Bernie Sanders supporters need to stop with this sort of thing.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders need to stop begging Elizabeth Warren to come rescue them. It’s sad, stupid, pathetic, and utterly futile. Why? Let us count the ways.
1) We don’t know that Bernie Sanders would’ve endorsed her by now. He had a heart attack, and that wasn’t enough for him to pass on the baton to a candidate with his ideology but greater crossover appeal. In 2016, he took it all the way to the convention, despite having been mathematically eliminated.
2) In national polling, Bernie is stuck in the low-to-mid 30s. Elizabeth Warren had about 15% support. Joe Biden is over 50%. Do these people do simple math? Warren had crossover appeal. Sanders does not. Even if he got all of her supporters, it still wouldn’t be enough, because, you know, math.
3) Why do Sanders supporters assume that Warren has full power over the voting choices of her supporters? Her core base was highly educated women—emphasis on the “highly educated.” These are voters who made reasoned decisions based on factors unique to each and every one of them. They are not bandwagoners (otherwise they would’ve hopped over to trendier candidates). Warren could endorse Mother Teresa, and those voters would still make up their own minds in the end.
4) Related to the above, if you want to win over those Warren voters, why not advocate for the things she did? Filibuster reform. Any of her bazillion plans. Bernie could even start with her coronavirus plan! They could talk about what kind of role and influence she might have in a hypothetical Sanders administration. But they don’t. Because Sanders sees no value in talking to anyone who doesn’t already support him. I’ll never get over this quote:
If you’re a black voter who loves and respects Jim Clyburn, one of our nation’s greats, how else can you read this but, “You’re not worth talking to unless you support me”? Instead, he othered him with, “His politics are not my politics.”
You talk to everyone, especially if a) you really want to be president, and b) you want legislative allies to enact your agenda. But Sanders, his surrogates, and his supporters aren’t comfortable with the kind of friend-making that wins influence and respect—even if those friends might support someone else. Instead, they insistently demand that the woman bend the knee to the guy who gaslit her on national TV and called her a liar.
And related: Sanders supporters have been absolutely godawful to the supporters of other candidates, including Warren. Now their argument is, “Oh, you won’t support Medicare for All because some people were mean?” As if it was that easy. This thread by Dante Atkins is good, as a primer:
It’s good: Go read it. But I’ll add what I’ve been saying for a while now: Sanders’ campaign was built on reaching the convention with 30% of the delegates and then cajoling delegates into picking Sanders. That informed everything—from Sanders’ refusal to update his message to be more inclusive, to othering opponents, to looking the other way when his online supporters spewed toxic misogyny and personal bile (such as the snake emojis) at Warren and her supporters. Their tack has been, from the beginning, “With us or against us.” So how can they say, to the very people they othered, “Never mind, now you’re with us!”? It was always strategically stupid, and while, yes, there were overzealous online supporters of all candidates, none approached the systematic awfulness of the Sanders crowd, and it’s because they took their cue from Sanders and his angry exclusionary politics.
Also, most Warren supporters are smart enough to know that Sanders is not serious about Medicare for All.
He opposes filibuster reform. How was he supposed to pass Medicare for All, needing 60 votes in the Senate, when he doesn’t even have the votes in a Democratic-controlled House? He never explained why because he’s never been serious about governing. Warren supporters loved Warren because she was a practical liberal, not just one full of feel-good angry rhetoric. She had a realistic plan to expand health care. Sanders does not have one and has never had one.
So those attempts to shame Warren supporters into supporting Bernie by claiming, “I guess you don’t support M4A after all” are utter bullshit. Neither does Bernie in any real practical sense.
Next.
5) I’m not sure how Bill de Blasio can look more pathetic. From his ridiculous and short-lived presidential bid (when he was polling underwater at home), to, well, this. From a former Hillary Clinton staffer:
6) But there’s one real reason that Warren should ignore all this begging: It would be politically dumb not to, and Warren doesn’t do dumb. Why lash herself to the sinking USS Bernie Sanders when it’s clear that Joe Biden is going to be the nominee?
She’s not someone who values ideological purity over practical progress. For her, it's not enough to be angry and rail against the system. She gets stuff done. So it would make zero sense to cast her lot with the purists and their losing effort (at 30%, they’re not even close to viability), and makes sense instead to work on getting concessions from Biden as a condition for helping bring the party back together in the spring.
Biden needs the party’s left flank. Period. He can’t possibly be as strategically stupid as Hillary Clinton was in picking Tim Kaine and acting like voters had no choice but to back her against Donald Trump. They need to have all learned from 2016. So who better to represent us and get the necessary concessions than Warren?
She’s making the smart play because she’s a smart person. Only one old white man will be president this November, and his name won’t be Sanders. She’s got a binder full of plans. It’s in everyone’s interest that Biden be forced to take a serious hard look at all of them.