So here’s something Marco Rubio is going to say over and over and over again. So will the eventual GOP nominee even if that’s not Marco Robo.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/02/17/3750279/marco-rubio-bernie-sanders-radicalized/
“The Democratic Party has been taken over by radical left-wing elements,” Rubio said, adding he doesn’t understand why people have been calling out Republicans for moving right-ward during the election while Sanders — an avowed democratic socialist — won New Hampshire and is gaining in national polls. “The Democratic party has been radicalized,” he said.
Rubio also urged voters who supported Sanders’ agenda to move to another country.
“If you want to live in a socialist country, why not move to a socialist country?” He asked. “We want to be America.”
This will be the line of attack employed against Sanders should he actually win the nomination. It’s a line of attack that Republicans have used against Democrats since FDR, but this time, should Bernie be the nominee, it will be even more effective than usual because his own identification as a “democratic socialist” will add fuel to the fires that erupt in Republicans’ reptilian brains.
Furthermore, the Democratic party will be damaged for a couple of election cycles at least. Hence “The Democratic Party has been taken over by radical left-wing elements” and “The Democratic party has been radicalized.” This will be the message the GOP Marcolizes in an endless loop should Sanders win. Hell, they’re starting to pound it now that he’s won New Hampshire and is, as Rubio says, “in the lead” of the Democratic nomination race.
Here’s where I insert the obligatory claim to party fealty: Should Bernie Sanders win the nomination, I will work for his election because we cannot let the GOP control the executive branch. Furthermore, I personally do NOT fear socialism and think it’s to our country’s detriment that many Americans do. But many Americans do—we old progressives and Northern millennials aside. (Southern and rural millennials tend to be more influenced by conservative elders.)
Now please feel free to line up and shoot the messenger.
But I hope that at least a few of you Sanders supporters consider that these GOP attacks are going to drive Sanders’ numbers way down should he win the nomination.
Why are they employing them now? Because they don’t want to miss the opportunity to smear the Democratic party as the party of “radical left-wing elements” while Bernie looks like a serious contender. After March 1, that window of opportunity will be closing—if we’re lucky.
If we’re not lucky, we’ll try like hell to trudge up a steep, steep hill to help Bernie Sanders win the election in November. I’m under no illusion that it will be a cakewalk to get Hillary across that finish line, either. But at least it won’t mean a greater likelihood of branding the only viable opposition party to GOP madness as the party of the “radical left-wing”—a charge which reliably blue states will shrug off but which won’t work so well in the necessary-to-win purple states.