Both on Daily Kos and at other Bernie supporters hangouts (reddit etc) the most heard argument why Bernie should stay in the race and win goes as follows: even if Hillary wins the popular vote and the pledged delegates race, the Super delegates should still switch to Bernie because he is “more electable” than Hillary.
Evidence for this is found in polls which suggest Bernie fares better against Trump than Hillary.
I want to discuss the weak points of this theory in this diary.
The first problem with this argument is the basic undemocratic nature of this argument. Super delegates have never gone against the popular vote/ pledged delegate count. In fact: when Obama gained more pledged delegates than Hillary did in 2008, the Supers switched to him.
Suggesting that even when Hillary basically wins the primaries, nets more pledged delegates and popular votes than Bernie, the Supers should still switch to Bernie, is a basic undemocratic argument. It can only stand when you say its okay for the establishment (the Supers) to ignore and override the election results.
Strange coming from Bernie supporters, who are always the first to cry about voters suppression, but support voters suppression when it benefits their candidate.
2: the electiability argument in itself.
Bernie lost…Duh.
If he’s so electable and such a strong candidate, than why didn’t he win the primaries? Why did Hillary net 3 million more votes than he did?
The results don’t really suggest he’s such a good / electable candidate, do they?
3: the main reason why this whole argument is so silly: Bernie has received a free ride from the Republicans so far. Republicans aren’t idiots, they desperately want to run against Bernie, because they know it will be so incredibly easy to destroy him.
They have attacked Hillary for 20+ years, they have Superpacs going after her with daily adds and they leave Bernie alone.
And: so did Hillary. She did at times attack Sanders (for example on gun control, or the auto bailout) but she never attacked his credibility or used dirt from his past.
And this is where the so called electability argument fails: once Bernie would be the democratic nominee, all gloves would go off.
The Republicans would so utterly destroy Bernie, that even his most fanatic supporters wouldn’t like him anymore.
Lets just look at how this might play out:
Bernie voted against the AmberAlert, he voted against laws that would increase sentences for child molesters. He wrote in his famous 70s essays how children should be allowed some room for sexual experiments.
Now in all fairness: such thoughts weren’t uncommon among hippies/lefties in the 70s. Little did we know about sexual predators, or even about incest.
Influenced by Freudian theories, the whole idea that small children should be able to express/ experience their sexuality seemed perfectly innocent.
But that’s not what the repubs will do to Bernie. They will use all these facts to make him look like a paedophile enabler, who actively protected sex offenders, while in congress.
Look at this little clip, which displays adds his 2006 opponent ran against him and while you do: notice Bernie’s reaction.
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Notice how he gets angry and walks out. There is a pattern of that, which will also be explored. Look at this clip:
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Is this a candidate that will be able to endure the attacks and nastiness of Trump?
As soon as Bernie is seriously questioned by the media he gets angry or walks out. How will he react when Trump will just stand there during a debate and call Bernie a commie paedophile enabler?
Is any of this fair? Nope its sick, disgusting and vile, but it IS what Repubs will do to him. It’s as vile and disgusting as the Benghazi attacks against Clinton, or the attacks which paint her as the nasty enabler of her husband’s affairs.
Now lets look at another side of Bernie:
The SU honeymoon, the time he spent in a kibbutz and the fact he refused to reveal the name of that kibbutz.
Why? Because there were plenty of socialist kibbutzes, but he spent his time in a Marxist/ Stalinist kibbutz (Shaar Ha'amakim). Or what about the time he worked for the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party?
Then there is his endorsement of Castro, his time spent celebrating Latin American dictators whose only commonality was that they hated the US.
I could go on and on here. Donald Trump and Repubs wouldn’t paint Sanders as a socialist, they’d none stop call him a communist. The commie from Vermont, who participated in a Nicaragua rally where the most heard chant was: Here, there, everywhere/ The Yankee will die.
Anyway: these are just a few of the attack lines the repubs would follow.
If you really believe that after 5 months of these adds/ attacks Bernie will still be electable you’re fooling yourself.
They will dig into the problems with Jane Sanders’ financial situation, the fact she is accused of federal bank fraud. The fact Jane received 200.000 campaign money. The fact Bernie really belongs to the 1%, but hides it by hiding his real estate assets.
www.aim.org/...
The fact Tad Devine basically enriches himself from campaign money:
www.thepeoplesview.net/...
Again: is any of this fair? Who gives a shit, when repubs start blasting away, they don’t care about the truth.
Hillary has experienced these disgusting attacks for 20+ years and she still stands. It did effect her favourability ratings though, which are pretty damn low.
But to suggest Bernie’s would fare any better after 5 months of repubs going after him is false and silly.
And while everything I wrote above might fall on deaf ears with bernie’s supporters: the Supers know all this and they wont change their position, especially not after enduring months of harassment and intimidation by Bernie’s supporters.
So, while we will still see another month of primaries, shall we agree to stop using these false undemocratic arguments that Bernie can still win at the convention, by flipping the supers?