Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of the United States last Thursday, and soon after her rival Bernie Sanders announced he was returning to the Senate as an Independent. “I was elected as an independent so I'll stay two years more as an independent,” he said to the press. But this decision raised the ire of MSNBC’s Al Sharpton on PoliticsNation, Sunday, “After all Sanders became a Democrat to be in their primary, to be in their debates, but now he’s leaving the party.”
Sharpton was perplexed as to why Sanders would want to remain an Independent following his loss to Clinton. “But if he’s not going to belong to the Democratic Party it makes you wonder what all this talk of party unity is all about,” he stated after playing a clip of Sanders’ Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver saying he would remain a Democrat on Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect.
“How are Democrats supposed to feel about Bernie’s decision to go back as an Independent,” he inquired to The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart. “Well, I can imagine that there are a lot of Democrats who are probably scratching their heads…” Capehart responded before being quickly cut off by the MSNBC host. “Maybe feeling a different bern,” Sharpton sneered. “Well, yeah absolutely. They're feeling burned I think,” Capehart agreed.
It appeared as though the host was arguing that Sanders somehow owed it to party to remain a Democrat, and wondered if it would come back to bite him:
He ran in the Democratic primary and used their stage, their infrastructure, put it out there— And I played his campaign manager said he is a Democrat, and Democrat for life which now ends up being something else. And you look at that and you look at how some of his supporters wouldn't even follow his support to Mrs. Clinton. Does this become a problem for him in the Senate?
But does Sanders really owe anything to the party? There was no mention, at all, about the leaked E-Mails from the Democratic Nation Committee that showed evidence of a party establishment conspiring against him. Throughout the primary season Sanders had noted how part leadership stacked the chips against him, which turned out to be the case. Many in the media have noted that the reason the party made concessions to Sanders in the platform was to try and retain his supporters. So why would he say?
