Elegy for Bernie? Not quite yet: Sanders 2020 poses a conundrum Democrats must solve

[Uncle Joe]

Bernie Sanders’ 2020 trajectory doesn’t make much sense. That is, it doesn’t make sense to those people who still believe they know “how things work” in American politics — the people who haven’t absorbed the central lesson of the last three or four years, which is that nobody knows how anything works.

According to the “I’ve got this figured out” crowd, Sanders was a semi-irrelevant figure in the 2020 race. He was too old and too weird. He had bitterly divided the Democratic Party in 2016 and had — in some obscure way — helped elect Donald Trump. His supporters were entirely bearded young white men in Brooklyn, Portland and Ann Arbor, not-so-subtly contaminated by racism, misogyny and various kinds of unexamined privilege. Both his personality and his policies were well outside the acceptable range, and would send “suburban moderates” and “Obama-Trump voters” — those objects of bottomless Democratic lust — screaming back into the toxic cult of You Know Who.

(snip)

But a lot of that analysis is also flat-out false, including the overarching conclusion that Bernie Sanders is not an important factor in the 2020 race. He is older than either Joe Biden or Trump, but appears far more vigorous and alert than either of them. He remains second to Biden in most Democratic primary polls, neither surging nor declining much while other candidates go through their exceedingly minor boom-and-bust cycles. Remember when your friends were confidently aboard the Pete Buttigieg juggernaut, for five minutes? Remember when Kamala Harris set Biden on fire that one time, and looked like the tough-as-nails leader who would prosecute Donald Trump for everything? Those were good times. Well, neither of those people has cracked double figures in any major poll this month.

No, polls should never be treated as gospel — although after Labor Day, we can put aside the argument that it’s too early for polling to mean anything and that at this point in whatever-year Samwise Gamgee or Toad the Wet Sprocket was leading and you don’t see them on the dollar bill, do you? Anyway, the fact that Sanders appears to have around one-fifth of the Democratic vote locked down is not the important part. The important part is how he has done that and who those people are, and the fact that Democrats probably can’t win without Sanders’ issues and Sanders’ voters — and that if they try to ignore those issues and snow those voters, they will definitely pay the price sooner or later.

(snip)

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/25/elegy-for-bernie-not-quite-yet-sanders-2020-poses-a-conundrum-democrats-must-solve/

[guillaumeb]

1. One narrative is that Sanders voters are responsible for 2016.

The truth is more nuanced.

Sanders' economic message still resonates, and it is echoed in many ways by the message of Warren.

[abqtommy]

2. Polls and Earnest Opinions are meanigless when the security

of our influencing and voting processes are consistently corrupted and compromised.

[Garrett78]

3. "Democrats probably can't win without Sanders' issues" is drivel.

Warren, Harris and others have largely the same stance on most issues. Bernie has a cult following and many members of the cult have bought into the false notion that Sanders is somehow far different and far superior to all other candidates.

Sanders will not be the nominee. It's on his supporters to vote for the nominee. They aren't owed anything. Vote for the Democratic nominee or help Trump get re-elected. It's that simple.

[betsuni]

7. +1

[Demsrule86]

8. +1000

[ehrnst]

9. Yes, they were Democratic Party issues long before Bernie took credit for them.

[Vegas Roller]

4. Meh - Another foofoo opinion piece by David Sirota's buddy nt

[myohmy2]

5. "...Democrats probably can't win without Sanders' issues and Sanders' voters..."

" He has dragged universal health insurance and a living wage and the crushing unfairness of student debt and the Green New Deal and the general rapaciousness of late-stage vulture capitalism into mainstream political discourse, against the vigorous pushback of nearly the entire elite class — and has made clear that most Americans agree with him, and not with them. "

...

[betsuni]

6. Those are all usual Democratic issues.

Bernie Sanders did not drag usual Democratic issues anywhere except for people who are not informed about politics.

"But although Sanders voters tended to describe themselves as more liberal than did Clinton voters, the two groups differed little on economic policies. ... People who became Sanders supporters were no more likely than people who became Clinton supporters to favor government provided universal health car or tax increases on the wealthy ... . In the American National Election Studies Pilot Study, Clinton and Sanders supporters did not differ much in their views of government spending overall, spending on health insurance or child care, or raising the minimum wage -- as well as on an index combining these items. Large majorities supported these polices regardless of whether they supported Clinton or Sanders. ... The political scientist Daniel Hopkins found at best small differences on policy issues between eventual Clinton and Sanders supporters when they had been interviewed in earlier years. Hopkins argued that the factors behind Sanders's support 'do not suggest that it is grounded in an enduring liberalism.' The political scientist Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels ... wrote that 'Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues.'"

From "Identity Crisis."

[ehrnst]

10. +1000. (nt)