When Bernie Sanders makes a speech like he just did at the DNC, you know things have gotten bad

‘This is not normal and we should never treat it like it is’

“The price of failure is just too great to imagine”: so ended Bernie Sanders’s speech at the end of the first day of the Democratic national convention. It was a subdued moment during a subdued event replete with references to coronavirus; at one point, the faces of Americans who have died of Covid-19 in the US this year faded on and off the screens of everyone tuning in, “in memoriam”. “This is not normal and we should never treat it like it is,” Sanders said in the penultimate speech of the night before handing over to Michelle Obama, adding that “I and my family know the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy”.

Looking back on Sanders’ DNC speech in 2016 when he officially endorsed Hillary Clinton – a speech which didn’t stop his supporters protesting for hours outside the official perimeter – is telling. “If you don’t believe this election is important, if you think you can sit it out, take a moment to think about the Supreme Court justices that Donald Trump would nominate and what that would mean to civil liberties, equal rights and the future of our country,” he said back then. “Donald Trump? Well, like most Republicans, he chooses to reject science,” he added, when discussing the importance of addressing climate change, not knowing that the 45th president’s anti-science agenda would eventually stretch so far as to recommend bleach as self-treatment during a pandemic.

“It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues. That’s what this campaign has been about,” Bernie added in 2016, after frankly expressing his disappointment about not becoming the nominee himself. Tonight, four years down the line of a Trump presidency, he dialled back that kind of talk. Only once did he explicitly differentiate himself from Joe Biden, saying, “While Joe and I disagree on the best way to get universal [healthcare] coverage, he has a plan”.

In 2016, Sanders still railed against the 1 per cent, and stated that “although we have made progress, we still have very, very far to go”. He addressed the democratic socialists who campaigned alongside him. He said that Obama and Biden had built a great foundation and now it was time to take bold steps forward.

Today, it was all about damage control. After four years of Trump, Bernie said he “will work with moderates and, yes, with conservatives”. He extended the hand of friendship not just to “those who voted for other candidates” but also to “those who may have voted for Trump in the last election”. In other words, he sang from the exact same hymn sheet as Joe Biden and his team, who filled Monday evening’s broadcast with former Republican senators and members of Congress, regretful Trump voters newly registered as Democrats, and one particularly heartrending story told by the daughter of a Trump voter who died of Covid-19 in May after following the president’s advice.

It was sad and it was sober. Amy Klobuchar’s warm messaging was a high point of the night among a lot of doom and gloom. Andrew Yang told a touching story about Biden calling him up on the night he conceded, and Cory Booker shared a downright lovely tale about Biden giving him a “pep talk” during the breaks in the televised debates earlier this year. But if you were here for joy and inspiration, it was slim pickings, despite the constant references to “we the people”. Lingering shots of empty stadiums and a deserted Times Square station interspersed with video of families standing outside while their elderly relatives pressed their hands up against the windows of their care homes were hard to watch from a lone living room at 11pm. I teared up more than once.

I started off tonight sure that I’d be buoyed up by Bernie – his relentless energy is always infectious, even through a TV screen. But the truth is that when I saw him deliver his full endorsement of Joe Biden, I realised the gravity of the situation anew. When the sprightly senator from Vermont keeps his scruples to himself, you know things have gotten bad. And if anything should encourage Americans to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket in November (on behalf of us non-voting immigrants, please, I’m begging you!) then surely it’ll be the face of Bernie staring into the camera, refusing to stick the boot into Joe, singing the praises of working with conservatives. A lot of people have said, in these exact words or an approximation, that the price of failure is too great to imagine. But when Bernie Sanders said it tonight, I really, really believed it.