As a big Sanders fan, I need more assurances his being so blunt about being Socialist won't cost

[Quixote1818]

him the general election. The polling on socialism is abysmal https://www.nbcnews.com/card/nbc-news-wsj-poll-just-19-percent-voters-view-socialism-n912666 However most people seem to be open to many socialist policies on their own and how Sanders handles this balancing act is what will be crucial to his sucess in a national election.

The fact that Sanders has allowed himself to be attached to the word socialism so strongly may be what makes it for him or breaks it for him. It excites the base but could be a negative in the general. I just don't know which way the road will turn in the general which is nerve wracking. My gut is that he would beat Trump and probably obliterate him in the debates but I also have worries. The polling on socialism makes me just nervous enough to think I should go with someone else who I think has broad appeal who I may not actually connect with as much as I connect with Sanders. Someone who can beat Trump is by far my number 1 issue. Sanders is for sure who I identify with the most and contrary to those who say he won't get the nomination, I think he actually is in a much stronger position than many will admit.

I was in Warren's camp for a bit but her campaign seems to be flat right now so I moved back into the undecided camp. Maybe it will pick up steam in the debates? I would really like to vote for a woman but currently I think Biden would perform the best against Trump or possibly Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg really appeals to me I have to say. I am watching him to see if he can keep the momentum going and perform well in the debates. I honestly don't think the current issue with Biden and the women will mean squat come the general against the pussy grabber.

I am open to hearing from Sanders folks why you think the socialism thing won't be an issue and possibly could be a strength. I do agree that it would excite the base but would it scare off too many moderates?

[jezebel321]

1. this is my fear about Sanders. I will vote for him if he is the nominee but in my

mind he is the easiest for Trump to beat. He will hang the Socialist label around his neck like an anchor and the uneducated sheep voters will be scared of the socialism boogeyman. It will be the new Hillary's emails with the media too.

[comradebillyboy]

2. Is there anywhere in the united States where socialism is a winning position?

Even Denmark, Norway and Sweden are just capitalist states with generous public benefits. Those benefits are paid for by high taxes on everybody, especially the very regressive value added tax (VAT).

[California_Republic]

3. They will attempt to destroy our nominee

Senator Kerrey volunteered for Vietnam and was wounded..... and in the end they made that into a weakness.

Every candidate’s campaign better prepare for a shitstorm.

[radical noodle]

4. I think all the talk about Democratic Socialism

has hurt the entire party. We need to ditch that. I firmly believe it's what defeated Andrew Gillum in 2018. The GOP really pushed the idea that he was too left... a socialist.

Mayor Pete says he's a Democratic Capitalist. That may be a good way to go. Socialism just has too many negative connotations for too many people.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. It depends on the mood of the country, come early 2020

It simply is too early to say. Of course Trump's hard core base would eat up all the red baiting crap, that's a given. But those people will eat up any propaganda Trump throws their way. If it's not about socialism, it will be accusations of wanting open borders, or coddling criminals, or wanting to take away guns, or butchering fetuses, or cynically "buying" the votes of minorities to win elections, or failing to love America, or environmental zealots destroying American jobs etc. etc. etc. Republicans lie and distort. If they don't have a suitable issue to distort they will invent one out of thin air.

When I say the mood of the country, what I am talking about is how dramatic the sense of needing to make a significant change is. And even if that is strong, in what direction would the public like to move? Would the public want a return to a more traditional style of leadership with the time hallowed trappings of bi-partisanship, or will they want to lurch as far as possible away from what Republicans now represent, will they seek a different path forward after living under a billionaire President who loaded his cabinet with billionaires also?

Socialism no doubt WILL be an issue, that will no doubt be the Republican framing. It is at root an update on the Right's old playbook of making the word "Liberal" toxic while talking about "liberal" elites, and "liberals" in Congress. They got away with that for over a decade, while Democrats flinched and tried to define themselves creatively as anything except "liberal". You can't win by running and Democrats too often ran away from the Republican framing of Democratic ideology. That I believe was a huge mistake.

The policies that Bernie Sanders and virtually everyone else on the left wing of the Democratic coalition embrace are NOT Socialism. Not unless public roads and fire departments and public schools and municipal water districts and FEMA and Medicare and Pell Grants etc. is socialism. There will be a framing battle regardless of who we nominate. Different candidates who we might nominate will each have different ways of responding to the Republican framing effort. Again, it will depend on the mood of the country when the election season gets close enough for that mood to crystallize. For example, should the economy take a turn toward recession then income inequality, and how virtually all the fruits from the last recovery went to those at the very top of the wealth pyramid, could become a burning issue. "Anti-socialist" might ring painfully false in that climate as just another attempt by the super wealthy to justify how they have looted the American economy.

Sanders won support in 2016 from some who don't even think of themselves as liberal ordinarily. Part of his appeal was explained with the word "authentic". Some believed that he was someone who would fight for the little guy against powerful economic interests precisely because he had consistently opposed them throughout his long political career, labels be damned.

I remain essentially undecided so far this primary year because I don't know how well our various candidates will manage framing their message in this political climate, Sanders included. Nor do I know how the public mood will coalesce by late winter/ early spring. It is all a moving picture.

[rgbecker]

7. Well put.

Sanders has had now 4 years to make his case and to air his ideas. He has been attacked as a Socialist during that entire period. Still he has be able to expand his message, framing the arguments into very specific policies that many people find attractive. New people are now on the scene, picking up his policies as God's truth and thus, Sanders has been able to capture the progressive left of the party. I'm not worried about labels the GOP comes up with for Sanders policies as long as the people support the plans. As you state, Fox news and rest will make things up if necessary to smear the Democratic Candidate....Biden included.

Look at Sanders success at framing his goals. This is indication of the success he will have in the election.

1. Calling Healthcare a "Right".
2. Calling for a Minimum Wage that is Living wage.
3. Suggesting College education be included in our idea of Public Education.
4. Calling for a system of taxing the rich to bring these plans to fruition.

All these and others are Sanders' policies that the Democrats have now backed wholeheartedly. Some have been on the Democratic agenda for decades but have only now, because of Sander's continuous hammering, become the standard others are compared to. When the only slightly interested ask where the candidate is on these issues, they will be wanting to hear that the Democrat supports these bedrock issues.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Tom Rinaldo and rgbecker, excellent posts.

[Gothmog]

15. Opinion: The myth of ideology, and why Democrats' energy isn't all on the left

Link to tweet

The vast majority of Democratic primary voters then and now do not identify as democratic socialists. Perhaps Sanders capitalized on unaffiliated anti-establishment types and Democrats who preferred him despite his ideology and not because of it. Move forward to the 2020 contests. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is providing the most substantive, interesting agenda that committed progressives could hope to see. Yet she is lagging in the polls. If this was all about progressive ideology and policy plans, she’d be running rings around the rest of the field.

As for Sanders, he benefits this time around from 100 percent name identification. However, the flip side of 100 percent name ID is that he’s no longer new, no longer saying things no one else will. He’s just as much of a democratic socialist as he was in 2016, but in the space of a few days we’ve seen that the “energy” isn’t all on the left; it’s drifting toward a centrist, young, optimistic candidate. Voters follow the energy and the ethos. They don’t carry around a thermometer gauging where on the scale of ideological purity each candidate rates.....

All you need to be is progressive enough to win a Democratic primary. Seeming more moderate than the Sanders clan is an advantage in the general election.

Why are pundits, the media and party insiders so convinced that ideological extremism equals energy/success? Part of it may be wishful thinking for progressives. However, part of the difficulty is linguistic. "Moderate” sounds to many ears to mean mild-mannered, prone to compromise and wishy-washy in beliefs. Nonsense. If ever there was a radical moderate, a fervent centrist Democrat, it’s O’Rourke. And gosh, he’s showing that can be exciting.

[MineralMan]

6. You are right to wonder about that.

It most definitely will be an issue, and one that will be put in ALL CAPS by the Republicans.

The voters who think it's a plus are in the minority, frankly. That's why Bernie Sanders lost the primary race in 2016, and why he would lose in the 2020 General Election. The minority will not elect a President. That takes a majority, especially of electoral college votes.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. The election will be won or lost in the suburbs.

Does your median suburban voter have a positive or negative view of socialism?

On this question the election hangs.

[Demsrule86]

11. It will be won in three states MI, WI and PA. None of those states can be

Won by Sanders in my opinion

[Demsrule86]

10. The GOP wants Sanders for a reason. They can beat him.

[riverine]

12. The GOP will fight and won't even have to lie for once

Think of all the video of Sanders praising socialist dictators and policies like bread lines.

[Gothmog]

13. Trump wants to run against sanders and will use this issue

Last edited Fri Apr 5, 2019, 12:37 AM - Edit history (1)

trump will use socialism to attack our nominee if we are not careful https://politicalwire.com/2019/03/21/trumps-economic-team-pushes-socialism-theme/

Politico: “President Trump has enlisted his senior economic advisers to flesh out one of his early 2020 presidential campaign themes: Socialism is coming. In recent months, traditionally staid official White House economic reports and briefings have begun to emphasize the potentially massive costs of an ambitious socialist agenda and warn that America could transform into a Cold War dystopia.”

[Gothmog]

14. There is a ton of oppo on sanders that will be used

If Sanders had been the nominee, Trump would have destroyed him. 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.

I am very happy that sanders is being vetted this cycle.

[Gothmog]

16. Videos like this will be used if sanders is the nominee

Link to tweet

[BlueFlorida]

17. He won't be the nominee ...

The worry is for the actual nominee and hoping that he/she won't be tainted by the socialist label.