Bernie Sanders Can't Win - Timothy Egan, liberal columnist for the NYT

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Mon Feb 3, 2020, 12:25 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/opinion/bernie-sanders-campaign.html

That’s the thing about class loathing: it feels good, a moral high with its own endorphins, but is ultimately self-defeating. A Bernie Sanders rally is a hit from the same pipe: Screw those greedy billionaire bastards!

-snip-

But he cannot beat Donald Trump, for the same reason people do not translate their hatred of the odious rich into pitchfork brigades against walled estates.

The United States has never been a socialist country, even when it most likely should have been one, during the robber baron tyranny of the Gilded Age or the desperation of the Great Depression, and it never will be. Which isn’t to say that American capitalism is working; it needs Teddy Roosevelt-style trustbusting and restructuring. We’re coming for you, Facebook.

The next month presents the last chance for serious scrutiny of Sanders, who is leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. After that, Republicans will rip the bark off him. When they’re done, you will not recognize the aging, mouth-frothing, business-destroying commie from Ben and Jerry’s dystopian dairy. Demagogy is what Republicans do best. And Sanders is ripe for caricature.

-snip-

Sanders is a rigid man, and he projects grumpy old man rigidity, with his policy prescriptions frozen in failed Marxist pipe dreams. He’s unlikely to change. I sort of like that about his character, in the same way I like that he didn’t cave to the politically correct bullies who went after him for accepting the support of the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

-snip-

Democrats lose with fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. Three times, the party nominated William Jennings Bryan, the quirky progressive with great oratorical pipes, and three times they were trounced. Look him up, kids. Your grandchildren will do a similar search for Bernie Sanders when they wonder how Donald Trump won a second term.

[DanTex]

1. LOL. "class loathing"? "grumpy old man rigidity"? "Marxist pipe dreams"?

[highplainsdem]

3. That's how the liberal who wrote that column sees him.

And he isn't the only liberal who sees Sanders that way.

[DanTex]

6. I like Timothy Egan.

And he might have written a convincing article if he didn't use such absurd language. His article does make a good point about the Rogan endorsement, though:

I like that he didn’t cave to the politically correct bullies who went after him for accepting the support of the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

[highplainsdem]

8. Timothy Egan, not Patrick. Anyway, it's clear from much of the column that Egan doesn't hate

or mistrust Sanders.

He just believes Sanders can't win.

And the language you thought was "absurd" is actually fairly typical of descriptions and criticism of Sanders.


Editing to add that if you google

sanders rigidity

and

sanders "class warfare"

you'll see what I mean. (Egan's "class loathing" is a variation of "class warfare"...and after seeing that Sanders referred to the "ugly rich people" in Cuba, I think "class loathing" is also a very accurate description.)

[DanTex]

12. Oops. Corrected, thanks.

[highplainsdem]

5. And btw, if you google

sanders "pipe dream"

you get hundreds of thousands of results.

Those are words very commonly associated with Sanders' ideas.

[Cha]

23. Timothy Egan calls it like he sees it.

[katmondoo]

2. Sorry Bernie, you did help Trump in 2016, I wish this weren't true but!!!

[Thekaspervote]

4. Many good points in this article.. and no, the numbers are not there for sanders

[Progressive2020]

7. "The United States Has Never Been A Socialist Country"

I would direct your attention to FDR and the New Deal, the founding of Social Security, The Four Freedoms, the Second Bill of Rights, LBJ and Medicare/Medicaid, etc, etc. This is nothing new in American politics.

[Scurrilous]

9. None of it socialist.

Socialist was a slur the rich hurled at FDR...don't define him with the term his opponents used.


Modern liberalism in the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States

[Progressive2020]

13. Defining Terms

Yeah, I mean different people have different definitions or terms for Socialism and Liberalism. My point is that those who call Medicare For All a Socialist Program and that America will never be Socialist Nation seem to conveniently forget Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. They are all social welfare programs developed in a mixed economy. Whether you call it Liberalism or Socialism, they are the same sort of thing. The New Deal, Medicare/Medicaid, and now the Green New Deal and Medicare For All are all similar things, whatever term (Socialist. Liberal) you use to define them.

[Scurrilous]

14. OK

[Progressive2020]

17. Alright!

Thanks for the response.

[Scurrilous]

21. LOL

I'm getting bombed. Had to go monosyllabic.

[TwilightZone]

16. "different people have different definitions"

There are well-established definitions for words and concepts. If "different people" use them incorrectly, the usage is wrong, not an equivalent alternative.

[Progressive2020]

20. Some Terms

Some terms have more than one definition, and so you can have different usages. My point is not merely about semantics though. My point is that The New Deal, Social Security, The Second Bill Of Rights, Medicare/Medicaid, Medicare For All, The Green New Deal, etc, are all programs of the same type, whether you call them Liberal, Socialist, whatever.

When people say "America will never be a Socialist Country" (a common phrase in online political discussions), they point to Medicare For All and define it as Socialist. Whether it is Socialist or Not, the idea that America will not and has not accepted these types of programs is a false idea. FDR and LBJ both pushed for and achieved similar types of programs.

Social Security, Federal Jobs Programs, Medicare/Medicaid, etc. These are historical programs that are proof of what government can accomplish. The Green New Deal, Medicare For All, $15 Minimum Wage are all modern versions of these types of programs, whatever terms you use to define them. Those who argue that these programs are not American are wrong, as these types of programs have been around since FDR and carried on by LBJ and others, whatever ideological term (Socialist, Liberal) that people choose to put on them.

And FDR did reject the label "Socialist", whereas as some modern politicians with similar views promoting similar programs embrace the label. Whatever term one uses, these types of social and economic policies are cut from the same cloth. So the debate about terms is a sideshow to the main event, which is robust government programs to benefit Health Care and Climate Change in America.

[ritapria]

10. Bernie can't win

Then why did he get re-elected with 71% percent of the vote in 2012 and 67% of the vote in 2018 ...To rack up those kinds of numbers , you have to run up the totals in the Rural Red areas of Vermont … Bernie has the highest approval rating of any US Senator in the country .… Bernie's bought and paid for detractors in the media are not afraid he will lose , they are afraid he will win ...The elite grifters are in panic ….Their gravy train in peril ..Too bad ...So sad ..

[Scurrilous]

15. Vermont is unique. Not a good example.

[Cha]

24. In Vermont.

[pbmus]

11. I will vote again for whoever is the democratic nominee, however,

If that nominee is Bernie, we will lose again by more than 12 electoral votes...

We are NOT a socialist country....

[OliverQ]

19. You don't know what socialism is then.

[OliverQ]

18. I've heard Biden supporters say Bernie can't win,

and I've seen everyone else say Biden can't win.

These articles are silly and meaningless.

[oasis]

22. Author gives Bernie credit for moving public opinion on higher

taxes on the rich, climate change and raising minimum wage.

[Hortensis]

25. Basically agree, though I think you overestimate Sanders'

capabilities. I also disagree that Sanders is authentic. Dreadfully sincere yes, a true true believer in himself, yes. But most of his followers who've been hanging on his words for years now don't really know what Democratic socialism is or would mean to them, and that's an indictment.

[YOHABLO]

26. Such tripe.

[YOHABLO]

27. Bashing Bernie will not get a Democratic President in the WH.

Remember that.

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. K&R

[bluedye33139]

29. I am not a Sanders supporter, but these attacks are ridiculous

Thanks for posting this, but good Lord this article is weird. Concern about inequality in America is not class war. Concern that the 1% has transformed our culture purely for their own benefit is not class resentment.

[Cha]

31. :m not either and I think people need to be heard.

[betsuni]

30. K&R

[Gothmog]

32. trump would destroy a very weak and unelectable candidate like sanders

In addition to the well written 101 page memorandum with oppo on sanders with a 1000 pages of backup from the Clinton campaign trump has his own oppo file on sanders that would destroy such a weak and divisive candidate like sanders. Trump had a two foot thick book of oppo research on Sanders http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach....

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers....

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

sanders was such a weak primary candidate that the Clinton campaign did not use its oppo but trump would have fun destroying such a weak candidate like sanders