Kos: Bernie's problem isn't the establishment

[Fresh_Start]

In raw vote totals, Sanders received about half the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire that he did in 2016. For example, in New Hampshire, he went from 152,193 votes in 2016 to 76,355 votes this year. Yes, it was a crowded field, but those aren’t the numbers of a candidate who is growing his base of support and expanding the electorate. If anything, it looks like a candidate who has worn out his welcome and has done little to remain relevant.

So now we see a consolidation in the field. What was a sense of victory and ebullience in the Sanders camp post-Iowa and post-New Hampshire—despite his anemic numbers—has now turned to fear and rage. “The establishment” is trying to stop Bernie and all that. But there was never anything stopping Sanders from building the kind of broad coalition that would allow him to approach an outright majority of the vote. They just never wanted to. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/2/1923555/-Bernie-s-problem-isn-t-the-establishment-it-s-his-lack-of-support

[msongs]

1. instead of coalitions building he has always disparaged non-followers nt

[NurseJackie]

4. Well, he's unifying a coalition AGAINST him. (Probably not what he had in mind.)

[Kahuna7]

19. lol!

[rebe303]

37. He doesn't get it

Exactly. What kind of"front runner" won't try to unify all kinds of Democrats and Independents?

[LiberalFighter]

40. That doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that.

[Blue_true]

16. Yes.

Go back to the 2017 elections, the Midterms, and the 2019 election. When a democratic candidate was not to his liking, he acted like the person didn't exists, even when it was the democrat versus a republican in a special election or General. Contrast Bernie's behavior to Biden, Biden was all over the place supporting Democratic Party nominees, even ones that he was politically out of step with.

[DinahMoeHum]

25. His "Justice Democrats" and "Our Revolution" people. . .

didn't exactly cover themselves in glory during the 2018 primaries, either.
They got wiped out by the more moderate Democrats, especially those in purple or formerly red districts. Those moderate Democrats went on to defeat GOP incumbents in the general elections of 2018 and gave the gavel back to Nancy Pelosi.

If they really want to "take over" the Democratic Party, they should actually join their local Democratic Party committee and become district leaders/precinct captains, etc. and work for change from the bottom up.

[LiberalFighter]

42. With their attitude I wouldn't want them to.

I want members that have maturity and are pragmatic.

[Gothmog]

60. The Gauzy Myth of the Sanders Campaign

I never considered sanders to be a serious candidate. sanders has zero major legislative accomplishments in large part because none of his fellow Democrats in Congress support his agenda. I do not understand the concept of a voter revolution . Without such a magical voter revolution, none of sanders' agenda could be adopted and I am not comfortable in relying on a magical voter revolution

I am not only one to doubt the seriousness of sanders as a candidate https://newrepublic.com/article/156883/gauzy-myth-sanders-campaign

After Tuesday night, the undeniable truth is that the entire Sanders campaign was predicated on a gauzy myth. If there were ever hidden armies of would-be Democratic voters yearning for a visionary presidential nominee uncontaminated by the compromises of life, then these Bernie Brigades still remain well camouflaged.

Sure, as Sanders stressed in his Wednesday statement, some of his policies are popular with primary voters. In Michigan, exit polls showed that replacing private health insurance with a government program had the support of nearly 60 percent of the people who went to the polls on Tuesday. But since the February 29 South Carolina primary, most Democratic primary voters have been unwilling to buy the entire Sanders package: politically unattainable goals, such as canceling $1.6 trillion in college debt, combined with attacks on corporate interests and the “billionaire class.”

After Sanders’s two presidential runs, voters possess a pretty clear-eyed sense of who he is. He is a gadfly, a goad, and a left-wing Pied Piper. These can be valuable traits in politics since the moderate, accommodationist wing of the Democratic Party sometimes needs outside pressure to force it to focus on causes larger than the next election. But Sanders was never cut out to be a traditional president forging alliances, brokering compromises, and dealing with the messiness of governing in a bitterly divided democracy. That simply isn’t Bernie’s skill set. And his lifelong rigidity would have become an even larger governing problem if he ever succeeded Trump as president.

What Democratic voters have created by rallying around Biden is the American equivalent of the Popular Front, which, in the 1930s, was a broad, multiparty alliance against fascism in France and other democratic countries. The exit polls from Michigan echo a sentiment found in almost all primaries—voters, by a 58-to-37 percent margin, want a candidate who can defeat Trump more than someone who agrees with them on all issues.....

Sanders will undoubtedly fight on in the hopes that he can shape the Democratic platform. The problem with that strategy is that, even if Biden were to commit to supporting, say, Medicare for All, as a price for party harmony in Milwaukee, it would be a meaningless pledge. Currently, fewer than one-third of the Democrats in the Senate support eliminating private insurance. And if Chuck Schumer succeeds in getting the chamber back in Democratic hands, the new additions to their ranks are likely to be moderates like John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Steve Bullock of Montana, none of whom support Medicare for All.

There was never going to be a magical voter revolution and there was never any substance to sanders' campaign or any chance that sanders' agenda would be adopted in the real world

[Blue_true]

61. Sanders never had a "voter Revoultion".

He has not and is not exciting the mythical armies of voters to vote and sweep aside, to them, the calcified opposition in the Democratic Party. He can't remotely convince the party's most important block of voters to support him.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. And:

When you can’t get a third of the support, you have no business being put in charge.

But here’s the thing: He didn’t need to be stuck at less than a third of the party’s support. He could’ve set the stage to hoover up the support from other candidates the way that Joe Biden appears to be doing. So why isn’t that (seemingly) not happening?

Because when you make a career out of demonizing Democrats and signaling to your supporters to demonize any detractors, well, that’s called “burning bridges.” And burning bridges is a shitty way to rally support. That means insulting and calling any Democrats who don‘t support you “neoliberals” and “corporatists” and whatever other insipid insult isn’t helpful. And yes, while all candidates had overly zealous supporters, only one campaign’s supporters were systematically awful, and only one’s were apparently encouraged to be so by the campaign’s top brass.

[gollygee]

6. Yup

He is incredibly divisive. When you've divided yourself from almost everyone, they might not want to vote for you.

[empedocles]

27. Yes

[NCProgressive]

3. Very astute analysis

[SunSeeker]

5. Spot on. nt

[SidDithers]

7. DU rec...

Good article.


Sid

[we can do it]

8. Whiny white men blaming everyone else for their shortcomings.

Same as it ever was....same as it ever was.

[Pachamama]

26. +1000000

You just made me have David Byrne in my head....

[we can do it]

29. 🍻☺️

[Docreed2003]

34. +1 for your post

+1000 for the reference

[rebe303]

41. Good point

Please keep fingers crossed for Elizabeth to at least win here in Massachusetts

[TwilightZone]

9. 2016 gave him a false sense of the size of his "revolution"

He and his supporters never understood or acknowledged that roughly half of his support in 2016 wasn't pro-Bernie, it was anti-Hillary. His current numbers pretty much reflect that.

Note to potential alerters and/or jurors: I am stating a fact and have no desire to argue about it or 2016. My comment is clearly relevant to the article.

[Gothmog]

10. From day 1, Bernie built a campaign to appeal to 30%.

Link to tweet

So if, from day one, they didn’t think they needed more than 30%, why would they actually run a campaign and build a culture designed to win more than his 30% ceiling? As that article notes, even way back in early 2019, Sanders was picking fights and creating enemies out of potential allies.

We saw that in Sanders’ refusal to broaden his message to bring in more people. When I said exactly that on Meet the Press, that “the problem with Bernie Sanders is that he has the exact same message he had four years ago” when he lost to Hillary Clinton 60-40, the response from the Sanders campaign was, well, this:

Link to tweet

If your message wasn’t a majority message four years ago, and you want to win, wouldn’t you tweak it? They didn’t. Proudly and explicitly did not tweak it. They had zero intention of growing new support by broadening and expanding their message. (Sanders famously refused to even inject more biography into his stump speech to humanize him more.)

Sanders and his campaign saw that their ceiling was 30%, and they built an entire strategy around winning with 30%. That means that instead of seeing the other 70% of voters as allies, they saw them as THE ENEMY. Even when there was ideological alignment.

[Fresh_Start]

14. Until this weekend...I was afraid his 30% would be enough

so I am very grateful to Pete and Amy and the voters of South Carolina to help us see the way out of this mess.

Based on Pete's performance in Iowa in particular, you could see a strong strategic thinker looking how to take advantage of the caucus and win in spite of Sanders much deeper pockets and longer time on the playing field.

[Gothmog]

17. How Bernie Sanders Thinks He'll Win the Nomination

This is an older article that shows that sanders has been shooting for a contested convention without majority support https://politicalwire.com/2019/04/18/how-bernie-sanders-thinks-hell-win-nomination/

The Atlantic: “He’s counting on winning Iowa and New Hampshire, where he was already surprisingly strong in 2016, and hoping that Cory Booker and Kamala Harris will split the black electorate in South Carolina and give him a path to slip through there, too. And then, Sanders aides believe, he’ll easily win enough delegates to put him into contention at the convention. They say they don’t need him to get more than 30 percent to make that happen.”

[AlexSFCA]

30. is this why Kamala dropped out early?

to make sure Biden gets the black vote? Very proactive of her.

[LiberalFighter]

44. How much scrambling is Sanders' campaign doing now?

[Docreed2003]

35. Spot on assessment by Markos

Every move Sanders has made has further alienated potential Democratic voters...case in point Why give David Sirota, Briahna Joy Gray, and Nina Turner such positions of power on his team if his intent wasn't to shore up his former supporters and alienate the rest??

[Cha]

11. Truth.. Amen!

[betsuni]

12. First post in comment section: "Better put yer flak jacket on, soldier."

So true.

[Fresh_Start]

15. There are a lot of good articles on Daily Kos

it hasn't become the Kardashians of political sites like HuffPost.

[betsuni]

22. I read one yesterday and now this one today, will definitely go there more.

I don't remember why I stopped visiting Daily Kos. I used to visit a lot of sites, but they became so anti-Democratic and unreliable that there was no point. Glad the tide seems to be turning.

[HarlanPepper]

24. Huffpo has gone bananas.

Glad I’m not the only one who has noticed. I get tired of opinion pieces being presented as news stories.

[cry baby]

13. Kick for good article. nt

[Gothmog]

18. sanders has been hoping for contested convention with only 30% of delegates

Link to tweet

[Fresh_Start]

20. he clearly did not expect pre-super Tuesday consolidation

so yay democrats for connecting the dots.

[Gothmog]

62. How do you demand concessions when you're getting the brake beat off of you?

Link to tweet

[DaDeacon]

21. Let's all relax till tomorrow

I feel after tomarrow night we will have a real handle on the fight ahead. Winning early means nothing if you can't hold on. If he is still leading after tomorrow we can better see the field for what it is. Honestly less vote totals in a crowded field is nothing if you still win.

[Gothmog]

50. How are you feeling after Super Tuesday

sanders had hit his ceiling of support and so lost a good number of states

Link to tweet

[DaDeacon]

52. It's under 100 delegates

It is a 2 man race... the next debate will decide that latter states. Having a few good night as I was told wasn't enough to claim victory. I don't pretend to think Biden is the best candidate in fact I'm sure he is not BUT like stated many times whoever gets the win gets my vote and my work for November.

[Gothmog]

54. Is Florida important?

Last edited Thu Mar 5, 2020, 06:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Hortensis]

23. Too soon to assume Russia and the Repubs

have failed with him. They're very good at their corruption of voter understanding and election subversion and have no intention of losing.

Tomorrow will give us a better picture of where we're at.

[highplainsdem]

28. Wow. And that's from the Daily Kos staff.

[BigmanPigman]

38. That was my reaction too.

[Quixote1818]

31. Is it possible it's showing Hillary was not that popular and neither was

Sanders? Sanders pulled from Hillary but not from better candidates.

[doc03]

32. Bernie's problem is the Electoral vote not any establishment. Outside of

the solid Blue states he is going to get clobbered and we will lose the House and forget about taking the Senate.

[C Moon]

33. I voted for Sanders in 2016, but didn't even consider him this year.

[relayerbob]

36. Bear in mind also

30% of the Democrats, which are (roughly) half of the voting population, means only 15% of the population as a whole wants to vote for him. Not exactly a groundswell.

[Gothmog]

48. Where is sanders' magical voter revolution?

[subana]

43. yeah, I never believed the Bernie BS that he could win over Trump

they always say that Bernie polls better against Trump & that he will inspire more people to vote for him over Trump. The polling is not a big deal, a majority of dems consistently polls better against Trump!

he does inspire passion in some people but there has been no proof that he could inspire more people to join him over Trump!

Because when you make a career out of demonizing Democrats and signaling to your supporters to demonize any detractors, well, that’s called “burning bridges.” And burning bridges is a shitty way to rally support.

It's too bad he never considered that it might be a bad idea to criticize democrats while running as a democrat every 4 years!! Now I understand why Hillary said no one likes him!

[wiley]

45. Best thing Marcus has written in years

Really tired of hearing about the nasty Bernie rod that don't ever represent Bernie. How many of them are there? Not playing this shit anymore. Voting for Biden tomorrow. Enough!

[PatrickforO]

46. Yes. This is a very good observation. I like Bernie's platform very much,

because I believe the things he's advocating would make life materially better for most Americans, and would do a great deal to reverse the dangerous imbalance in wealth we presently have.

But I have to confess a bit of unease at Bernie's supporters. They are pretty militant. This was the case in 2016 and certainly holds true now. The militancy isn't helpful because it is driving away people. I suspect it's the same thing that has happened so many times in history - a leader speaks of the need for revolutionary change in attitude, and this is mistaken by his/her followers as calling for an actual revolution.

Bernie's 'political revolution,' which he's taken a lot of flack for, is simply an effort to get us all back into good civics - following through with our responsibilities as citizens of a republic.

His people, indeed a number of young people I've spoken to, are ready to go out and hit the streets because they are furious about being debt slaves to student loans, having shitty healthcare and all that.

I've often written open statements to oligarchs on various online venues saying - hey, throw the middle class a bone. Give us healthcare and you can go on screwing us for the next seventy five years, just like you have been for the last seventy five. But no one really listens to me.

And we must confront the age-old truth that power NEVER concedes anything unless it is FORCED. Justice, real social and economic justice, may well come only through revolution - either the good kind that Bernie is advocating or the other kind, which I don't even want to think about and am horrified at the prospect of living through.

[Gothmog]

47. sanders is at 30% of the party which means 70% of the party opposes him

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

49. Bernie Sanders Hit His Ceiling

sanders has a ceiling of support which means that he will trouble winning the nomination https://politicalwire.com/2020/03/04/bernie-sanders-hit-his-ceiling/

“The surprisingly decisive result left Sanders, a candidate who prides himself on his pile-driver-like consistency, facing a new challenge: finding a second act that can appeal to voters beyond the fervid base he has established. The evening’s clearest message was that while the senator from Vermont has inspired a passionate depth of support, the breadth of his coalition remains too limited to win the nomination.”

“Sanders reached 33% or more of the vote in just five of the 14 states that voted (including his home state of Vermont) and did not exceed 36%, his share in Colorado. Biden had a higher ceiling: He won at least 39% in seven states and roughly a third of the vote in three others.”

Said pollster Stan Greenberg: “Sanders has made no effort to reach out beyond his voters, his movement, his revolution. It just has not grown. It is an utterly stable vote that is grounded in the very liberal portion of the Democratic Party, but he’s so disdainful of any outreach beyond that base. He seems content to just keep hitting that drum.”

[Gothmog]

51. Joe is winning white voters without a college degree

Link to tweet

[Cha]

53. Kick!

[Gothmog]

55. sanders' only hope was to split the sane vote

sanders was counting on the sane vote being split and is upset that the moderate candidates have dropped out and endorsed Joe

Link to tweet

[NurseJackie]

56. it looks like a candidate who has worn out his welcome and has done little to remain relevant.

it looks like a candidate who has worn out his welcome and has done little to remain relevant.

That's it exactly. Perfectly described!

[Gothmog]

57. sanders campaign was planning on winning nomination with 30% of the delegates

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

58. Bernie's grievance politics consolidated the left to a 30% losing minority

sanders' cap is near 30% https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/5/1924709/-Bernie-s-grievance-politics-consolidated-the-left-to-a-30-losing-minority

Interesting thought, speaking of Elizabeth Warren and her inability to gain traction with the Bernie Sanders left:

Link to tweet

’ve wracked my brain wondering why so many on the progressive left, in this day and age of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, would align with an old white guy when there were clear alternatives (unlike in 2016), and this makes as much sense as anything. One commenter on my last piece, on why Bernie Sanders fizzled upon contact with actual voters, wrote that, “for Bernie to do some of the work kos is asking, he would have to change his message in a way a dependably left politician will never do.”
Interesting—what made Sanders a “dependably left politician,” but Warren not? Clearly, it wasn’t actual policy or ideology. Krugman’s “grievance” is as good as an explanation as any.

Remember, the Sanders campaign decided early on that his path to the nomination consisted of keeping his core 30% base intact, and nothing more: As The Atlantic noted, “And then, Sanders aides believe, he’ll easily win enough delegates to put him into contention at the convention. They say they don’t need him to get more than 30 percent to make that happen.”
That was important, as we’ve discussed, because it set the tone for the entirety of their campaign—from othering the supporters of other candidates as “neoliberal corporatist shills” (and worse) to sticking with a message that had failed Sanders already in 2016, when only two candidates had been in the race.
And it’s shocking how close to 30% his results have been:

Sanders share of the vote
Iowa 26.5%
New Hampshire 25.6%
Nevada 40.5%
South Carolina 19.8%
Alabama 16.5%
Arkansas 22.4%
California 33.8%
Colorado 36.1%
Maine 32.9%
Massachusetts 26.7%
Minnesota 29.9%
North Carolina 24.1%
Oklahoma 25.4%
Tennessee 25%
Texas 30%
Utah 34.6%
Vermont 50.8%
Virginia 23.1%
Take a guess what his overall percentage is so far.
28.9%

[Gothmog]

59. The Establishment did not destroy sanders-He destoryed himself

I never considered sanders to be a serious candidate. sanders has zero major legislative accomplishments in part because none of his fellow Democrats really want to support his agenda. I do not understand sanders' political revolution and how this revolution would somehow force congress to adopt his agenda. The only thing that is clear is that sanders attacks on other Democrats and the Democratic Establishment have backfired

Link to tweet

If you look back at Sanders’ share of the vote in each primary, he hasn’t actually lost ground. In Iowa and New Hampshire, he got a quarter of the vote. In Nevada, he got a third. In South Carolina, he got a fifth. On Super Tuesday, he stayed in the same range, drawing about a quarter of the vote in the states he lost and a third of the vote in the states he won. What hurt him was that Biden increased his share of the vote, while Sanders didn’t. As other candidates dropped out, their voters went to Biden, not Sanders. And one reason for this pattern is Sanders’ constant message of antagonism. He has cultivated enemies instead of friends. Now he’s paying the price. …..

Sanders’ first defeat, on Feb. 29 in South Carolina, was a warning that he needed to assuage fears about his candidacy. Instead, he celebrated those fears as proof of his success. On March 1, he proudly told a crowd in San Jose, California, that the turnout at his rallies was alarming the establishment. The next day, in St. Paul, Minnesota, he repeated that message. When Sanders was informed that fellow candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar were dropping out and endorsing Biden, he said it was no surprise, since the corporate elite was out to get him. And when Maddow asked Sanders whether he was specifically running against “the Democratic Party establishment”—not just a generic “political establishment”—he replied: “Democratic establishment. Yes.”

At his rallies, Sanders has continued to call for a “political revolution.” And he has added another villain to his list of enemies: the stock market. When the market surged after Super Tuesday, Sanders, far from welcoming this news, cited it as evidence of Biden’s corruption. “We’re taking them all on,” he said of the companies whose valuations had increased. “The stock market went up this morning ’cause they thought that Biden did well.” Sanders told Maddow that “the health care industry and the drug companies did very well” because “Biden had a good day.” And he warned these companies that if he got his way, their stocks would suffer. “I got some bad news for those guys,” he said. “Don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched.” ….

Meanwhile, Sanders has escalated his talk of conspiracies. On Sunday, he claimed that “the establishment put a great deal of pressure” on Buttigieg and Klobuchar to “force” them out of the race. “What was very clear from the media narrative and what the establishment wanted,” he told George Stephanopoulos, “was to make sure that people coalesced around Biden and try to defeat me.” On Wednesday, after his defeats, Sanders again rebuked “the Democratic establishment” and insisted that “our campaign has won the ideological debate.”

What Sanders fails to understand is the connection between his defeats and his rhetoric. It wasn’t the media or the Democratic National Committee that turned Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and millions of voters against him. It was Sanders. His relentless message of conflict, along with his expanding list of putative enemies, attracted a fraction of the electorate but alienated everybody else. As the primaries narrowed to a two-man race, his base was no longer enough to win. The establishment didn’t destroy Bernie Sanders. He destroyed himself.