Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, now have a unique opportunity to engage, change and ultimately even take over the Democratic Party, if they seize it.

As I’ve written before, the key is to get all of those young Bernie fans to recognize that the real enemy is Trump, the Republicans and bad government practices everywhere. Unfortunately, the system we have (not the system we’d like to have) is best moved from within the Democratic Party.  If some want to go off and energize the Greens, great, so be it.  But that’s still considered fringe and way out of the power structure.

If Bernie guides his followers to be active in Democratic politics, local and national, their youth and energy and passion can move mountains and change a stultified corporatist party for the better.  But he has to recognize this opportunity and change the direction of his campaign. He lost the nomination but won the debate. His followers can win the future of the party and dominate politics going forward for the next 20 years.

They just have to recognize that it’s possible to do so and preferable to howling in the wilderness about the problems in the party and denouncing the entire power structure.

Fingers crossed they figure that out.