Bernie Sanders has made it clear that he plans on fighting until the bitter end. There have been several instances when people suspected he might concede to Hillary Clinton—when Clinton won enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination and when Sanders lost the D.C. primary, just to name a few—but they were all false alarms. And his latest appearance in Burlington, Vt. was yet another example of this.
In a speech titled "The Political Revolution Continues," Sanders made several bleak remarks about his campaign on Thursday. "To those relatively few elected officials who had the courage to stand with us, I say thank you," he said early in the speech.
"I also look forward to working with Secretary Clinton to transform the Democratic Party so that it becomes a party of working people and young people, and not just wealthy campaign contributors," he promised later on.
He concluded by "once again thanking everyone who has helped in this campaign in one way or another."
These words all but conceded the nomination to Clinton, but Sanders still didn't officially concede or offer an endorsement to her. Perhaps his reason for staying in the race can be summed up by this line in his speech: "This campaign has never been about any single candidate. It is always about transforming America."
If becoming president is not his primary goal, it makes sense that his campaign has outlasted his shots at the nomination. According to Sanders, he wants history to see his efforts to become a Presidential candidate as a revolution rather than a campaign.
"My hope," he said, "is that when future historians look back and describe how our country moved forward into reversing the drift toward oligarchy and created a government which represents all the people and not just the few, they will note that, to a significant degree, that effort began with the political revolution of 2016."
