I do not mean this to be a personal endorsement for Bernie Sanders. It is meant as a political science exercise.
Here’s a chance to start to think about the possibility that Bernie Sanders will win the nomination and run against Trump and share your do and don’t ideas about how he can best beat Trump. Here’s a chance to be a political scientist with your suggestions in the comments.
I’ll start with some of my own ideas and thoughts and hopefully this will open a discussion among the amateur political scientists here on Daily Kos.
My first “don’t” goes counter to the illustration I made as a tweet (here) which I thought was more colorful than Joe Biden’s combative “I’ll beat Trump like a drum.”
Perhaps we can call my suggestion for engaging Trump is choosing the “rope-a-dope” over getting into a slugfest with Donald Trump.
For those who don't recall how Muhammad Ali used this when he beat champion George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle, it is a boxing tactic of pretending to be trapped against the ropes, goading an opponent to throw tiring ineffective punches.
This is how Wikipedia describes the technique:
The rope-a-dope is performed by a boxer assuming a protected stance (in Ali's classic pose, pretending to be trapped and lying against the ropes, which allows much of the punch's energy to be absorbed by the ropes' elasticity rather than the boxer's body). The boxer keeps their guard up and is prepared for the incoming blows while looking for opportunities to counter punch their opponent, who by mounting an offensive may have left themself open to counters. By being in a defensive posture and being prepared for the incoming blows, the boxer decreases their chances of being caught with a clean flush blow, as ideally a significant portion of the punches will land on the boxer's hands and arms, or will miss completely as a result of the boxer slipping the punch. Additionally, if the opponent lacks stamina, their power will decrease throughout the fight as they lose energy, and essentially "wastes" many punches into the boxer's guard.
However, a boxer employing this tactic must have a great chin and great ability to withstand punishment to be able to withstand the punches that do get through the boxer's defenses and land. Offensively, the boxer employing this tactic will look to exploit mistakes made in his or her opponent's attack by countering if the opponent has left himself or herself open. They will also look to mount short bursts of offensive attacks in between their opponent's attack, being sure to immediately get back in their defensive posture as to not leave themself open to a counter attack. Despite the name, the boxer does not have to be against the ropes in order to rope-a-dope the opponent.
I suggest that Bernie’s best modification of the technique involves a way of fighting back that actually combines pugilism with pacifism. He and Michael Bloomberg are the most pugilistic of the candidates anyway, so in this respect I think Bernie being Bernie is just fine. However I think his best approach would be to apply many of the basic principles of Gandhism minus the spirituality.
- All social action should be governed by the same simple set of moral values, of which the main elements are selflessness, non-attachment, nonviolence and active service.
- No society, state or any other institution has any worth or importance apart from its part in contributing to the growth of the individuals of which it is composed.
- Means are at least as important as, and often even more important than, ends. It is, of course, desirable that ends should be good and reasonable. But they merely give a direction to life while the means adopted constitute life itself. Therefore, if the means are right, that is, if they conform to the tests of truth and nonviolence, even mistakes, errors and failures aid the growth of the individual. On the other hand, wrong means corrupt the soul and no good can ever come out of them. Gandhi repudiated categorically the idea that ends justify the means. This implies the rejection of war, espionage and crooked diplomacy, even when they are adopted for the so-called noble ends of defending the country, religion or humanity.
In practical American presidential political campaigning against a despot what this means is basically ignoring Trump’s lashing out, his insults, and especially his trying to demonize him as a dangerous socialist.
In other words he should let Trump be Trump.
Let him be a kind of cartoonish Don Quixote tilting at windmills not by mocking him, there are plenty of others who will do that (me included, here and here for example), but by ignoring him as someone whose utterances speak for themselves as disqualifying himself for holding the highest office in the land.
The more Trump feels he isn’t personally getting under Bernie’s skin the more off the rails his ranting will become. Trump will elicit cheers from his rally crowds by hurling out new insults, and not because he’s a smart political operative but because he learns by operant conditioning. He’s like a lab rat whose behavior is governed by rewards (food or for Trump cheers) or punishments (either no food of shocks or for Trump, silence).
I think Bernie should avoid getting into the intellectual weeds of defining socialism, to mix metaphors, the field of weeds can easy become a minefield. Hardly anybody among the voters who are getable from among those who
voted for Trump knows anything about what democratic socialism really is and how even he doesn't fit the real definition of being a democratic socialist. Trump will try to define it. Bernie should only explain what he will do for those voters.
About as far as I think he should go even talking about socialism when Trump confronts him in the debates about this is saying he believes in doing what is best for people like you (looking at the camera), and saying that if you want to call that socialism put a hyphen in the word and emphasize the social part which means that it is a government that works to do what will benefit of all, not the upper 1%.
“Not me, Us” is the Sander’s official slogan. In my opinion as an unofficial political scientist (I am a retired psychotherapist) it isn’t bad, but I think he could come up with something better than “Not Me, Us.”
In 2008 Obama's campaign used the slogan "Change we can believe in" and the chant "Yes We Can". In 2012 he used the slogan “Forward” about which the LA Times wrote: “Four years ago, Barack Obama ran on another one-word slogan, “Change.” Now, as President Obama prepares to hold the first public campaign rallies for his reelection, his team is giving a sense of what his pitch to voters will look like.”
I think Bernie’s best tag line, if not a slogan, is still is “the upper 1%” as it reminds those who voted for Trump that they are not, nor will they ever be in the “privileged class” which is another term he can use to good effect. He could put this link on his webpage, the pictures speaking 1000 words.
I can envision a number of ads:
This is an effective line which Bernie is already using in his speeches:
Now, be a political scientist and share your advice on how Bernie could beat Trump.