 So, Bernie Sanders dropped out of the 2020 election now about two weeks ago, but he will still remain on the ballots in most states going forward, if not all of them. So, you know, he encouraged all of his supporters to vote for him as they were planning to, so that way he can kind of rack up delegates, and at best, maybe have a little bit more influence over the Democratic Party's 2020 platform. And you know, in my state of Oregon, we haven't been able to vote yet, but I still absolutely intend on voting for Bernie Sanders, as I always have. But in New York, for literally no reason other than to stick it to progressives, they're trying now to remove Bernie Sanders from the ballot. He's not going to win, he poses no threat, and all he's trying to do is rack up delegates to influence a platform that is functionally meaningless, and they don't even want to allow him to have that. So, as Owen Higgins of Common Dreams writes, New York state election officials are poised to remove Senator Bernie Sanders from the ballot in June's primary election, a move that would deny the Vermont lawmakers supporters the chance to cast a vote for him as president, and would harm his chances of using his delegate count to influence the party's direction and push for reforms. Hard to imagine a pettier decision more perfectly calibrated to infuriate and depress younger and progressive voters, tweeted Jewish currents editor David Clean. As Huff posts, Daniel Moran's reported Tuesday, Board of Elections co-chair Douglas Kellner and Commissioner Andrew Spano, both Democrats, will meet Wednesday to decide on whether or not to remove Sanders' name from the ballot. Kellner believes that a provision in the 2019-2020 budget, saying the board may remove a candidate from the ballot if they make clear they are no longer seeking the office in question, requires Sanders' removal. Under Kellner's interpretation of the statute, Sanders, who suspended his campaign on April 8th, falls under that category. It's not very controversial that Senator Sanders has suspended his campaign, Kellner told HuffPost. I anticipate that we will be removing him. Now, at the time that I record this, it's Wednesday and we don't yet have a decision from them, so by the time you see this video, they may very well have already removed him. Perhaps maybe they changed their mind and chose not to do this. The fact that this is even a consideration, it really shows the contempt that the Democratic Party has for voters. They're willing to disenfranchise their own base for literally no reason whatsoever. This does nothing to help Democrats. It can only hurt Democrats, because if you disenfranchise voters in the primary, then obviously, they're not going to be very enthusiastic about voting for you in the general if they come out at all. So what's the point of this? There is no point. It's just a matter of them trying to stick it to progressives at every single opportunity that they have. And what they're doing is effectively cancelling the primary. I mean, let's be real. It's over, right? Joe Biden is going to be the nominee. He won. You guys won. Democrats won, progressives lost. The left is not going to have power. So why can't you allow Bernie to just remain on the ballot and let people vote for him? Why must Democrats not just coalesce around the establishment to stick it to progressives, but even go a step further and pour salt in the wound that they've inflicted on us? Like, it doesn't make any sense until you realize that Democrats don't actually want to win. It doesn't matter if this move hurts the Democratic Party and their image. It doesn't matter that the optics are poor here. It doesn't matter that this will further, you know, detach them from any sort of relationship they tried to form with young voters. They don't care. Winning is not their goal. Maintaining power is. So if they think that Bernie Sanders is getting more delegates and having a little bit more sway over the platform is a threat to them and their powers in any way, shape or form, even if it's just, you know, when it comes to rhetoric, they're not going to allow that to happen. So it's just, it's embarrassing that this party, you know, has the nerve to continue to claim the moral high ground on so many issues to talk about, you know, voter suppression and disenfranchisement that oftentimes is something that's inflicted on voters because of Republicans while they do the same thing, like they have no shame. And it's just, it's, it's infuriating, but this is what we've come to expect from the Democratic Party. They just don't care about winning over voters. They don't care. All of the consultants and the lobbyists and the individuals in power currently, they don't care about it passing any policies. They just want to keep their jobs. So to make sure that you shut out progressives at every single step of the way, that's what they want to do. Just imagine for a minute that they were this effective at fighting Republicans, you know, scratch that. Let's imagine that they were half as effective at fighting Republicans as they were at fighting the left. Can you imagine all of the things that they would be able to accomplish if they just channeled some of the energy that they use to constantly punch down and squalls progressive enthusiasm and just try to, you know, target the right? I mean, this, this is like not even something that's surprising. And I would imagine more states will probably follow this move. But, you know, it's just, we shouldn't allow them to get away with things like this. We have to talk about this and we have to shame them even if they don't really care, but people have to know what's happening. They have to know, even though, you know, technically it doesn't matter because Bernie Sanders is not going to win the New York primary. We lost. We know it's over. We get it. We were defeated. Congratulations. Maybe just at least allow his voters to cast a vote if they're even still going to come out and vote. But again, they don't care and they never will. That's why all the people in power currently have to get out. Otherwise, nothing is ever going to change in this country because we can't influence them. Nothing we say or do will resonate with them. So they have to leave and we have to come to power. Otherwise, change is never going to happen in America.