Bernie Sanders made the strongest possible argument for a Joe Biden presidency

Near the end of Monday's first segment of the Democratic National Convention, former Vice President Joe Biden's top rival in the 2020 primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders, made the most substantive argument for his candidacy of the entire night.

The case was straightforward and compelling. As usual Sanders dispensed with vague platitudes and focused on details and policy brass tacks. On the one hand, he noted that Trump's presidency has done incalculable damage to the United States. We are suffering "the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression," he observed, correctly. "Under this administration, authoritarianism has taken root in our country … Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs."

On the other hand, he noted that Biden has promised to get behind the most left-wing Democratic campaign platform in decades — including a $15 per hour minimum wage, 12 weeks of paid family leave, universal pre-K, subsidies for child care, pro-union legal reforms, and a massive build-out of clean energy. In short, President Trump is destroying this country, and a President Biden would start fixing it. Hard to argue with that.

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But Sanders also implicitly noted that the movement he has helped breathe into existence would likely have some role to play in actually achieving these goals. "Together we have moved this country in a bold new direction … many of the ideas we fought for that just a few years ago were considered radical are now mainstream." For the moment Sanders urged his followers to vote for Biden at the ballot box. After that, they may need to start demanding Biden live up to his promises.