Now that the Democratic
primary campaign is all but decided in favor of Joe Biden, the wailing of
Bernie Sanders’ supporters that the whole
process was fixed is hard to ignore. I don’t believe a word of it.
I have supported Bernie since
I lived in Maine and he was running for Vermont’s seat in the House in the
1990s. I supported him against Hillary Clinton and I supported him again this
time, even buying his book, which is very similar to one of his stump speeches.
I was unexpectedly hopeful when he won Nevada, and looked like the front-runner
for the nomination, a Jewish man who called himself a democratic socialist and
advocated fundamental changes in our politics and economy. I didn’t think he
could accomplish all that, even if he won the nomination and the Presidency,
but he was pushing our national politics ever closer to my own vision of a just
society.
Then came South Carolina and
then Super Tuesday and the next Tuesday, and it was all over. Joe Biden won
nearly everything convincingly. All the other candidates dropped out. It was
not surprising that most then endorsed Biden. Elizabeth Warren, the other
candidate in the “progressive lane”, did not endorse anyone, perhaps a
reflection of her spat with Bernie over whether he said last year that a woman
couldn’t win, which in fact turned out to be true.
Bernie himself has not yet
admitted the obvious. His campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, sent me a message last
week about the poor electoral results, which began, “And while our campaign has
won the battle of ideas, we are losing the battle over electability to Joe
Biden.” Bernie won the battle of ideas in my head, but not in the heads of a
majority of voters. I don’t think that the big majorities who voted for Biden
picked him because they thought he was more likely to beat Trump, but because
they liked the idea of him being President more than they wanted Bernie.
The evidence about the “war
of ideas” is not easy to interpret. Some of Bernie’s ideas that were decried as
too radical by his more moderate competitors were surprisingly popular with
Democratic voters. The exit
polls on Super Tuesday by NBC News showed that majorities of Democratic
primary voters in Texas (57%) and California (53%), and pluralities in North
Carolina (48%) and Tennessee (47%) expressed a favorable opinion about “socialism”.
Majorities of Democratic voters in 4
southern states supported Medicare for All: Mississippi (62%), Tennessee
(53%), Virginia (52%), and Alabama (51%). Half of Missouri Democrats said that
the economic system “needs a complete overhaul”.
That support for progressive
positions did not turn into support for Bernie himself, the personification of
those policies. We need much more information about what went on in voters’
minds to understand that. But the claims
of Bernie supporters that the intervention of high-level Democratic
operatives, such as the Democratic National Committee, working hand-in-hand
with the big media networks, made sure that the less dangerous Biden won don’t
convince me. There is no evidence for such a conspiracy.
Common
Dreams argued before Super Tuesday that Michael Bloomberg, representing the
whole crooked Democratic “establishment”, was going to buy the nomination, except
he couldn’t. Change.org circulated an online
petition calling on people to demand “DNC: Stop rigging the 2020 Democratic
presidential nomination and convention”.
I don’t think that most
primary voters were influenced by possible DNC machinations, and the outcries
about fixing the convention with moderate superdelegates is irrelevant. Bernie
just lost to Joe in our very democratic primary process. He could not have
expected his moderate competitors to endorse anyone but Biden. The voters have
spoken.
I don’t know if Bernie would
have done better against Trump in November. All the head-to-head polls that
tried to predict the ultimate outcome are out the window, now that the
coronavirus crisis changes everything.
The Sanders campaign says it
will continue into the New
York primary a month from now. I think Bernie should ease out of the race,
now that it’s hard to have a race and the decision is already clear. I do appreciate
that his campaign messaging has now shifted to urging his supporters to donate
to a variety of organizations which are helping people affected by the
pandemic. His campaign manager Shakir said Bernie would “continue his fight to
ensure we are protecting working people, low-income people, and the most
vulnerable communities, not just giant corporations and Wall Street in any
response to the virus.” His campaign website offers a detailed
response to the crisis. This
message lists many such organizations which could use help. I hope he does
that, because we need strong voices pushing our politics toward more economic
and biological justice.
Bernie Sanders was always a
longshot. He has shoved the national political discussion leftward and will
continue to do that, but his presidential possibilities, if they ever existed,
are gone. It’s time for progressives, even democratic socialists like me, to go
all in for Biden. He’s not our dream, but he’s not a Trump nightmare.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
March 24, 2020
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