Thomas Frank: Anthem for Bummed Youth

As the Democratic primary campaign comes to a close, let us recall how strange and improbable it has been all along. Hillary Clinton started out as her party’s hand-picked standard-bearer, the baddest and brightest of the nation’s dominant political faction. No prominent Democrat (save Martin O’Malley) dared stand against her.

But when the mighty champion took the field—with the vast ranks of her company deployed out around her, with every tool and contrivance of political warfare at her disposal—the whole great gleaming Democratic host was nearly put to rout by an aged socialist from Vermont. It was like watching Napoleon’s Grande Armée be sent scurrying by the gang from F Troop.