{"id":13901,"date":"2020-02-14T10:42:34","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T18:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=13901"},"modified":"2020-02-14T10:42:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T18:42:36","slug":"why-the-democrats-should-back-bernie-sanders-and-why-they-wont-if-they-can-possibly-help-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/02\/14\/why-the-democrats-should-back-bernie-sanders-and-why-they-wont-if-they-can-possibly-help-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Democrats Should Back Bernie Sanders: And Why They Won\u2019t, If They Can Possibly Help It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 13, 2020 by Common Dreams<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could represent the beginning of a\u00a0real\u00a0healing of America\u2019s tragic history around race and class.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Ted Morgan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 40 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The real hope represented by Bernie Sanders\u2019 campaign is that he can pull together these sharply separated populations\u2014in the process shifting the focus to the elite forces whose propaganda has kept them apart.\u00a0(Photo: Alex Edelman\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If they were smart, the Democratic Party would support Bernie Sanders as their nominee.  But of course, they won\u2019t, if there\u2019s any way they can prevent his nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, Sanders\u2019 PAC-supported or big money opponents, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Michael Bloomberg, have belittled his candidacy.  But the Party\u2019s old guard \u2013Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barney Frank\u2014 have also publicly attacked and\/or worked against Sanders.  Barack Obama<\/a> has intimated that he would try to prevent a Sanders nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even worse, the liberal corporate media<\/a> have repeatedly dismissed, attacked, and underreported Bernie and his campaign.  New York Times opinion writers \u2013Paul Krugman, Timothy Egan, Frank Bruni, Bret Stephens, and David Brooks\u2014 have virtually lined up to dismiss the Sanders campaign; \u2018he can\u2019t win,\u2019 \u2018he\u2019s like Trump only his opposite,\u2019 are common refrains.  Washington Post columnists follow suit, and MSNBC\u2019s Chris Matthews<\/a> went off the rails implying Sanders\u2019 rather tame version of democratic socialism could lead to public executions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, the well-endowed Democratic PAC, the Democratic Majority for Israel, funded attack ads<\/a> on Bernie in Iowa, while the corporate Partnership for America\u2019s Health Care Future has mobilized<\/a> to \u201cchange the conversation around Medicare for All\u201d to protect the for-profit healthcare industry.  And, of course, the powerful right-wing attack machine, from Charles Koch\u2019s organization to the Federalist\u00b8 have been mobilizing propaganda attacks on Bernie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be a great deal more of this in the coming months, as these interests try to bury Bernie Sanders\u2019 truly populist message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at their arguments: \u201cSanders can\u2019t beat Trump\u201d and \u201cBernie is too far left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest Quinnipiac national poll (pre-New Hampshire) has Bernie 8 percentage points ahead of Trump, shortly after Trump\u2019s post-impeachment bump, and Bernie\u2019s campaign will vividly bring out the enormous contradictions in the Trump administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But more fundamentally, are any of the centrist Democratic candidates likely to beat Trump with their \u2018more of the same\u2019 arguments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times\u2019 conservative columnist David Brooks revealed data<\/a> showing that tens of thousands of voters in the key swing-to-Trump states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin voted for Bernie in the primary and Trump in the election \u2013in sufficient numbers to cost the Democrats the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Brooks draws a dubious conclusion from the data, suggesting Bernie voters will sit out the election if a different Democrat is nominated.  Voters who voted for Bernie in those primaries but Trump in the general election are not Bernie\u2019s fervid young supporters, but in all likelihood largely alienated white working class or rural Americans, fed up with a Democratic Party that long ago deserted them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the data don\u2019t suggest abandonment of Democratic nominees as much as they suggest the potential for Bernie, alone among Democratic candidates, to pull working class and rural votes away from Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second way that Bernie expands the potential Democratic voter base is the fact that hundreds of thousands of diverse young people have been inspired by his sharp critique of corporate-dominated inequality, his advocacy of the Green New Deal, and generally his vision of a more democratic future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among other things, these young people see in Bernie someone who recognizes the profound economic, social and ecological problems which will plague their future lives.  They bring enormous energy and enthusiasm to a Bernie candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They and others, recognize the authenticity of Bernie\u2019s politics; he has consistently fought for the concerns he raises.  As political writer Robert Scheer has observed<\/a>, Bernie \u201cactually believes in the grassroots.  He actually believes that an ordinary person in Vermont can make intelligent decisions about the human condition, and about justice and freedom\u2026 [one] reason Bernie Sanders can survive the rhetorical assaults [against him]\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, Bernie\u2019s candidacy inspires political activism among the young and those with long-held social justice grievances.  On the other hand, he speaks authentically to long disenchanted working class whites and rural Americans.  As Scheer put it, \u201cI think what makes Bernie Sanders authentic is his respect for the ordinary person.\u201d  It\u2019s no accident that he easily won the Vermont primary in every<\/a> town in the state, so widely is he respected by constituents who have come to know him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernie is not \u201ctoo far left\u201d for these voters; his essentially New Deal-type programs are too far left for Democrats like Bill Clinton who moved the Party into the corporate center some 40 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real hope represented by Bernie Sanders\u2019 campaign is that he can pull together these sharply separated populations \u2013in the process shifting the focus to the elite forces whose propaganda has kept them apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could represent the beginning of a real healing of America\u2019s tragic history around race and class.  It could also represent what the political scientists like to call a \u201crealignment\u201d of American politics, one which promises far more democracy than the sad democratic fa\u00e7ade we live under.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ted (Edward P.) Morgan<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(epm2@lehigh.edu<\/a>) is professor of political science at Lehigh University and author of\u00a0What Really Happened to the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(University Press of Kansas).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 13, 2020 by Common Dreams This could represent the beginning of a\u00a0real\u00a0healing of America\u2019s tragic history around race and class. by Ted Morgan  40 Comments The real hope represented by Bernie Sanders\u2019 campaign is that he can pull together these sharply separated populations\u2014in the process shifting the focus to the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13901"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13902,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13901\/revisions\/13902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}