The day after

The battle for California was the psychological victory Hillary Clinton needed. At this writing, with 93.4% of the precincts reporting, she has 56% of the vote to Sanders' 43%. The BernieBro program of resentment, arrogance, insults, threats, paranoia and cultish jackass-iness has again managed to wring defeat from the jaws of victory.

For a telling contrast in character, look at how the campaigns treated their opponents.

Mr. Sanders waited until 15 minutes into his speech to utter Mrs. Clinton’s name. He referred, almost in passing, to a telephone conversation in which he had congratulated her on her victories. At that, the crowd of more than 3,000 inside an aging airport hangar booed loudly. Mr. Sanders did little to discourage them.

At almost every turn, he was grudging toward Mrs. Clinton, passing up a chance to issue the kind of lengthy salute that many, in and out of the Democratic Party, had expected and craved.

“It’s a blown opportunity to build bridges that are going to be extremely important in the fall,” said David Gergen, an adviser to four presidents, both Democratic and Republican. He worried that Mr. Sanders was becoming “a grumpy old man.”

Oh for chrissakes. EVEN ADOLF HITLER would graciously congratulate his opponents after a lost election. It was not in Adolf's nature to speak well of a foe, but he bit his lip and did what he had to. Sanders cannot rise to even that abysmal level of political competence.

Here's Hillary:

On Tuesday, she was effusive in her praise of Mr. Sanders and her outreach to his supporters, mentioning him by name three times in her victory address in Brooklyn.

"Let there be no mistake," she said. "Senator Sanders his campaign, and the vigorous debate that we’ve had about how to raise incomes, reduce inequality, increase upward mobility have been very good for the Democratic Party and for America."

I'm sure that Hillary's words here do not match her feelings. I'm sure she wants to hire planes to write "Fuck Bernie Sanders!" in the skies above every major city in America. But she knows better.

But Mr. Sanders, who calls himself a revolutionary, is openly skeptical of the traditions and expectations that govern the party whose nomination he covets. Throughout his campaign, he has regarded the Democratic Party itself with suspicion and distrust.

Party unity, it seems, is the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

Far from backing down, Mr. Sanders promised to take his campaign to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia this summer, raising the possibility that he could remain in the race, without ever conceding defeat, until July.

And there you have it: The man himself, exposed in all his hideousness. Right now, he's making plans for a third-party run. Bet on it.

All along, the problem wasn't the bros, it was Bernie himself. He created the BernieBros. He's the Charlie of this cult. He might have won the Democratic nomination, had he not been more concerned with damaging the Democratic Party. You can't seek the destruction of a political party at the same time you ask to become its leader. You must choose between one goal or the other.

There’s no strategist pulling the strings, and no collection of burn-it-all-down aides egging him on. At the heart of the rage against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, the campaign aides closest to him say, is Bernie Sanders.

It was the Vermont senator who personally rewrote his campaign manager’s shorter statement after the chaos at the Nevada state party convention and blamed the political establishment for inciting the violence.

He was the one who made the choice to go after Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz after his wife read him a transcript of her blasting him on television.

He chose the knife fight over calling Clinton unqualified, which aides blame for pulling the bottom out of any hopes they had of winning in New York and their last real chance of turning a losing primary run around.

Convinced as Sanders is that he’s realizing his lifelong dream of being the catalyst for remaking American politics—aides say he takes credit for a Harvard Kennedy School study in April showing young people getting more liberal, and he takes personal offense every time Clinton just dismisses the possibility of picking him as her running mate—his guiding principle under attack has basically boiled down to a feeling that multiple aides sum up as: “Screw me? No, screw you.”

Take the combative statement after the Nevada showdown.

“I don’t know who advised him that this was the right route to take, but we are now actively destroying what Bernie worked so hard to build over the last year just to pick up two fucking delegates in a state he lost,” rapid response director Mike Casca complained to Weaver in an internal campaign email obtained by POLITICO.

“Thank you for your views. I’ll relay them to the senator, as he is driving this train,” Weaver wrote back.

All Bernie had to do was utter a few post-Nevada words that sounded genuinely conciliatory and humble, and he might have had a chance in the following elections. Mere words. But he couldn't do it.

Nota bene: Bernie was tussling over those "two fucking delegates" in defiance of the will of the Nevada voters, who clearly had gone for Hillary. When the BernieBots discuss Nevada, they never mention that Bernie was trying to overturn the people's decision. Sanders never cared about either big-D Democrats of small-d democracy.

The inevitable Stone connection. Buried deep within that Politico story is a fascinating linkage between the Sanders campaign and my own bete noir, Roger Stone. To understand what follows, know this: Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is Stone's long-time partner and stand-in; Stone cannot assume the chairman's role after that unpleasant business in 1996. Tad Devine, formerly an adviser for Monsanto, is Bernie's Karl Rove.

Reaching out to the Trump campaign was a different story. Devine knows campaign chairman Paul Manafort from, among other things, their collaboration on the campaign of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. According to campaign aides, the morning after Trump was on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Weaver asked Devine to give Manafort a call to see if they could actually make the debate happen...

Yada yada; you may be interested in the debate idea, but I'm not. I'm interested in the Ukraine angle. It's the focus of the last section of that all-important series on Stone that I keep trying to get you people to read. No matter where you stand on the Ukraine issue (and my own views differ from those held by most Americans), you now have two posers to ponder: 1. How did Devine and Manafort collaborate in Ukraine? 2. And how did a creature like Devine enter into Bernie's service?

Petty. What other word describes this?

There’s also the issue of payback. Campaign aides say that whatever else happens, Sanders wants former Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy out of their spots as co-chairs of the convention rules committee. It’s become a priority fight for him.

Sanders, the aides say, believes Frank has hated him for years, but the former Massachusetts congressman’s calling him a “McCarthyite” pushed him over the edge. He never really registered who Malloy was, despite his being from a neighboring home state and his status as one of the most liberal governors in the country, but Sanders was enraged to hear the governor say he had blood on his hands for not supporting the gun manufacturer liability law.

What kind of progressive is Bernie Sanders if that's his attitude toward Barney Frank?

This guy. I normally don't link to Facebook, but this guy is hilarious:

"Bernie Sanders has inspired me politically and sexually. I used to be afraid to hit on girls but now I just say: 'I realize that every metric indicates that I have lost out to the guy you are now dating. That being said, this whole system is rigged against nice guys like me. This isn't over until your wedding date and I plan to convince all your friends and family to pick me once you get to the altar.' Then I just wear them down or hope their current boyfriend gets arrested."

He forgot to issue death threats to those friends and family members. That's what really turns 'em around.