I love Bernie Sanders. By most measures, he’s the greatest senator in the last 50 years. I was very glad to be a Sanders delegate to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. But when Bernie screws up, his progressive base should say so.

That happened during the first months of Israel’s war on Gaza that began last October. Initially, Bernie sounded equivocal as Israeli forces engaged in mass murder. After several weeks of carnage, antiwar activists occupied his D.C. office to demand support for a ceasefire. Some were arrested for their civil disobedience.

Bernie gradually changed his position and became a fierce critic of Israel, denouncing it for horrific large-scale crimes against Palestinian civilians and challenging the shipment of weapons to the Israeli military. There’s no telling if the public pressure from progressives hastened his shift to strongly oppose Israel’s genocidal war. But that pressure was necessary.

Unfortunately, after President Biden’s debate debacle on June 27, Bernie did not weigh in against the gaslighting maneuvers by the White House and the Biden campaign. In fact, Bernie aided them by downplaying the importance of what had happened on the debate stage.

Since then, Bernie has encouraged the illusion that Biden now has the capacity to be an effective candidate against Donald Trump. Equally problematic has been the implicit pretense that Biden could be up to the job as president until January 2029.

Such evasion not only dodges the reality that Biden was inept and sometimes incoherent during the debate. Since then, much stunning information has come to light, illuminating how badly Biden’s mental capacities have diminished.

Every day that goes by with Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee will work to the further advantage of Trump and his extremist right-wing forces.

“In the weeks and months before President Biden’s politically devastating performance on the debate stage in Atlanta, several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations,” the New York Timesreported on July 2.

But on........

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