“Bernie Would Have Won”
It has only been one week since Joe Biden was finally declared the winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and though many can now breathe easier in the face of Donald Trump’s defeat, by no means is the work of those on the left wing of politics even close to finished. The continuous war of ideals and posting draws the distinctions between leftists and moderate Democrats (liberals) into sharp focus, and the past few months have not been a pleasant time to be on Twitter for anyone with the nerve to actually envision a brighter future than four more years of incremental deterioration. Even as Biden’s lead in the polls continued to grow, any discussion on the left of his many, many sins committed over a lifetime in politics was met online with cries of “we need to come together as a country, not be divided!” and “stop criticizing Biden, you’re only helping Trump!”. Ignoring the irony in holding both those positions simultaneously, it is distressing that merely a discussion of facts even more obvious in retrospect (that Biden was a mediocre candidate and would drastically improve his electoral chances by adopting more progressive policies) could inspire such disgusting vitriol against people that are supportive of the Democratic cause, at least when it comes to deposing Trump.
Criticisms of Biden’s ineptitude in the wake of the election results are far from unprecedented; even on November 3, Twitter was abuzz with leftists bemoaning his subpar showing and wishing Bernie had been the one going up against Trump instead. Predictably a swarm of #BlueNoMatterWho sycophants lit up the replies of anyone who dared to post such heresy with bad faith arguments, right-wing talking points, and a general lack of awareness concerning just how abysmal Biden’s performance in the election was. Truthfully, however, the point of saying “Bernie would have won” is not to gloat in the face of an underwhelming election result, but to attempt to illustrate the reality of America’s political situation, and what the left’s ethos must be going forward without a Bernie Sanders to rally behind. If rampant inequality, the continued erosion of civil rights, and the oncoming climate disaster are to be combated, it is imperative to understand not just that Bernie would have won, but specifically and completely why. Failure to do so on a national scale will likely lead directly to a global catastrophe, from climate change if nothing else; America may not have survived four more years of Trump’s rapid descent into autocracy, but the world simply cannot afford even one term of Biden’s pitiful, insufficient liberalism, not at as crucial a juncture as this.
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The first dismissal levelled at ‘Bernie Bros’ who lament what could have been an easy lay-up election for Sanders is that the Senator from Vermont was clearly not popular enough to beat Trump, with his loss in the Democratic primary at the hands of Joe Biden proving that a more progressive platform simply could not compete with nostalgia for the Obama years. This assertion is, in a word, bullshit, and the notion that a process which involves the barest fraction of the electorate could say anything meaningful about the mood of the country is entirely absurd. The 2020 Democratic primary, more than any other in recent memory, was an indescribably fraudulent affair set up to masquerade as ‘the will of the people’; just look at how South Carolina, the pivotal state in securing Biden the Democratic nomination over Bernie, ended up going red by ten points in the general. Not to say it was an unproductive process, of course; the primary was a readily manipulated stage upon which a war against Bernie Sanders (and left-wing populism) could be waged once the Democratic Party apparatus finally got serious about shutting down his campaign, even if the whole thing was far from smoothly orchestrated.
The chaos began in February with the Iowa caucuses, which went up in flames as poll workers struggled to try and count ballots through a host of technical and bureaucratic malfunctions, culminating in Pete Buttigieg declaring a disgustingly premature victory and gifting the media with a false narrative they could use to deprive Bernie Sanders of any momentum before the results had even stopped coming in; why does that sound so familiar? Despite Sanders ultimately winning a plurality of final alignment votes in Iowa, and racking up convincing wins in the New Hampshire and Nevada primaries, it mattered little once the Democrats finally decided on a moderate to rally behind: Joe Biden, who was clearly the most popular Democratic candidate judging by his fourth and fifth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire respectively. Biden won South Carolina virtually entirely off of goodwill from the Obama years, and immediately thereafter the media went into full manufacturing consent mode, generating at least $70 million in earned media ads for Joe in the three days following the South Carolina primary alone. Then, a mere two days before Super Tuesday, Buttigieg (despite laying claim to the same number of primary victories as Biden) abruptly dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden, with fellow candidate Amy Klobuchar following his lead the next day.
It is painfully obvious why these two moderates happened to concede right before Super Tuesday, just as it is obvious why progressive candidate Elizabeth Warren waited until two days after despite failing to place higher than third in any earlier primary; while the presidency would have looked nice on their resume, their foremost duty was, at the behest of the Democratic party establishment, to ensure Sanders’ defeat. Of course, Buttigieg’s forfeit in particular was far from a suicide attack; Pete was simply following orders from top Democratic donors in dropping out when he did, and that he also spoke to former president Barack Obama after doing so and before endorsing Biden makes the existence of a quid pro quo almost certain. (As soon as Biden’s victory over Trump was certified, cabinet rumors began circulating which included, among a host of big oil boosters and corporate ghouls, Buttigieg being touted for Secretary of VA). The result of all these backroom machinations was, of course, a clear win for Biden on Super Tuesday, the sudden dearth of ‘moderate’ candidates leaving him to reap all of their supporters while Sanders bled a share of his potential base to Warren, who had conned a number of people into thinking that she was in any way ‘progressive’ and thus a viable alternative to Sanders. In reality, Bernie was the only hope the left had at ever wresting some sort of control from the corporate autocrats that exert undue influence over the Democratic Party, and Warren throwing away a potential nod for Vice President within his administration only to get completely shut out of Biden’s cabinet is hilariously fitting.
In one sense, however, the case against Sanders’ viability in a national election may actually hold some ground. Biden was, from South Carolina all the way to November 3, propped up almost entirely by a steady drip of manufactured consent, produced by a news enterprise that had a vested interest in seeing that if Trump was defeated, it was only by someone who would not threaten their gluttonous livelihoods, and Joe “nothing will fundamentally change” Biden fit that description perfectly. With Bernie’s repeated calls for increased taxes on the top 0.1% of earners and other policies which benefit workers at the expense of the upper class, his campaign was the only real threat to the symbiotic relationship between the Democratic Party, the media, and the wealthy benefactors who line the pockets of both to ensure taxes stay low and capitalism stays marketable. Had Sanders somehow secured the nomination, it is entirely possible that all three would have backpedaled on making Trump’s failings a constant headline and pivoted to making Bernie the prime target of their ire in the leadup to November 3. Combined with the same interparty sabotage that lost Jeremy Corbyn’s Labor Party the UK general election in 2019 to the Tories (another example of neoliberals intentionally losing to the right in order to injure the left), it very well may have been enough to overpower Sanders’ popularity among his base, and ultimately cost him the theoretical presidency. Still, if that is the most valid justification for Bernie’s lack of viability in a national contest, then America has problems much more fundamental and much more urgent than any one election.
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The other argument frequently used to attack Bernie’s hypothetical chances is perhaps the most obvious one: that after multiple days of electoral chicanery, Biden is ultimately the winner of the 2020 presidential race, and because of this we should be glad that the ‘safe bet’ was nominated over the ‘radical’ Bernie Sanders, who could have lost for all we know. This was a common sentiment among liberals that even predates the election itself, a defense that spread further and further as the weeks went by and the Democrats’ lead in the polls kept increasing. Still, the idea that Biden’s positive qualities (if we assume any exist) had any bearing on the results shows a staggering ignorance of America’s situation leading up to November 3. The COVID-19 pandemic had utterly dominated the news (and the material reality of much of the country) for months on end, and throughout it all Trump was (rightfully) blamed as the primary cause of all the resulting unemployment and death. This was a godsend for the Biden campaign, and it seemed to legitimize his ‘strategy’ of laying low and letting Trump soak up all the blame, while positioning the Democratic platform as ‘anti-Trump’ before all else despite not having any substantial policy differences aside from a nationwide mask mandate. Regardless, the pandemic can reasonably be pointed to as the death blow for Trump’s chance at a second term, and the Democrats’ odds continued to improve as Election Day drew closer, a fact which mainstream pundits were happy to repeatedly report at length.
And yet: all that postulating on Biden’s remarkable ten-point lead and the historic margins of his foretold win going into November 3, and it all went up in smoke almost immediately as his so-called ‘electability’, the ultimate reason why he should be the Democratic candidate in place of Bernie, was exposed as the charade it is. “Biden is more popular with black voters than Bernie”; actually, they’re voting for Trump in even greater numbers than they did in 2016. “Americans are scared of socialism and radical policies”; actually, public healthcare, climate legislation, and legal weed are incredibly popular even in red states. “Bernie can’t win Florida”; neither can Biden apparently, so what the fuck are you talking about? Sadly the Democrats will probably just pivot even harder towards writing the Sunshine State off as a conservative cesspool, completely ignoring the scores of liberal voters there waiting to be courted (not to mention the sizable Latino population), as well as the fact that even as it went red, Florida voted to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour. Biden was also for raising the minimum wage, apparently; you would have to go out of your way to find that out, since he certainly abstained from talking about in the few public appearances he made over the summer, so it isn’t hard to imagine a mass of Latino voters in Florida not believing in (or even not knowing of) his commitment to it. If only there was a candidate who made economic issues and worker’s rights a key part of his platform…
This election, even more so than the catastrophic defeat that was 2016, laid bare how utterly incompetent the people spearheading the Democratic Party’s electoral strategy are at their jobs. The Lincoln Project, a PAC made up of ‘former’ Republicans and spearheaded by fiends like unapologetic Islamophobe Rick Wilson, drained $67 million of crowdfunded money (that could have gone to helping the Dems in down-ballot races) in an attempt to persuade anti-Trump conservatives to vote for Biden. The result? Trump received even more votes from registered Republicans than he did in 2016. But the Dems would rather slide even further towards the right and their bigotry than even come close to admitting that they blew it; already the post-election discourse has seen blame being levelled at Latinos, the state of Florida, and (as always) the left, with the devoted #BlueNoMatterWho followers ready to lay this result at the feet of anyone but their own politicians. The common wisdom has always been that an increased number of voters would see the country redound to the Democrats, but after the highest voter turnout in over a century emphatically proved this idea to be false a week ago, one thing has become abundantly clear: absolutely no one on the DNC’s payroll has any idea what they’re talking about.
The popular rebuttal from liberals to the reality of these results, that if Biden did this poorly then clearly Bernie would have done even worse, is in blatant denial of the vast differences in each campaign’s base of support. The coalition formed by the Bernie campaign during the primaries was composed of groups consistently disregarded by the Democratic Party apparatus, namely the most impoverished third of the country that regularly does not vote, including a large swath of immigrants and Latinos that secured Sanders primary wins in Nevada and New Hampshire. As much as Democrats like to tout their support among African-Americans as proof of their progressive status, they routinely ignore that Black people are not the only POC in America, an exclusion which cost Biden a great deal in this election. Biden gained support among white men in comparison to 2016, but lost ground to Trump in literally every other demographic; so much for “the most progressive nominee in history”. Does anyone really think the Democrats would suffer similar losses under Bernie, who made nonwhite voters (not just Black voters) a key part of his outreach strategy and who actually offered them something to vote for besides ‘Trump is racist’? Regardless of any game theory conjecture on Bernie’s hypothetical chances, this election proved definitively that Biden’s base is predominantly both white and male, and the notion that any durable majority to oppose the Republicans can be formed out of that demographic is thoroughly nonsensical. The Democrats barely scraped together a partial victory this time, and merely hoping that they can somehow do it again next election is playing with fire, to put it mildly.
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Yet despite a plethora of necessary revisions to the Democratic strategy that merit discussion sooner rather than later, liberals are still unwilling to entertain any such analysis even in a post-election landscape. Already the goalposts have begun to shift: the objective around which people should rally is no longer the November election, but the runoff Senate races in Georgia slated for January, and any online judgement of Biden’s poor showing in the general and how that reflects badly on his party is met with “we can’t be divided right now, hold your criticisms until after Georgia!”. Of course, it undoubtedly will not stop after January 5; then the plea will become “well, Biden can’t really accomplish anything until he gets inaugurated, we shouldn't criticize him until he’s actually in the White House”. Then, of course, it will morph into “well, passing legislation takes time, and Biden has a lot of plans for his first 100 days” and so on and so forth, with excuse after excuse until it finally returns to “well the midterm elections are coming up soon, so we shouldn’t criticize Biden until after then, we don’t want to help the Republicans”. The cycle is once again complete, the serpent has eaten its own tail, and at this rate the Dems are going to get absolutely massacred in the 2022 midterms after failing or refusing to pass any meaningful legislation.
But perhaps even more frightening than the possibility of an endlessly postponed date for when those uncomfortable conversations can finally take place is the preemptive resignation of many to another four years of political stagnation should the Democrats fail to win those Senate seats in Georgia. Even the most obtuse Democrat bootlickers have finally recognized that America’s political system can be ground to a halt unless one party controls all three branches, and the likelihood of the Biden campaign being able to do so looks worse by the day. Of course, he will likely escape any sort of blame for this despite his disastrous fumble of what could have been a New Deal-like majority, just as Obama still escapes blame for failing to accomplish anything substantial during his first two years and barely putting up any resistance to Mitch McConnell’s obstructions for the rest of his tenure.
Liberals are already preparing themselves for the possibility of another Republican-controlled Senate; if the outcome in Georgia is unfavorable, their response will be to write off the next two years as lost, cease paying attention to politics until the 2022 midterms, and go back to watching SNL while Biden fails to even attempt to pass any progressive reforms. Nothing will fundamentally change, try again in another four years, hope we get a slightly less milquetoast Democratic nominee next time (we won’t). Even if Georgia does go well, it will make little difference; the primary reason liberals are so invested in securing the Senate is so Biden will have all the tools he needs to effectively govern, freeing them to go back to brunch and rest easy knowing their job as voters is done. Whether the Democrats actually accomplish anything is irrelevant; solving problems like poverty or racism has no effect on the material existence of the party’s most vocal supporters, who have trained themselves to believe that whatever passes (or doesn’t pass) under a Democratic government is the best outcome within the realm of feasible possibility.
And truly, this might be the most salient argument to counter the concept of “Bernie would have won”, as depressing as it may be. Bernie offered a clear, radical, and optimistic vision for America, and his campaign was centered on the dream of a country that actually provided for its citizens and let them live in true freedom, delivered from want and ready to become a world leader in the fight against poverty and climate change. Beneath the veneer of moderation and respectability, neoliberalism has no real aspirations for truly making the world a better place, and many of its devotees on Twitter simply cannot subscribe to the idea of a world without poverty or starvation. Their visions of progress are of means-tested Pell Grants for low-income entrepreneurs and bipartisan task forces dedicated to ‘researching the causes of racism’; it is not even the radical goals of the left which they ultimately object to, but the uncouth means by which they intend to push for change. To liberalism, it doesn’t matter how unequal or bigoted the system is or how it came to be that way, because the only acceptable way to make progress is incrementally and within the bounds of the already established political processes. Faced with a situation like climate change, which demands instant, drastic action with no immediate benefit to anyone’s shareholders, its only option is a tepid commitment to eventually enacting a half-measure, and for those of us who actually want to try and do something to prevent a global catastrophe, this reflexive defense of inaction is, to put it mildly, maddening.
This, then is the real insult layered within “Bernie would have won” and similar sentiments, contrary to any perceived need to say “I told you so”: America could have had so much more than tepid centrism as its weapon against the Republican agenda this election, and the hesitance of so many liberals to conceive of anything better than Joe Biden is the foremost reason we’re still stuck with him. More than any other factor like racism or Red Scare propaganda, this pessimistic fear of radical solutions, endemic to the Democratic Party’s base and eagerly exploited by its politicians, is the reason why an actually bright future was not on the ballot this year. As for the cursed phrase itself, it will eventually fall out of common use; Bernie won’t be back for the 2024 election, and the left must find a way to pick up its own shattered remains and rebuild with a new strategy if meaningful political change is ever going to be achieved. Much as liberals might prefer otherwise, the fight for equality and labour rights is not going quiet regardless of which party controls the Senate, and until our society is truly serving its citizens as the social contract demands, brunch is most certainly not back on the menu.