Why Sanders lost, and why I think it matters.

[redgreenandblue]

(part of this was a reply in another thread, which I recycled, excuse my laziness. )

There is a certain narrative floating around that goes something like this: Hillary Clinton was/is the champion of minorities, women and LGBT folks, who stood solidly behind her. Bernie Sanders represents the white male vote within the Democratic party, who were concerned with economics and not much else.

I think that this narrative is as wrong as it is counter-productive at this point.

I think the truth of the matter is, Hillary Clinton was the default candidate for all demographics. She started out with a 50 point lead, with Sanders being virtually unknown. She had the entire Democratic party behind her, was part of a sitting administration and wife of an ex-president. It was an up-hill battle for Sanders all the way.

As far as the DNC is concerned, Sanders should not have happened at all. The expectation was that Hillary Clinton would sweep to the nomination unobstructed. No one was supposed to flip over to some unknown outsider. But they did flip, and in large numbers. I think this the underlying reason of the "sore winner" phenomenon. Hillary Clinton "only" got about 60 percent of the vote, instead of around 97 percent as expected.

As to why some demographics were faster to flip to Sanders than others, I think there is probably a large number of different reasons for this, none of which are "The behavior of his supporters in the Youtube comment section" or "A BLM activist calling him a white supremacist.". I think most people are not tuned into such things and would not care either way.

Young voters I think are easiest: They are quick to embrace new things and have little of what some would call "experience" and others would call "baggage". This is true across all genders, races, sexual orientations etc.

If you look at how support for Sanders built up over the months, the trajectory of the curves for different demographics were similar, with slightly different slopes. Trying to read something into this, imo, leads one onto very speculative ground. In the end it boiled down to him lagging behind by a month or two with some demographics, and this making a big difference. Such is the nature of primaries. They are highly non-linear systems, with early successes generating more successes and so on.

So why does this matter, now that Hillary Clinton won?

I think the question one should ask is why so many people were willing to latch on to an alternative to the "default candidate". I think this is something the Democratic party needs to think long and hard about, and I think drawing the wrong conclusions can become a serious problem in the General Election.

I think the straight forward answer is economics: Not all people benefited from the economic recovery after 2008 equally. This breeds discontent. First Occupy Wall street, now Sanders.

Falling back into the narrative that the Sanders phenomenon is some sort of expression of a racial divide means running head first into a trap. It is a convenient narrative, since it places the blame on some outside influence that lies beyond the control of the party. It saves one from having to take a look in the mirror. But it is dangerous, because it is a game the GOP plays very well. Nothing will mobilize the GOP base faster than a Democratic party that presents itself as out of touch with the struggles of people who are at an economic disadvantage.

Disclaimer: This is not a thread about the primaries. Hillary Clinton won. This is about the General Election.