Intro
This is quite long. I have done my best to break it up into bite-sized chunks under appropriate headings. I have also done my best to address each of the major issues I have seen raised here over the past few weeks regarding the state of the election and concerns about Bernie’s electability. Spoiler, I believe he is the most electable candidate, and these are the reasons why. Given the length of this piece, it is predictable that there will be some who jump straight to the comments to tell me just how totally full of shit I am. After all, this is Daily Kos during primary season. Ciao!
[Diarist dons flame-retardant suit and “Sit back, hold tight, Thunder Road!]
Electable? Get Real! We NEED a moderate
One of the ongoing narratives this election season is that Donald Trump is SO bad that we need to nominate a safe candidate to beat him. And by safe, the conventional wisdom, (CW), means centrist and moderate, appealing to Republicans and Democrats alike. And this position has the advantage of many years of history as the CW. It also is based on the logical idea that the electorate represents a spectrum of ideology, and that a centrist/moderate better appeals to more of that spectrum and is therefore a better/safer choice. There are a few problems with this simplistic, 1-dimensional analysis. The biggest being that it doesn’t hold up to empirical evidence.
There was an analysis done by 538 of the preferences of moderate, independent, and undecided voters. What they found was contrary to the “centrist is safe” paradigm.
The Moderate Middle is a Myth
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Independent voters will decide the election. Or better yet: Moderate voters will decide the election. Or, wait for it … If Democrats can move to the middle, they will win in 2020.
These tropes conjure up a particular image: a pivotal bloc of reasonable “independent” voters sick of the two major parties, just waiting for a centrist candidate to embrace a “moderate” policy vision. And there’s a reason this perception exits: You see just that if you look only at topline polling numbers, which show 40-plus percent of voters refusing to identify with a party, or close to 40 percent of voters calling themselves moderates.key swing states.
">1 But topline polling numbers mask an underlying diversity of political thought that is far more complicated.
…
Like independents and moderates, undecided voters also defy simple categorization. They also come from all over the ideological map. While pundits love to speculate and generalize about undecided voters, undecided voters themselves eschew easy summary judgments.
The upshot of all this is that if you’re a campaign trying to appeal to independents, moderates or undecided voters — or a concerned citizen trying to make sense of these groups in the context of an election — policy and ideology aren’t good frames of reference.
There just isn’t much in terms of policy or ideology that unites these groups.11
As I’m already pushing fair usage here, later in the article they point out that while pursuing centrist positions may attract some voters, pursuing more extreme positions will also attract voters. And given the distribution of ideology and attitudes that they found, my take on it is that it is a crapshoot on any given policy which way that centrist/extremist argument will fall. Seeing the graphs they present makes this more obvious.
One thing this makes clear is that voter preferences are far more complex than the predominant Left-Right politics of the past thirty years or so. And while policy certainly has a place in the conversation, at the end of the day it comes down to emotional choices. This basic understanding has eluded the Democratic party for decades now. We keep running technocrats with great ideas that represent the best in centrist philosophy, only to lose to a drunk like bu$h Jr. or a reality TV star narcissist like Leader Dearest. Not only do candidates need to have ideas that appeal to people, they also need to be able to provide a narrative that ties those policy ideas to people’s everyday lives. You don’t do this by discussing policy details, how to fund things, etc. You do this by creating a picture of the future for people to aspire to, to live into like a possibility — one where they can see themselves thrive and prosper.
Bernie has been doing this for years now, creating a vision of a future in which everyone has access to medical care, higher education, and a more fair distribution of our nation’s resources. Much like John Edwards’ candidacy in 2008 made health insurance reform their centerpiece, and in the process brought Clinton and Obama along, Sanders’ 2016 positions have moved the national conversation to the left, even in the face of Xrumpfism. (Note, as many know, the original family name is Drumpf. I change the D to an X to denote that he is an X-rated person. My little “N’yeh” ala Louie from Taxi.)
The Dreaded S Word
“So OK, maybe centrist ideology isn’t as important as the CW would have us believe, that still doesn’t mean that America is ready to elect a SOCIALIST.”
This is a fair and honest concern. I think a more accurate statement would be that America may be ready to elect a socialist, but not to allow them to effectively lead. I had this same concern in 2008 when I believed that, while America was enlightened enough statistically to elect our first African American president, we weren’t going to allow him to govern. And that is pretty much what came to pass, between McConnell’s obstruction, the Tea Party, etc. It doesn’t make it right, good, or appropriate. It’s just what was so then, and is likely so now. I get it.
But here’s the thing, to turn things around, the first step is to stop them from heading the direction they are already heading, and a president has a lot of power in that regard, even without a supportive congress behind them. And sticking to the question of whether socialism is a disqualifier for being elected, let’s again see what the current data tell us …
Poll: Capitalism trounces socialism - but Sanders beats Trump
In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released Sunday, 53 percent of registered voters said they have a negative view of socialism, compared to 19 percent who have a positive view. The poll found the opposite result for capitalism, which 52 percent of voters said they have a positive view of, compared to 18 percent who said they have a negative view of it. This finding came ahead of the caucuses in Iowa, where Sanders has been surging.
But the poll still found Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, with a lead over Trump, earning 49 percent support in a head-to-head matchup compared to Trump's 45 percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also led Trump.
So the same poll provides ideologically confusing data … (refer back to the 538 article linked above.) But it may also be that some of the people supporting him in the above poll did so without realizing that he is a socialist. This is certainly a fair consideration, and so a pollster asked three versions of their head-to-head polling between Sanders and Xrumpf. In one just the names were given, in another the party affiliations were given, and in the third the respondents were reminded that Sanders is a socialist who wants to heavily tax the billionaires. Sanders beat Xrumpf in all three scenarios.
Name Only — Sanders 47% Xrumpf 41%
Party ID — Sanders 45% Xrumpf 43%
Socialism — Sanders 47% Xrumpf 42%
(An interesting aside, from the above data his being identified as a Democrat hurt him more than being identified as a Socialist. Maybe he’s on to something here by remaining an Independent, though according to many of his detractors here he should self-identify as a Democrat if he wants to run in the Democratic primary. Such purity comes at a price.)
A simple polling question can’t simulate the impact of an entire months-long political campaign. But since concerns about Sanders are driven in part by the accurate observation that “socialism” as a label polls poorly in the United States, the fact that affixing that label to Sanders doesn’t really shift polling at all tells you something.
The political party that cried wolf?
The authors don’t try to explain why this is, but one possibility that comes to mind is Republicans have been characterizing Democratic Party support for higher taxes and a more generous welfare state as “socialism” for a long time.
This last point they mention is also part of why I believe that Sanders is not only electable, but THE MOST electable. Any nominee the Democratic Party puts forth will be smeared by the Republicans as a socialist. It is what they have done since before the Cold War ended. Only one other candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has needed to significantly defend themselves from this angle of attack. And she has only had to do so recently. Sadly she responded by disavowing democratic socialism, and walking back her support for M4A. These were the things that caused my support to shift back to Sanders. I initially thought she would be a better person to carry forward what he started in 2016, but then she failed the bridge test.
“Blue, no gr … aghhhhhhhh.”
Sanders: “Green. Like the Green New Deal that is going to transform America and make us leaders in green technology and innovation, creating jobs and lifting millions out of poverty. THAT is my favorite color, yes, green.”
Keeper of the Bridge of Death: “GO! Just GO already. Geeze, it was a simple question. Who asked for a freaking dissertation on climate change?”
Socialism! Bernie owns the label, and proceeds to explain what it means to him, which include ideas that are appealing to the great majority of the public, even if they don’t believe that they are attainable — at least in the near future. But if we don’t start steering the ship of state in that direction we’ll never get there. This is a pragmatic view, not Pollyannish by any means. Sanders has won 15 elections as a socialist, most recently garnering 67% of the vote in his senate reelection bid.
How? Why do people vote for him in such large numbers, even after years of his showing them exactly who he is? (SOCIALIST!!11!1!! [spittle-flying]!!!)
‘Vermont’s just a bunch of tree-hugging socialists themselves”
Based on religious views, Pew Forum sees 62% of Vermonters as conservative or moderate, and just 35% as liberal. Hmmm. 67% from 35% liberals huh? This Atlantic article from 2016 comes to mind in this regard.
The Lifelong Republicans who Love Bernie Sanders
These Republicans for Sanders defy neat categorization. Some are fed up with the status quo in Washington, and believe that Sanders, with his fiery populist message, is the presidential contender most likely to disrupt it. Others have voted Republican for years, but feel alarmed by what they see as the sharp right turn the party has taken.
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“Once you get out of Washington ‘conservative’ can mean all sorts of different things. Voters are often left of center on some issues and right of center on others. So someone like Trump or Sanders who talks about themselves in a way that doesn’t fit into a pre-ordained box could be appealing to a lot of people,” says Chris Ellis, a political science professor at Bucknell University.
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Sanders’s promise to wrest power away from Wall Street and return it to the American middle class taps into the same vein of populist anger that fueled the rise of the Tea Party. It’s also a message that resonates with mainstream Republicans and Democrats. Sixty-two percent of Republicans, for example, believe that large corporations wield too much influence on American politics, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in May.
…
Some conservatives readily admit they don’t love everything Sanders stands for, but insist that doesn’t change their affinity [for] the senator.
“I’m not 100 percent behind his platform but I like him as a person. For me it really comes down to authenticity,” says Edwards. “We’ve seen so much deadlock in Congress and I think people are looking for someone who can be passionate and authentic rather than being partisan.”
Authenticity
As pointed out at the end of the blockquote above, his authenticity is a major selling point for him with conservative voters — and I believe this to be true of voters in general. In this age of bullshit and alternate facts, we are all yearning for truth and honesty.
Back during the primaries in 2016 my mechanic commented on the Bernie placard on the side of my truck. He mentioned that while he disagreed with him on a lot of things, that he liked him because he trusted that he believed every word he spoke. This is a man who I would describe as a hardcore Libertarian — pretty much the ideological opposite of Bernie in many ways. He was disgusted enough with Xrumpf that he said if Bernie got the nomination he would hold his nose, clutch his passport and bankbook, and vote for him. Hillary? Lost cause. She could have run against Attila the Hun rebirthed and he would have voted against her. Come to think of it, I think she did ...
This, at the end of the day, is what I believe makes him the winner of the “most electable” mantle. it is also the thing that Xrumpf’s campaign will most likely attack the hardest. Sure, they’ll call him a commie, “Crazy Bernie,” etc. But they know Sanders has his socialism defenses in place. They know he will counter with his own examples of Xrumpf practicing socialism for the “haves,” and his practice of cozying up to murderous dictators. No, they will follow the Karl Rove play book and attack Sanders’ perceived strength. His honesty, integrity, and authenticity.
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Come on. How in the world is Mr. ~16,000-lies-and-counting supposed to challenge Sanders on honesty?”
George W. Bush patriotic hero, John Kerry, swiftboat coward. Donald Trump — successful high-powered businessman, Hillary Clinton — corrupt career politician. Up is down, night is day, right is wrong in FOXNEWSLANDIA ,the land of Leader Dearest. You can bet that Jerome Corsi and/or Peter Schweizer are already working on a book for release in September that the NY Times will breathlessly review, and which “exposes” just how “sleazy and unethical” Sanders REALLY is. It will all be lies, packaging disconnected dots that are displaced in time with tenuous theories that need a logic wrench and a time machine to actually work. There may even be damning quotes and out of context facts presented. It is their specialty, just as rush’s specialty is taking a grain of truth and building an enormous conspiracy theory of bullshit surrounding it until that initial grain is the size of a bolder.
And being the student of politics that I believe Sanders to be, I suspect that he is already preparing for this kind of barrage. It is part of why he hired Hillary’s opposition researcher from 2016. Better to be aware of everything that is possibly being cooked up. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some completely concocted from whole cloth bullshit thrown out there. But the less connected to reality, and the more connected to GOP operatives those things are, the easier they are to discredit. And unlike John Kerry, I don’t see Sanders as waiting to respond to nonsense.
Bernie Sanders is preparing for the coming onslaught of attacks by hiring someone who knows the material best. The Vermont senator’s campaign is bringing on a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s research department who helped pull together the former secretary of State’s opposition-research book on Sanders in 2016, according to Democrats familiar with the decision.
Tyson Brody, Clinton’s deputy research director during the last election cycle, will direct Sanders’s research operation, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir confirmed to Intelligencer on Wednesday. Brody, who worked on Clinton’s self-research as well as the Sanders oppo files last cycle, is the first Democrat to go from Clinton’s camp to Sanders’s 2020 campaign after their bitter primary fight.
One simple example of taking bupkis and turning it into campaign poo has already been making the rounds in comments here at DK, made by Sanders detractors. From what I’ve been able to find via Teh Google, this is the kernel of truth being alluded to:
[Snopes] … a Politico article observed that he “didn’t collect his first steady paycheck until he was an elected official pushing 40 years old.” However, that same article did list a variety of jobs Sanders held (even if they weren’t steady or didn’t provide a livable wage) before he finally reached public office upon being elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, at age 39 — working as an aide at a psychiatric hospital, as a Head Start preschool teacher, as a carpenter, and as a freelance writer for local publications:
Sanders rented a small brick duplex at 295 1/2 Maple Street that was filled with not much furniture and not much food in the fridge but stacks of checked-out library books and scribbled-on legal pads.
“Pretty sparse,” Gene Bergman, an old friend, said about the apartment.
“Stark and dark,” said Darcy Troville, a fellow Liberty Unionite who lived around the corner and shared with Sanders homemade jellies and jams.
“The electricity was turned off a lot,” Barnett said. “I remember him running an extension cord down to the basement. He couldn’t pay his bills.”
OK, so he was poor, knows what it is like to struggle. Not good enough to impugn his integrity though, no, from this setup we get …
I want to know how he’s going to get around the stealing of electricity from his neighbor. Thief or socialist, take your pick.
Yes, this is a genuine, 100% real user comment at Daily Kos, freshly copied and pasted from where I replied. I won’t link it as that is considered bad form here. I saw another similar comment yesterday and just shook my head.
So being poor wasn’t bad enough, he needed to be cast as a thief … for stealing. rush limbaugh couldn’t have done better himself. In fact, for all I know, he may be the original source of the slur. Step 1 — happen upon a tidbit that is ripe for reinterpretation; Step 2 — reinterpret it in a thoroughly dishonest manner that advances your agenda; Step 3 — cast it in the most inflammatory terms you can muster; Step 4 — Churn up the outrage and the volume as much as pissible … (misspelling accidental, but I like it.) Nothing in the original story suggested that he was using the electricity WITHOUT PERMISSION. Kind of obvious I would think. I mean an extension cord? How stealthy! But a great angle to cast shade on Bernie’s strongest point, his integrity. This is how it works. They will do it to whoever our candidate is. Count on it. And the sadder thing is that people are doing it here to our own candidate.
He’s a Fighter
Another thing that is abundantly clear about this election is that it will be among the ugliest, nastiest, most corrupt in the history of America — and that is truly an accomplishment. And given that to be the case, I’d prefer a candidate who isn’t afraid to show their anger, isn’t going to just lay down and accept dishonesty without calling it out and pushing back. That may make all the difference on November 4th or 5th. I could be wrong about this, but I just don’t see the same fighting energy from any of the other candidates, nor do I see the intensity of support for them to back up a challenge to Xrumpf. From the Sanders camp I can at least see that as a possibility. Millions of people rising up and saying, “Fuck No! You’re NOT stealing our democracy” might be what we end up needing. And yes, a few F-bombs may be part of that process. (Though John Kerry might tut tut that this is not in the genteel tradition of American politics, just as he did in 2004 when bush allegedly stole Ohio overnight. Hint to John Kerry — “We’re not in Missouri Kansas anymore.”)
This is part of why I’m not as concerned as some here about the sharp elbows that his surrogates throw at times. Those elbows will get a serious workout if he is our candidate in November. SOMEBODY needs to tell Chris Matthews he needs help, (like that’s not obvious to anyone not named Chris Matthews.)
“Yeah, being a fighter is fine, but the whole Bernie Bro thing really turns people off.”
Agreed. The perception that his supporters are largely young, male, rude, misogynistic, and overly aggressive is certainly out there — especially on this site. I recently was called a bully for telling someone to knock off the “cult” comments. Apparently calling out insults is now bullying behavior, and the person with whom I was interacting is now “another poor victim of an online Bernie Bro.” This Bernie Bro phenomenon was such a pervasive story in 2016 that some researchers decided to do some polling to find out what people’s actual experiences were with candidates’ online supporters.
For as long as there has been democracy, there have been allegations of incivility levied by one side of the political divide against the other.
A survey of 1,017 Americans over the age of 18 set out to quantify that rancor for the 2016 election cycle, and the results cast some doubt on a long-standing narrative of the Democratic presidential primary: That the supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have been significantly nastier online then the supporters of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The survey, which was conducted online in early March and has a margin of error of 3.07 percent, asked people to rate how aggressive they saw the online supporters of each presidential candidate.
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What’s more surprising is the perception on the Democratic side—nearly twice as many respondents viewed Clinton’s supporters as very aggressive (30 percent) as said the same for Sanders supporters (16 percent). While women were more likely than men to see Trump supporters as aggressive, the opposite was true for both Clinton and Sanders.
So it seems that reality doesn’t actually match up with perception in this case. This may be due, in part, to a deliberate strategy used by the Clinton campaign to define Sanders supporters in this way. I don’t say this in a vacuum. Her campaign in 2008 did exactly the same thing with supporters of Barack Obama, calling them Obama Boys — a term that is also fraught with dogwhistling. I don’t say this to dredge up yet more bad feelings from 2016, but to point out that this stereotype was manufactured, not a spontaneous interpretation of what was happening at the time. It also does a disservice to the many. many women and people of color who are active in his campaign. The two most feminist ladies I know are also both ardent Bernie volunteers. One is the mother of a transgendered child, the other a writer and psychologist. They both understand what Kate Willett explains in this article:
I Hated Bernie Bros Until I Loved and Lost One
I recently went out to lunch with a friend I used to hate on Sanders with in 2016. She’s supporting Joe Biden now, whose healthcare plan would leave 10 million people uninsured. As well as I could, I attempted to persuade her any other candidate’s plan means people will keep dying preventable deaths—but I don’t think she was convinced. I tried not to get too mad, because before it hit home for me, I couldn’t fully grasp the reality either.
I used to think supporting Sanders would also somehow make me less of a feminist. Now I know that couldn’t be further from the truth—my feminism needs to fight for women who don’t have $500 a month to spend on health insurance premiums, for single moms working three part-time jobs and still not making ends meet, for women who can’t leave an abusive marriage because her insurance is tied to her husband’s job. In 2016, I thought Bernie was prioritizing economic issues over women’s issues—now I understand that they’re connected.
Contrary to the Bernie Bro narrative, the growing progressive movement in this country is multiracial, includes all genders, and is full of people who care deeply about creating a better world for everyone, including future generations. Anyone telling you otherwise is likely not on your side. I even kind of like when Sanders yells now, because he’s yelling for me. He’s yelling for Raghav.
But C’mon, Joe Fucking Rogan? You CAN’T be serious!
I come here not to praise Joe Rogan, for he is a despicable human being with a history of saying some exceptionally hurtful things about women, people of color, and anyone else who isn’t straight, white, heterosexual and male. I so totally get that. He is a horrible person. He’s the kind who would make it on Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person In the World on a weekly basis — at least if the current competition weren’t so intense.
If I were picking friends I would pass him over for sure. If I was picking a baseball team and winning really mattered then I’d be more interested in his fielding and hitting than his views on gender and race. (If it was just for funsies I would leave him for the other squad regardless — no need for the drama.) AND If I was trying to win an election I’d still want his vote even though he is an asshole. Not that I would pander to him to get it, play to his racism or sexism in any way. But if he is willing to vote for me on my terms, I should tell him to fuck off?
Did I mention his 11 million listeners? That’s an awful lot of votes to throw away in the name of purity. Now obviously having Rogan’s endorsement isn’t going to sway all 11 million, far from it for sure. But it will matter to some, those who tend to be more authoritarian follower types who choose the authority of his opinions over other popular persuaders.
And this is precisely the profile that tended to vote for Xrumpf in 2016 — authoritarian followers. Many of them are disaffected, resentful that they haven’t gotten more from life, blindly resenting those they perceive as having benefited more than they — including Wall Street figures and the financial elites, and they wanted change. Xrumpfism hasn’t provided it for many of them financially. They still have the same worries and insecurities around money and health, knowing how precarious their situations are.
The more deplorable among them will never leave Xrumpf’s side. But having someone they trust bring on someone like Bernie, and having his argument presented in a way that appeals to that person could make all the difference in how they vote. And the bonus here is that every one of those is a two-fer, A plus for the D’s and a minus for the R’s. I say hold our noses and let them vote for him. Who knows, maybe some of the loving enthusiasm of his campaign will rub off on them, maybe even make them less assholish. Crazier things have happened.
He’s NEVER accomplished anything and refuses to compromise!
This noxious little alternative fact gets tossed into comments here on an hourly basis. This is no wonder considering that the meme has been amplified by none other than the site owner himself.
Here is a LONG list of Sanders’ accomplishments
From the link: (there’s more there as well)
He passed more amendments than any other member during his time in the House. It earned him the nickname “The Amendment King.” He did this despite being a “socialist” and Congress being controlled by Republicans from 1994 to 2006, in one of the most partisan right-wing Houses ever.
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Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing under Sanders’ leadership.
He not only balanced the city budget, but undertook ambitious downtown revitalization projects. He even helped bring in a minor-league baseball team to the town, the Vermont Reds.
He sued the town’s local cable franchise and won reduced rates for customers.
Kept a developer from turning important waterfront property into condominiums, hotels, and offices to be used only by the wealthy and affluent. Instead, it was made into housing, parks, and public space. Even today, the area still has many parks and miles of public beach and bike baths, [sic] including a science center.
Provided new firms with seed funding, and helped businesses create trade associations. He funded training programs to give women access to nontraditional jobs and even gave special attention to women wanting to become entrepreneurs.
Voted as one of America’s best mayors by U.S. News & World Report in 1987.
He was also instrumental in passing VA reform, a process which required significant compromise and political horsetrading. He worked with John McCain to get it done in a Republican congress. It passed in each house by overwhelming numbers.
He’s dangerous! He’ll be a Left Wing Trump!
Yeah, I remember when he staged that armed insurrection in Vermont after he lost the governor’s race in 1986. It was an even bigger story than the Bowling Green Massacre, and the media covered it up for Sanders because they are SO in the tank for him :-)
Just ask Chris Matthews.
[Note: I hope to be awake by a reasonable hour in the morning. It is currently near 3AM west coast time. I will respond to comments as I can.]