Nothing makes me feel like we’re cooked as much as seeing leftists trying to claim that Bernie would have won. They’re every bit as much dead-enders as the Dems they complain about
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I really don’t have the time to haul that out. If you ask me if he would have, I’d have an answer, but FFS it is just so not relevant right now please let’s move forward to the challenges ahead k?
The truth of the fact is that Bernie would have been better placed entering the era of populist American politics than any of the centrist dem ghouls that the institutional dems backed. He almost certainly wouldn’t have won this election however.
He might not have won, but he absolutely, definitively would have proven that progressives are much better team players, willing to vote for the party candidate, than centrist Dems are!
Bernie wouldve won. Trump won because hes a populist, and he played to people's money concerns (even if ingeniunely). The democrats did not do that, they just talked about policy.
If anything I think this election shows what kind of complete alignment in in the media in destroying the Dem candidacy we'd have seen even in 2016 if he had been the nominee
Not to say that you shouldn't run a progressive candidate because the media will array itself against them, just that I don't think "he would've won" is remotely a foregone conclusion because of it
My friends still argue that the DNC cost Bernie the ‘16 nomination. It was not the fact that he was a carpet-bagging Democrat or that the entire premise of his campaign was to generate enough of the 18-29-year-olds (the most unreliable voting bloc in America) to vote for him (they didn’t).
Sanders is and will always be an outlier. He could never pull the voters that Biden got in 2020--anti-trump republicans, centrists, and mainstream voters. His base is ultra progressives and antifa. That's why he is and will always be bitter.
Sander's base is ultra progressives. Remember 2016, when they were attacking Clinton with misogyny and sexism when he was trying and failing to get the DNC nomination. They were gatekeeping what it meant to be liberal.
oh you mean when a few shitty teenagers made stupid comments online and you still think that was something that his whole "base" did? like come on none of that shit is real life
There are a lot of Bernie- Trump voters, they want to tear down the corrupt system in DC more than create a better one, and they dgaf about minorities or women’s, LGBTQ rights.
I doubt it, progressive politics and policies are getting their asses kicked to the curb even in California. The measure to remove SLAVERY from California law is about to lose.
Stancilism says we need to weave a narrative web for low-trust voters, and like it or not Bernie does do that. I don't necessarily think he would have one now, but if he had one in 2020 I think he and his loyal foot-soldiers could have dominated the TikToks etc. for 2024.
It's not that the party needs to move left or right or anything --- Biden moved left and go zero left credit for it --- it's about specific persons being in the halls of power based on the media networks around them
People through the "generational talent" stuff around with Obama, but I think we should maybe do that with Bernie too. (Yes, I know he don't have the general election results to back it up.)
The left sat back and watched MAGA do a hostile takeover of a stale party, build an alternative media messaging universe, and successfully sell their radical ideology to the masses while shunning MSM and the elite. Tell me this isn’t wet dream for the left, except for good not evil.
Oh 100%. I'm envious too! But the fact of the matter is that it won't work the same way for the left. Can't run the same strategy twice in a two party system for coalition reasons.
There's no candidate who unites America, luckily that's not really the point. We're talking about a leftist candidate who had broad grassroots support, energized nonvoters by speaking directly to their concerns, & almost definitely would have done better than Harris w 1/4 her institutional support
Yep. The right knows how to promote platform over person- all the interviews with evangelical leaders re: Trump show that. The left will tear down and burn up anyone who’s not 100% in line with their own specific POV. It’s destruction from within.
Honestly, the comparison is just utterly useless; any political universe in which Bernie Sanders was able to secure the Democratic nomination in 2024 is radically different from ours.
Well said! Bernie couldn’t win the Democratic nomination because he was too far left. Anyone who thinks he could have defeated Trump when the voting majority moved right has rocks in their head.
It's almost like there are more than the two options of Obama-era democrat and Bernie democrat. Wild suggestion I know but we need to build something new.
strangely enough some of us worked on both campaigns. I know right?
in 08 I was an "Obama boy" in the primary season, in '16 and '20 I was a "Bernie bro", if there's ever another relatively left candidate I would do work for, I expect another misgendered insult for it
Imo part of the problem is that trump ran a populist campaign and was seen as the outsider and Kamala ran an institutionalist campaign and was seen as the insider.
Regardless of the work Biden has done, our economy is so broken that people feel they're getting jipped, so they go for the populist.
I’m not sure Bernie would’ve won now or before, but I do at least personally know 3 trump voters (Pittsburgh-area white middle aged guys) who said they would’ve voted Bernie in 2016. They think the economy is rigged & pols bought & until dems really sell a positive alternative the cynical one wins
You’d think they’d learn something from what just happened. Anything. “people hate institutions, Biden’s an institutionalist and Trump’s a populist, maybe we should take note”
This is completely deluded. Obviously Will would have voted for him.
But if Bernie were the nominee, the breakdown of who voted D versus R would be nearly identical to the 2024 we got. It simply wouldn't have shaken things up that much.
Liberals and leftists are both mistaken when they see millions of nonvoters and impose on them some notion of *which version of left-of-center thinking* would be the most appealing. It's like thinking that Moo Deng would have eaten the Kamala Harris cookie if she'd just run her campaign better.
When did I say left-of-cente thinking? Putting aside that Bernie was more favored by people who don’t consider themselves Dems (which won’t win you a primary) people aren’t looking for something left-wing.
They’re looking for populism. rail against the elites and support the common person
Right, and my point is I don't think Bernie could deliver that now, I think people just have this idea that he could. It's no different from assuming that Tim Walz could deliver the midwest because he's a good ol' boy. Bernie's "populist magic" isn't as real as people think.
he's a guy who ran a campaign for state office in ilhan omar's district and lost due to winning only the wealthiest, whitest, and most racist parts of it
his theory of political change, almost literally, is that if the mods let him delete other people's posts dems would reign eternal
Funny you're saying this when even a cursory glance at national polls from 2020 would instantly prove that nobody likes Will Stancil and his goofy bullshit.
I don't think any Dem would have won in these circumstances.
I do think Sanders was correct in 2016 in his insistence for Dems to adopt more progressive populism and that they're paying the price now for ignoring that advice.
One of the most dispiriting things I ran into yesterday was not doomerism but redditors relitigating Hillary Clinton's illegal secret weapon of receiving endorsements timed for political effect. Like - even they were right (and they're not) - what do they want? Revenge? We'll get right on that.
I think the Bernistas make an important point that the Democratic Party made the wrong choice in 2016. I think about that a lot. But it's a real loser mentality to still be carrying that around like a grievance against centrists.
They keep trying to form a coalition with centrists, which breed wc voters who are rightly fed up with DC. Drain the swamp is a great message, Trump just defines good civil servants as the swamp vs moneyed interests, lobbyists who are the problem.
I don't think Bernie would've won but I think having an open primary where he could have at least stood up again if he wanted to would've been a LOT healthier for drawing in voters than what we got.
I think there's some consolation to be taken in how small the "leftist protest vote" actually was. The broad left appears to have mostly stuck together, but the middle was very angry about burrito taxi prices.
There is. It also points out that the overwhelmingly majority of Sanders' supporters also voted for Harris and Clinton (while still taking verbal beating and condescending attitude by some).
However, Bernie did win over other voters Dems struggle with.
His cratering in 2020 (compared to 2016) strongly suggests that a lot of his early voters were in fact just opposing Hillary Clinton specifically rather than centrists or whatever (in turn likely because she was the center of unrelenting negative narratives from the moment she stepped into politics)
I’ve always thought people reading sanders success in the Midwest, especially with men, as a sign of leftist popularity instead of rampant misogyny as a misread.
Michigan isn’t full of ‘working class’ leftist bros, just bros who didn’t want to vote for the lady, Clinton or now Harris
And I also think it's key to tease apart different elements of misogyny. It's not necessarily that people were arriving at a negative impression of HRC from, like, sexist first principles (though that did happen) so much as systemic sexism produced What People Are Supposed to Believe About Hillary
Is it a protest vote or is it not voting at all. I do wonder how the demographics of the 10 million voters from 2020 who didn’t vote this year break down.
It doesn’t actually matter I don’t think- those 10 million were not in the swing states where turnout was higher than 2020. I don’t think swing state Dem voters stayed home. We just lost voters to Trump.
Gonna take time before we know for sure, but so far it doesn't seem like there's any clear pattern in it that says "this particular angry subgroup specifically avoided voting for Harris." Unless Latino men were secretly the #1 protest vote group.
No we can't. Historically non voters *broadly* seem to match the electorate. Since the issues protestors were angriest about tended to be strongest in a handful of demographics, seeing them perform more or less the same as everyone else is probably the best evidence we will get.
Yes, but Harris is likely to end up with somewhere around 8-10 million less than Biden and Trump is gonna maybe be a million more than last time. It’s lower turnout no matter what.
Yeah, I don't have time for any of them. I love Bernie but he couldn't have won a general election. Also, I'm getting ready for trump to burn down the world. 🙄
They never have an explanation of how Bernie would have gotten all of this legislation through Mitch McConnell and a Republican congress. And they had oppo research on Bernie 3 feet high. There is no proof he would have won.
That’s not really the point. The point is a lot of middle class and wc voters feel like DC is broken and doesn’t help them. Those people don’t consider what McConnell will do when they vote. They want a big change in the system, and if Dems don’t offer it, they will choose Trump.
And doing this, they will get even further away from their own goals. I understand, for example, the frustration of ppl w/the Biden admin on issues like Palestine but in voting for Trump, they are picking something that is infinitely worse. Voting Trump is biting off your nose to spite your face.
As a Bernie supporter who voted for Hillary and fought hard for Harris, Sanders tapped into energy and segment of Americans that Dems now struggling with.
Bernie got young men, working class, Latinos, and even Rogan on his side.
I'm trying not to be shitty to people because we're all mad, but this feels like a really myopic take that manages to combine making up a dude to be mad at with conflating said imaginary dude with lapsed voters whom this election proved are key to national victories?
I think Bernie could have won if he were younger. Not sure he would have ran had there been a primary. But in a hypothetical race vs Trump, he would have done Rogan (much earlier) and probably cinched an endorsement or at least prevented Rogan from endorsing Trump.
The DNC doing everything in its power to smother Bernie's movement in the cradle in 2016 is a huge part of why we are where we are, and until something with similar organic energy forces the DNC to kneel or breaks the party altogether we won't have the tools to compete in this new world.
The rise of Trump and the rise of Bernie are like...weird mirrors of each other. Establishment Republicans capitulated to their party's new center of gravity while the Dems held and everything went from there.
The thing I wonder about is the future of populist rhetoric in the Dem Party. Faux-populism seems to have worked for the right.
Is that something they'd take from Bernie's campaign style? It seems like the appearance of technocracy, even when it helps people, is enough to scare voters...
... Biden's policies were often good for working people, but the part of Bernie's campaign people seemed to resonate with was his understanding of their anger and offering them the actual culprits.
Trump *pretends* to care about their anger and offers up scapegoats.
I think, because Establishment Dems are seen as people of decorum and restraint, and they try to offer hope as a message to angry people who feel embarrassed that they're struggling in some way, that is not received well by a lot of people.
So, long story short, I wouldn't be totally shocked...
My entire life is going to be the two dumbest groups of people on earth relitigating the 2016 election for 40 years, never coming an inch closer to understanding why Trump wins, while fascism swallows the world. Shoot the left and the center into the sun together and leave us in peace
I'm saying. In this general election. On the ballot together. Kamala ran ahead of Bernie Sanders. His theory of the case, which has become an article of faith amongst factions of the party, is demonstrably wrong.
The delta was literally 7k votes, with another liberal candidate running as an independent in the race. The Republican candidate significantly underperformed Trump, so it seems like most of the delta was just in people not filling out ballots or splitting the left vote.
I'd rather find a similar chart with just raw vote total. Some of this is under-vote, but Slotkin, for example, got a greater vote total. Klobuchar too.
In MI though, Harris lost and Slotkin (barely) won.
Also, Harris just isn't in office so suggesting she is more popular than people who actually got elected in their home state doesn't make a lotta sense.
I'd rather find a similar chart with just raw vote total. Some of this is under-vote, but Slotkin, for example, got a greater vote total. Klobuchar too.
I think we'll be loving in a different moment in 2028 than we are now, and can't predict who or what will be optimal for then. I'm mostly wanting to stave off any explanation for why we lost that suggests that the median voter theory isn't real.
thats not true man its also going to be looking like some kind of amphibian that crawled up from the sewer line and having people reel at the sight. so you have that to look forward to
They’re obviously not the dumbest; that title is won by the folks who voted for their state to keep abortion legal AND (Trump + other Republicans). Those are the dumbest people on earth. They don’t understand how anything works & it’s not like we didn’t tell them.
Who are you? Jesus Christ your demographic is intolerable, whatever your beliefs may be. The way you talk, carry yourself, and interact with the world lead me to believe it would be better off without YOU.
a lot of people are reeling after tuesday, and we're all coping in our own way to some degree, but it's that incredible you ran for office, were soundly and swiftly defeated, and it didn't even - for half a second - make you question your own understanding of politics or the world around you
It's weird that you characterize Will's loss as "soundly and swiftly defeated", when, by all accounts, he lost by a fairly small margin against someone who wasn't even massively different from him politically.
Agreed. Stancil was a major participant in the toxicity of the other place because of his insufferable inability to handle being wrong or taking a break from vomiting forth opinions 24/7
He doesn't have any ability to look inward so he doesn't grasp he's the terminally online poster he keeps warning about. I don't know if the man has any free time for anything except posting the same thing on social media 18 times a day.
i don't agree that corbyn in a post-brexit britain and sanders in the US circa 2016 or 2020 perfectly map onto each other, though i fully agree i'm way more skeptical of the theory of change they were pushing now
do you think there might be some pretty significant things you've failed to understand about the electorate (including but not limited to the segment that, given the chance, didn't elect you) or is everyone else just stupid, due to charts
The apathetic nihilism about the outcome seems pretty pervasive on the center-left. I took a look at what the Twitter algorithm is recommending me, and that was overwhelming, which made me wonder to what extent that's getting an artificial boost.
"You should shut up, be prepared to submit quietly to something you know you can't stop, and go about your personal lives" certainly seems like what Elon Musk personally would recommend you do if you don't desire what's coming.
Wtf do you want us to do? Riot? Because like it or not. The majority of the country actually wanted trump to be president. If you want the minority to overthrow a democratically elected government then you would love the January 6 morons.
Cuz lets be real. If the govt magically decided "lets do concentration camps". And the majority of people in this country wanted that? We should probably oppose that.
So what you're basically saying is that your main problem with January 6th wasn't that they were a bunch of thugs trying to overthrow a democratically elected government but that they weren't on your side? Because that's what it sounds like to me.
There are other alternatives. More long term. But yes, in the short term, we lost, and have to cope, somehow. But it's also reasonable to claim that democracy as we know it is dead right now.
Come on bro, the shitty candidate winning the election doesn't mean that democracy is dead. If there is reasonable evidence of trumpers committing some fuckery, I'll believe it, but it isn't ridiculous to think that the majority of the nation is just conservative right now.
That said, I respect your POV. And the last thing we need now is rigid orthodoxy. And believe me, I wish it weren't that bad, and remain open to changing my mind (as hope I'm wrong).
Even if not, and only, say, 45% of Americans are Trumpertarians, we're a sick society, easily manipulated by demagogues with far more power (of demagoguery) than ever before. This isn't fucking 2000, or just one bad election cycle. There's something systemically fucked up.
Look, of course someone should overthrow this government and install real democracy in its place. That's a given. It's just not going to happen because there's no critical mass in place to do it.
Nah, a lot of 'non political' people went out and voted for the guy with the funny memes, not the black woman who was VP when 'inflation' (price gouging+manufactured artificial scarcity) was rampant. I am borderline suicidally disappointed at the outcome, but not at all surprised.
No but in all seriousness, what this disagreement is always, always about is either ideological or emotional. If you're anti-socialist, we disagree. If you don't emotionally relate to why people love Bernie, you won't be able to understand that he is *the* antidote to Trump. It's a key to a lock.
Granted, it's too late. But the universe where Democrats let young people elevate Sanders to the Presidency in 2016 is a much better one, whether people responsible for preventing it want to believe it or not.
That’s great and has nothing to do with this, in fact if anything she aligns with progressives on many of her criticisms. Her complaints from what I have seen are with liberals, not progressives.
When liberals do idpol as a distraction from material issues, that’s not progressives, it’s the center
because we saw what the corporate media & the right wing para-media did to Biden and Harris, whose positions threatened corporate & RW interests way less than Bernie’s do. (And I like Bernie & his positions.)
Sad fact is that MAGA has successfully rebelled against their party, MSM, status quo, and corporate power to win over voters in a way that the left has never been able to. Trump showed how to win elections w/ way less $$.
Maybe sit this one out Will. Your own personal campaign should show you that MAYBE you don't quite understand how things work. I'm baffled you have absolutely zero introspection on that.
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she embraced the right, invited republicans in, and lost the base. 15m people were not interested in this strategy.
misogynists went and voted against her. they didn't stay home.
in 08 I was an "Obama boy" in the primary season, in '16 and '20 I was a "Bernie bro", if there's ever another relatively left candidate I would do work for, I expect another misgendered insult for it
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/shows/top-stories/blog/rcna175500
Regardless of the work Biden has done, our economy is so broken that people feel they're getting jipped, so they go for the populist.
centrists would not have.
and yet 90% of his supporters dragged our asses out for the dem nominee at least twice.
But democrats aren’t ready for that (+ DNC with the thumb on the scale) so he lost the primary. Lovely county we’ve got here.
I understand the Dem party has shifted so far right in many ways that this is a given but it's still depressing
Nope, nothing.
But if Bernie were the nominee, the breakdown of who voted D versus R would be nearly identical to the 2024 we got. It simply wouldn't have shaken things up that much.
They’re looking for populism. rail against the elites and support the common person
his theory of political change, almost literally, is that if the mods let him delete other people's posts dems would reign eternal
I do think Sanders was correct in 2016 in his insistence for Dems to adopt more progressive populism and that they're paying the price now for ignoring that advice.
However, Bernie did win over other voters Dems struggle with.
Michigan isn’t full of ‘working class’ leftist bros, just bros who didn’t want to vote for the lady, Clinton or now Harris
I am not downplaying misogyny in this country, but those "Bernie Bros" may have been Russian influenced.
It is unfair what happened to Hillary. She was dragged thru the mud/Benghazi/other for decades by the GOP.
I’m fairly sure Newsom is a lock on the democratic nomination in ‘28 tho
Obviously Newsom is gonna make the best case he can for the next two years
Gotta be a Midwesterner.
As a Bernie supporter who voted for Hillary and fought hard for Harris, Sanders tapped into energy and segment of Americans that Dems now struggling with.
Bernie got young men, working class, Latinos, and even Rogan on his side.
Learn please.
Sanders and Trump both tapped into something.
-Sanders with New Deal Liberalism.
-Trump with narcissistic fake empathy for personal power.
Despite your issues and differences with him and some of base (some are idiots), why don't you learn?
Because Sanders did someting other Dems have not. Why bash rather than to learn?
Is that something they'd take from Bernie's campaign style? It seems like the appearance of technocracy, even when it helps people, is enough to scare voters...
Trump *pretends* to care about their anger and offers up scapegoats.
So, long story short, I wouldn't be totally shocked...
But I also wouldn't be surprised if they tried to do what Clinton did in '92, either.
Plus you're comparing a primary to a general election, I you're not that stupid
This is called being mentally delusional
Yall spent the last 3 months of the campaign courting Republicans only to receive less votes from Republicans than you did 4 years ago
But apparently that strategy is demonstrably wrong because you say so.
Dearborn went more Green than Dem for thepresidentcy and that could explain Slotkin.
In VT Harris still won as did Bernie.
In MI though, Harris lost and Slotkin (barely) won.
Also, Harris just isn't in office so suggesting she is more popular than people who actually got elected in their home state doesn't make a lotta sense.
Harris didn't campaign for Sanders.
There is no reason in the world to imagine more people would vote in a downticket election than for president
Not sure why this needs clearing up but I genuinely hope it is helpful
Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
They’re obviously not the dumbest; that title is won by the folks who voted for their state to keep abortion legal AND (Trump + other Republicans). Those are the dumbest people on earth. They don’t understand how anything works & it’s not like we didn’t tell them.
Like, he has an older brother that runs a tech company. His dad was a law firm partner.
Its "a bunch hateful, bigoted morons trying to stage a 'rebellion' for the express and nearly exclusive purpose of ruining lives" bad.
And probably half of those people were clueless about what's going to happen next, because they don't read the news.
https://bsky.app/profile/rodonnell.bsky.social/post/3lahq5z6xrc2q
Look, of course someone should overthrow this government and install real democracy in its place. That's a given. It's just not going to happen because there's no critical mass in place to do it.
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/shows/top-stories/blog/rcna175500
When liberals do idpol as a distraction from material issues, that’s not progressives, it’s the center