Sanders Fatigue?

[bluescribbler]

I have been thinking about Bernie's campaign and the marked difference between his 2016 campaign and the current campaign. Obviously, he is not doing as well now as he did 4 years ago. So I ask myself, "Why is that"? I think there are a number of reasons.

His main opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, unfortunately, is a stronger candidate than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton simply by virtue of being a man. America simply was not ready to be led by a woman.

Many of the other candidates, notably Senator Elizabeth Warren, adopted many of the same policy ideas that Senator Sanders had espoused. This blunted his impact in the early going. He may have done better on Super Tuesday, for example, had Sen. Warren not been in the race.

Senator Sanders was counting on a massive turnout among youth voters. That simply did not happen. We should not be surprised at this. Young Americans are more interested in dating, partying, etc. than in civic engagement.

I think a large part of the Senator's lack of success is what I call "Sanders fatigue". Democrats have been listening to him almost nonstop since he first declared for the Presidency in 2015, and are tired of listening to his strident calls for a political revolution. Democrats are tired of his criticisms of their party. Democrats are tired of his claim that the process is rigged against him by the DNC.

I voted for Sen. Sanders in the 2016 primary. This year I voted for Senator Warren.

That's what I think. What do you think?

[William769]

1. America was ready to be led by a woman by 3 + million votes.

"America simply was not ready to be led by a woman." This meme needs to stop!

[BeyondGeography]

2. The only idea she adopted was the one that torpedoed her campaign

EW never needed any policy help from Bernie. In fact, her wealth tax, the idea she put front-and-center in her campaign, was adopted by Sanders after her rise in the polls.

But, no matter, 2020 is not 2016. Beating Trump has crowded out policy-based campaigns. Biden’s electability numbers never wavered, even when early-state voters turned thumbs-down on his campaign. Unlike HRC four years ago, there’s a perfect fit between what he’s offering (electability) and what voters want. Sanders and Warren were offering nice-to-haves, Biden filled the need.

[Lulu KC]

3. Guns

One of the biggest blocks of young activists is about guns--Biden has a better record than Bernie on this one. I have no idea on the significance of this. Just a thought.

[NCProgressive]

4. Bernie fatigue is highly infectious and quickly fatal

Two (identical) speeches and Bernie lost me. Some people needed a higher dose of identical speeches to come to the same conclusion.

Here is the thing. Anger motivated campaigns rarely succeed. It takes too much energy to stay angry for a long time (although many like Cenk Uygur have managed it.)

Hope, decency and normalcy driven campaigns attract the American spirit of perpetual optimism.

VP Biden has one additional thing going for him -- Trump is now a "known quantity" -- an advantage Secretary Clinton didn't have.

[PatSeg]

6. Yes, the redundancy

became barely tolerable. I had appreciated Sanders' progressive message for years, but I finally got to the point where I couldn't listen to him anymore. Even during debates, he would revert to his stump speeches, often not answering the question asked. He rarely changed it or showed any indication that he has evolved. Watching him, I saw a man who knew his speeches by heart, but I never saw a president.

I agree that it takes too much energy to stay angry for a long time. It is exhausting and often destructive. People look to a presidential candidate to confirm their fears and worries, but gives them hope and optimism as well.

[Clash City Rocker]

5. Part of the problem is, he's saying giving the same speech he was giving four years ago

He had four years to expand his civil rights position beyond “I marched with MLK fifty years ago,” for example. It’s the same reason Ghostbusters II wasn’t as popular as Ghostbusters - we’ve already seen this movie.

[NCProgressive]

7. Whojyu gonna call?

Joe Biden!!!

[The Magistrate]

8. Sanders, Sir, has Operated Under A Serious Mis-Apprehension

Sanders believed the votes he received in 2016 were cast for him. In fact, a good many were not, and he really ought to have known this.

Had Sanders not made this second sally, he could have maintained that his views had considerable support among 'working class white men', as demonstrated by their votes in 2016. By going once too often to the well, Sanders has shown that in fact, his voting strength in 2016 among 'working class white men' owed not to support for his policies, and those men's openness if properly inspired to revolutionary change in a left direction, but rather to a long rightist reactionary campaign of hatred for Mrs. Clinton which he chanced along to be a beneficiary of, and of retrograde attitudes towards 'uppity women' in that demographic which this campaign fed on. Sanders might have had a legacy as a real contender for radical views. It would not have been an honest one, but it would have looked swell on video and in print.


"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[honest.abe]

9. I think it more than fatigue, its distrust.

He has burned too many bridges and said too many negative things about Democrats and the Democratic Party. We simply do not trust the man and wish he would go back to Vermont as soon as possible.

[NNadir]

10. I think that the dripping contempt for young people is disgusting.

That old tired fart who hasn't had an original thought since 1969 claimed that young people are just like he was in 1969. This is because he is a conservative in the sense that he thinks everything should remain the same always.

Then we see from people who voted for this tiresome ass saying things like this:

Senator Sanders was counting on a massive turnout among youth voters. That simply did not happen. We should not be surprised at this. Young Americans are more interested in dating, partying, etc. than in civic engagement.

.

Does it occur to any of the people handing out this horseshit that maybe young people are demoralized by the world they are inheriting from the highly distracted consumer assholes of an earlier generations who filled the seas with plastic particles, let the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide by 100 ppm, depleted the best ores for all the important elements in the periodic table, fractured the last bit of bedrock on the planet to get the last drop of gas and oil to burn, left huge piles of waste, and spent their time talking about money when they weren't talking about "sex, drugs and rock and roll."

When we hear this bullshit about partying from a generation of old farts who had this particular rallying cry in their youths, "Sex, drugs and rock and roll," as a boomer myself, I react with complete contempt for the avatars of that silly old man in the metaphorical Che Guevara tee shirt featuring Che with a joint hanging out of his mouth.

Maybe young people didn't turn out for Sanders because he offends them with his ludicrous Trumpian claim - Trumpian as much as it is merely something he made up while having no evidence - that they would have voted for an old 1969 radical without an original idea since 1969 if they were inspired to vote, that he, a dinosaur, speaks for them.

It may not be entirely their fault that they were not so inspired.

I have heard the sarcastic remark from some millenials who have referred to Covid-19 as "Boomer Remover." This of course, does not speak for that generation as a whole any more than drunks on the beach at Spring Break speak for that generation, but overall these kids are remarkable. They are smart, hard working, and highly aware. If some of them are secretly wishing that we would just go away, I personally can't blame them.

We created a dying world. It is for the young to bring it back to life. They will be a great generation not because of us, but in spite of us.

[The Magistrate]

11. Some Sound Points There, Sir

The man does seem stuck in a mental universe taken aboard some half a century ago, which he strives to see in the world about him today.

"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[NNadir]

12. Thank you sir.

I am a little disappointed that so many of us are busy bashing young people. They are the future and they, not us, will write history.

Under the circumstances, I do not expect them to be kind to us in doing so.

Maybe I travel in rarefied circles, although I'm not sure I do, but I almost never meet a millennial who fails to impress me. I can, of course, think of a few exceptions of course, but overall they have what it takes to be great.

Again, they will need to be great, since we have not behaved with justice to their futures and, as a result, they will have to overcome many great challenges, of which this Covid thing is merely one such challenge.

[The Magistrate]

13. Four Grandchildren, Sir

And a fifth on the way. The oldest can't quite buy his own beer, but two can vote. The kids are all right.

[NNadir]

14. Father of two sons, 25 and one soon to be 21. I can't speak more highly of them and the people...

...they have brought into our lives in their age group.

I was no where near where they are, intellectually, morally or otherwise, when I was their age.