In 2016, there was a toxic argument on the left in which it was posited, basically, that it was better for Donald Trump to win the election than Hillary Clinton because he would frack stuff up so bad that it would hasten a Bernie Sanders-style revolution.
And if you missed it and can’t believe it, because it sounds so crazy, here’s Susan Sarandon making that point exactly to Chris Hayes: "Some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately, if he gets in. Then things will really, you know, explode.”
Things did explode, with Trump managing to screw up literally everything he touched while, among other horrors, putting children in cages.
And yet here we are, with Bernie Sanders unable to grow past his 30% base. And while he got 43% of the vote in 2016, he’s at 29% today and could fall even farther as more states vote. Instead of ushering in a glorious political revolution, Trump’s chaos made Democratic voters even more cautious and unwilling to take risks in their primary choice. And we ended up with Joe Biden.
So remember that when the usual suspects make the same argument this year, that it’s better for Trump to win than Biden, to help create even riper conditions for revolution. You know it’s coming. And it’ll be just as idiotic this year as it was four years ago.