June 1, 2016. “Nixon, Bush, Obama, they’re war criminals,”  and “Obama is a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface,” according to Cornel West, a Sanders’ appointee to the  Democratic platform committee.

Given unprecedented control by the Party, Sanders says he now has “the representation on the platform drafting committee to create a platform that reflects the views of millions of our supporters.”

Did he really pick this Obama-hater to “reflect the views of millions of [his] supporters?” That makes no sense. So why did he do it?!

The short answer is DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. Sanders and West are the two DSA heros. West is the Honorary Chair of DSA. Sanders is such an esteemed honorary member that he’s given two of their annual keynote addresses, and DSA started circulating petitions in 2014 asking him to run. DSA convinced him to run for president.

Bernie proclaims himself a Democratic Socialist. DSA is the only DS party in America. It was founded and led by Michael Harrington, the father of modern Democratic Socialism. Bernie’s priority is to convert the Democratic Party to Democratic Socialism. The traditional socialist approach to this, as practiced by the socialist party Bernie belonged to in college, is infiltration.

How close are Bernie and Cornel? Although he voted for Obama, Cornel’s message is that Democrats are as bad as past Republicans. He drives this home by using Obama as a reference point. If Obama is as bad as Nixon and Bush, the rest of us Democrats must be as “ideologically bankrupt” as Republicans, just as Bernie has been saying for years.

Cornel is more explicit, but Bernie has long delivered the same message. In 1989, he spoke of “the old Democrat-Republican, tweedle-dee tweedle-dum, two-party system.” In March of this year he was still saying “I’m not a billionaire. So … I thought the right ethic was to run within the Democratic Party.” In other words, his “ethic” is to pretend he’s a Democrat to get their money and media for his higher cause of democratic socialism. Now it turns out, he wants to take the whole Party.

Meet Cornel West (see him in action):

“Nixon, Bush, Obama, they’re war criminals,”

• Cornel claims that if any civilians die in a war, the president has committed a war crime. This would mean Truman, Johnson and Bill Clinton were all war criminals, and Roosevelt a mega-war criminal. Cornel compares Obama only to Republicans.

“Richard Nixon is to the left of him [Obama] on healthcare”

• Oh, right. Nixon worked hard to bring us Nixoncare. (Ever heard of that? Of course not!)

“The same imperial foreign policy (Nixon’s) is at work under Obama.”

• His idea is that Obama helping Iraq defend against ISIS, perhaps the most reactionary force on earth, is the same as Nixon continuing the French colonial war against Vietnam, killing over a million Vietnamese and carpet-bombing Cambodia and Laos with B52s.
• This is socialist bullshit at its worst.

“Black people have suffered more in this age than in the recent past. Empirical indices of infant mortality rates, mass incarceration rates, mass unemployment and dramatic declines in household wealth reveal this sad reality.”

• As Jonathan Chait shows, the actual statistics show just the opposite.

Meet Bernie Sanders:

Bernie claimed Democrats were the same as Republicans after witnessing that:

• Barry Goldwater (R, 1964) ran on this platform: The elimination of Social Security, federal aid to schools, federal welfare, and the union shop. He favored segregated schools, said he would defund the UN, and would improve tactical nuclear weapons for frequent use.
• LBJ (a totally establishment D) passed the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps etc., and the Voting Rights Bill.
• Reagan (R, 1980) cut taxes on the rich in half and broke the unions.
• So Democrats are obviously just the same as Republicans — more socialist bullshit. 

Jane & Bernie Sanders, Cornel West.  Bernie, your supporters deserve better. Much better.