Last year Bernie Sanders convinced me that prisoners should be allowed to vote. The issue hadn't crossed my mind until he raised it, but I quickly realized he was right. Politicians neglect and mistreat groups who are denied the vote, and the horrific cruelties of the US prison system are a result.
Fresh new ideas like this were the best thing about the Sanders campaign. Polls showed that most Democrats agreed with him on issues like Medicare for All [M4A], even as they voted for Joe Biden. With Sanders underperforming his 2016 numbers, his inner circle is now deciding whether to end the campaign. It's a good time to consider why he performed so badly despite the popularity of his biggest ideas.
His campaign combined good policy directions with a dumb political idea: that progress on issues like M4A would require overthrowing the Democratic establishment. As far as I can tell, this idea came from staff and allies who didn't really understand the Democratic Party and didn't understand how to engage constructively with people in it.
Things started well in 2017. Bernie got 16 Senate co-sponsors for M4A. The stage was set for a campaign that could absorb reformist elements of the establishment and thus become a majority of the party. What you'd want is a hopeful and optimistic message, embracing establishment figures who came reasonably close to Bernie's position. The establishment itself hadn't coalesced around a single candidate like Hillary, making it possible for Bernie to win a majority by incorporating enough of its leftward fragments.
Having spent time on Twitter during this primary, I can tell you that this isn't the Sanders campaign we got. One avoided conflict with Sanders' supporters more by taking positions far from him, as Biden and Klobuchar did, than by coming closer like Warren. Buttigieg, ever the political calculator, saw what was happening and abandoned his support for M4A. Obama was presented more as a centrist enemy than as a Democratic friend. The message of the campaign was enmity between it and the party, to the point that top Sanders activists like Shaun King don't realize that lefty Senators like Brian Schatz agree with them.
Fresh new ideas like this were the best thing about the Sanders campaign. Polls showed that most Democrats agreed with him on issues like Medicare for All [M4A], even as they voted for Joe Biden. With Sanders underperforming his 2016 numbers, his inner circle is now deciding whether to end the campaign. It's a good time to consider why he performed so badly despite the popularity of his biggest ideas.
His campaign combined good policy directions with a dumb political idea: that progress on issues like M4A would require overthrowing the Democratic establishment. As far as I can tell, this idea came from staff and allies who didn't really understand the Democratic Party and didn't understand how to engage constructively with people in it.
Things started well in 2017. Bernie got 16 Senate co-sponsors for M4A. The stage was set for a campaign that could absorb reformist elements of the establishment and thus become a majority of the party. What you'd want is a hopeful and optimistic message, embracing establishment figures who came reasonably close to Bernie's position. The establishment itself hadn't coalesced around a single candidate like Hillary, making it possible for Bernie to win a majority by incorporating enough of its leftward fragments.
Having spent time on Twitter during this primary, I can tell you that this isn't the Sanders campaign we got. One avoided conflict with Sanders' supporters more by taking positions far from him, as Biden and Klobuchar did, than by coming closer like Warren. Buttigieg, ever the political calculator, saw what was happening and abandoned his support for M4A. Obama was presented more as a centrist enemy than as a Democratic friend. The message of the campaign was enmity between it and the party, to the point that top Sanders activists like Shaun King don't realize that lefty Senators like Brian Schatz agree with them.
Bernie's campaign could've instead advertised M4A as building on the coverage expansions of Obamacare. Knowing that Congress would drastically revise the details of any Presidential proposal, every co-sponsor could've been treated as an ally, with attacks reserved mainly for those opposed to the general idea of Medicare for All.
The anti-establishment message itself seems to have caused Sanders trouble with the black political establishment in the South. Biden defeated Sanders 81-15 in Mississippi, where the only Congressional Democrat and the Senate nominee are both black. Jim Clyburn explained his decisive endorsement of Biden partly as a response to Sanders' anti-establishment message, which he took as an attack on himself. And an unfriendly attitude towards Obama was not going to help.
There are all kinds of problems with the Democratic Party as a whole, as with any large institution. American politics is full of legalized corruption, and politics everywhere is full of self-serving people. But if you need corrupt people's votes to pass something like M4A, the first thing to do is to figure out what currency they accept. If they need time, give them time until you actually need their votes.
With the right strategy, Bernie could have won this primary. His ideas are largely popular within the party. But attacking Democratic establishment figures isn't the way to win over Democratic primary voters. I suppose that's what one should expect.
The anti-establishment message itself seems to have caused Sanders trouble with the black political establishment in the South. Biden defeated Sanders 81-15 in Mississippi, where the only Congressional Democrat and the Senate nominee are both black. Jim Clyburn explained his decisive endorsement of Biden partly as a response to Sanders' anti-establishment message, which he took as an attack on himself. And an unfriendly attitude towards Obama was not going to help.
There are all kinds of problems with the Democratic Party as a whole, as with any large institution. American politics is full of legalized corruption, and politics everywhere is full of self-serving people. But if you need corrupt people's votes to pass something like M4A, the first thing to do is to figure out what currency they accept. If they need time, give them time until you actually need their votes.
With the right strategy, Bernie could have won this primary. His ideas are largely popular within the party. But attacking Democratic establishment figures isn't the way to win over Democratic primary voters. I suppose that's what one should expect.
