The question isn't whether Bernie can win now. It's about how much he can change Biden's policies

Have you spoken to a Black woman in her 60s who goes to church every Sunday and asked if she’s feeling the Bern? Try it and see whether you really think Sanders' campaign can turn it all around

Old Black voters have spoken: they want former President Obama’s friend Joe Biden to end our collective misery and run against Trump in the next election. Despite all pleas from their children (like me) to abandon Biden and embrace a progressive candidate like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, they have collectively swatted us out of their way in order to vote for the man who they know best — and, to be blunt, the man who bothered to campaign directly to them.

Combine that with the huge surge in support of Biden among suburban white women and it’s hard to see where Bernie Sanders’ presidential dreams go anywhere besides on to glory.

Some have been fighting such a realization, but after last night’s disappointing results for Sanders, where exactly does the senator go from here?

It took until Wednesday morning for Sanders to be declared victor in one of the six states that held primary elections last night. That was North Dakota, and unfortunately, Sanders only netted eight delegates to Biden’s six. Sanders may not even reach eligibility for delegates in the state of Mississippi, where he recently cancelled an event to focus on Michigan (in vain), so Biden’s delegate has expanded. Worse for the Sanders campaign, all those older Black people who don’t like Sanders as a presidential candidate dominate the remaining states in the race.

The endorsement from Reverend Jesse Jackson seems to have come far too late for the Sanders campaign to make the sort of inroads he needs to conceivably become the nominee.

I see some people continuing to hope that things could change. Maybe the debate. Perhaps the next few contests. Uh huh. Sure. Stranger things have happened, but have you spoken to a Black woman in her 60s who goes to church every Sunday and asked if she’s feeling the Bern?

I take no joy in writing this. I think at this point, I’d rather camp outside and wait for the meteor to take us out than deal with another four-year term of Trump, but that doesn’t mean I am dying for a Biden presidency either. I find it frustrating that Sanders couldn’t garner more Black support (for reasons that are partly his fault and partly attributable to bad media narratives) and worry that the very suburban white women who gave us Trump are about to return us to the same conditions that created him in the first place.

I believe Sanders would have proved to be a far more formidable general election candidate than he’s often given credit for, but as it stands now, pending some miracle, it’s going to be Joe Biden on the ballot come November. It’s not for any of us to tell Sanders what to do next, but I do hope the Democratic Party and the person it favors to be the nominee give Sanders and his movement the respect it deserves. Moreover, it would behoove the Biden campaign to adopt the ideas of Sanders and Warren.

Biden needs a disabilities policy. He needs to revisit his pathetic stance on student loan debt and strongly consider cancellation. He needs to take cues from Sanders and reach out to the Black activist community. And he can also ask Bernie how the hell he stays so much more active by comparison.

Biden also needs to reach out to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most impressive campaign surrogates in recent memory (and if you’re going to pile on young voters, slam the efforts to disenfranchise them happening across the country). I have seen the analogy that if Sanders is Goldwater, AOC may prove to be Reagan, and it proves apt.

Bernie’s revolution hasn’t died; it’s been told to wait longer and fight smarter to attain a certain level of power within the party. It can be done. I still believe it will.

Biden is the bedtime story the majority of the people who actually vote want to tell themselves about the Donald Trump era. Their return to “normalcy.” I hope that none of us turn into the people who turn down the volume on truth for the comforts of moderation. As they did in the 1990s. As they appear to be doing once more.

It won’t be long before they have to once again awaken from their self-imposed slumber. Bernie Sanders may not be the one to say “I told you so,” but here’s hoping the future progressive president does soon enough