Throughout this campaign cycle, Sanders was derided by centrist Democrats for being an idealist, for being “unliked” in the Senate, and for taking once-unpopular, now widely accepted moral stands against things like the Iraq War or the Wall Street bailout. Among Sanders supporters, his decades-long unwavering principles were the foundation of his appeal, and his dissonance with his colleagues and failure to get them to do what was moral and right were examples of his virtue. But, the lesson here is not that there is something noble in failure, or that it is enough to be righteous as the world suffers. Rather it is that, like Sanders, we should not be afraid to fail as we fight for more than just survival, but rather for the right to thrive, to have access to healthcare, to be unsaddled by debt, to be able to provide for ourselves and our families without working multiple jobs and 80-hour weeks.