Clinton’s followers turning into PUMA’s. This was a four-word acronym, the first three words of which were “Party Unity My..” After seeing what they felt to be the rightful nominee pushed aside in favor of an inexperienced upstart, they threatened to stay home, or even cast a third-party vote. Such a party split, it was occasionally suggested by people who had nothing better to do, might even cost the Democrats the election.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-12/the-democrats-have-unified-the-republicans-won-t