Bernie Sanders doesn’t need to quit or make nice

The news that Bernie Sanders intends to keep fighting for the Democratic nomination to the end has me clutching my pearls and collapsing on my fainting couch. Where does he get the nerve to think he deserves the nomination? And doesn’t he worry he’ll do fatal damage to Hillary Clinton and thus deliver the White House to Donald Trump?

Oh, please. This is a democracy, and we’re not supposed to resolve our fiercest disagreements with bullets and bombs. We’re supposed to do it with wide-open debate and contested elections. Strident rhetoric and noisy protests are often unpleasant, but they’re an essential part of life in a free society.

Sanders, in my view, would be a disaster in the presidency. But the fact that Clinton is having so much trouble closing out her victory is evidence that he speaks for a lot of people in his party. And if he restores their hope in electoral democracy, good for him.

As for the harm he could inflict on Clinton, it’s more a symptom of her problems than a cause. She threw plenty of hard punches at Barack Obama in her 2008 campaign, none of which kept him from winning in November. If anything, the primary battle taught him and his advisers a lot about how to respond to Republican attacks. If Clinton loses to Trump, it won’t be because of unkind things Sanders said about her.

There is always the possibility that Clinton’s own troubles, like the investigation of her private email server, will sink her campaign before the convention. In that case, Sanders has a legitimate claim to the nomination. In the meantime, there is no reason he should downplay their differences.

However much her supporters would like the fight to be over, Clinton hasn’t won it yet. The Democratic Party will survive if Sanders insists on competing for a full nine innings. Once the convention is over, the party will have plenty of time to unite — and plenty of reasons.

Steve Chapman is a Tribune columnist and member of the editorial board.

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