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He was doomed the moment he said he was a socialist
Should have at least called it something else
To me Bernie is this kind of far left Goldwater. Someone who probably will never win but will DEFINITELY have a big effect later
Edit: When I say "call himself socialist" I understand the difference between dem socialism and full socialism. What I'm trying to say is that there are a LOT of better names he could have used. Socialism is a poisoned term in American society, for better and/or worse.
It is funny Trump used his stuff to talk to the working class like making the rich pay more and Healthcare in 2016. Than getting in office and doing the quite opposite.
I mean the sad reality here is everyone says they hate how socialist Bernie is, but Trump himself gave out trillions… just directly to businesses while we get a tiny piece of the pie as checks. I had family berating me for “chasing his checks” since I guess they actually believed it when Trump put his signature on there. We could have had Medicare reform and instead we sent super wealthy people billions… socialism indeed.
I think Bernie is the perfect amount of socialist, the problem is most people in America are morons that do not realize they would actually benefit from a degree of socialism and just automatically say “HeS sOcIAliSt” because it’s just so taboo to them and they don’t fully understand what he proposes.
I am NOT supporting Trump at all, but it is a bit disingenuous to use COVID funds as an example of overarching policy, especially because congress was supporting it too.
You mean middle class voters in those states. It was a politically motivated bullshit stunt to make blue states pay even more to red states who don't pay their fair share.
Yeah, I think many get lost in trying to impress each other and show they're part of the in-group and saying they're "socialist" achieves that even if it results in many immediately turning against them.
Outside of the US (and UK, some in the Labour Party like Blair have used democratic socialism as synonymous with social democracy (and saying he is one)), democratic socialism generally means those to the left of social democrats, seek greater and faster changes towards socialism compared to social democrats, but can hold varying views, just that they support socialism under democracy, not one party states.
I think the idea was to try to normalize the term "socialism" so that it doesn't cause baby boomers to hide under something heavy. Socialism is really more of a spectrum. From Laissez Faire Capitalism to Communism, socialism is literally everything between. If the Chinese were actually communists there wouldn't be Chinese billionaires, would there? If socialism and communism meant the same thing then Swedish people wouldn't own homes, would they? The fact of that matter is that you're surrounded by socialism *every day*. It's simply a cold war holdover that the word is used almost exclusively in the pejorative.
From the electrical grid to clean water and roads, police and fire departments, schools and hospitals, we've been socialists for a long time. The question isn't whether socialism is evil, it's *how much* socialism are we willing to accept?
I think he is an actual socialist because he has praised (controversially) actual socialist governments like Nicaragua and Cuba, even in cases where they've suspended the constitutional rights of their citizens.
I think what he discovered about a decade ago is that if he calls capitalist socialist democracies like Denmark and Sweden "democratic socialism", then he and socialism become much more popular (at the expense of confusing people about what socialism actually is, much to the chagrin of capitalists and also many socialists).
He didn't invent that confusion; it was invented by Republicans who wanted to paint all social spending as "socialism". Bernie sure did capitalize on it though
Meanwhile Denmark doesn't want any of it and has asked for Americans to [stop calling us socialist](https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/denmark-tells-bernie-sanders-to-stop-calling-it-socialist/).
Denmark directly responded to that comment saying, in essence, “you have no idea what our economic or government system is, keep our name out your mouth”.
Also like, it doesn't really matter how much of a DemSoc you are if the legislature you're in won't pass any policy beyond SocDem stuff. He hit the reasonable limit of what he could pull off
When pushed, even Bernie admits he is not really a socialist. He just wants the same basic social programs enacted that other capitalist countries have enacted. The US is so far to the right that any proposal that helps everyone or even only helps the very poor is automatically considered socialism or communism. This is kind of a sick joke because tax cuts to the wealthy, tax breaks to corporations, and many other items that directly help these entities is automatically considered normal or a part of being a capitalist society.
Idk. Polling always indicated he fared well against republicans in a general election. I’d say his problem was more that he did not have the support of his own party
>I’d say his problem was more that he did not have the support of his own party
That was part of the actual problem: Bernie is actually a Democratic Socialist who became a Dem so he could run for president.
To be fair, Sanders' biggest fuck up is overestimating the intelligence of American voters. You'd think in the age of information, people would use things like the internet to their advantage and actually look up his track record and research the things he talked about, but instead, Americans heard "democratic socialism", and said, "he's the next Stalin."
He had the Democratic party working against him. He broke records for small individual donations and all across the country not just a particular state or region. You can't win the nomination of a private organization if the organization does not want you to win.
>You can't win the nomination of a private organization if the organization does not want you to win.
Trump won the Republican primary despite an openly hostile GOP.
You can win the nomination of a private organization if their bylaws allow it. The DNC has failsafes to stop populist candidates from gaining traction in close elections. The GOP does not.
Too far left. Not a Christian. Old.
Bernie has a very high floor because of his support base, but a very low ceiling. If someone younger had sanders support, they could probably make a run at the white house.
Timing is everything in the measurements of world history. Lincoln was as much a product of circumstance as he was a testament to his achievement and his character.
The trust in and reverence for Bernie Sanders held by the majority of the left, and many outside of it, is in large part because of the consistency of his messaging for his entire political career. He has said the same things his entire career. What's interesting and makes him endearing is that his views were very unpopular 30 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, and are with greater and greater frequency becoming total mainstream. Not just with the left, but with the center and even the right. Ask the typical fascist Redhat and you'll find half, if not more, believe in the policy agenda of Bernie Sanders on economics.
Bernie would have never reached the level of esteem he currently holds if the political climate was more accepting of his views at any point. If he was president, the mystique surrounding his potential would evaporate. If his views were popular 25 years ago, he wouldn't have been the exception to the norm.
>Timing is everything in the measurements of world history. Lincoln was as much a product of circumstance as he was a testament to his achievement and his character.
Even more so.
A president embodies a historical moment, they do not define it themselves
He calls himself a socialist, that’s conceding too much to the republicans. You call yourself a socialist, they will call you a communist. To low information voters, labels matter.
That plays to the right wingers that would never vote for him anyway , but not so much to the left and center. Might be enough to “get out the vote” on the right.
From my perspective the issue was he was always a fringe candidate like the Green Party, so he never really had to develop his policies well. Once he started threatening HRC he had to figure out the how, and that he struggled with. Easy to advocate for a utopia when you don’t need to actually make it work
This^ He can claim all he wants to young impressionable voters, but people that actually have to put rubber to road want a plan with instructions how to make it work. It isn't the socialism/Communism per se, it' ideas are great, but they need to be implemented and he doesn't have a clue other than...somehow.
And what exactly was Hillary's plan. I remember her ads saying " good paying jobs". No explanation as to what jobs, what pay or what the hell she would be doing to make that vague promise happen.
Yeah, for all the talk, the DNC didn't have a plan, they were trying to appeal to idealism with empty words. At least when Pres Obama ran as Sen Obama he had a vague idea of implementation. You can't govern with ideals alone.
He advocated for a European-style social democracy and when told that would double federal outlays, he promised to raise taxes on less than 1% of the population to fund it. Nobody in the world does that.
He literally lived on a commune.
And called himself Communist when it was cool.
But the Democrat party threw him under the bus for Hillary.
You can't blame the Republicans for THAT.
Even young wouldn't have a chance. When your policies and slogans appeal to young people-literally the least reliable voter demographic- you've signed your death warrant.
It's a real shame no one young has Sanders support. Because, while people like AOC exist, they don't have the same working class appeal that Bernie has/had. Because they get too into woke culture and that turns off a lot of people.
LOL THE reason Bernie couldn’t win was his inability to attract a large amount of black voters to his campaign. Biden “outwoked” Bernie. Joe “racial Jungle” Biden.
The problem with white progressivism its head too far up it’s own ass to even think “hey maybe we can’t talk to black people “
Sanders had 4 years to address this issue and never did. Heck, is not like he didn't know the main player in 2020. Clyburn and Sanders had worked together before. So, he did not address a weak point, and did not coordinate with Warren when Obama railed everyone behind Biden.
His campaign was run by Biahna Joy Gray, a massive Democrat hater online and she wasn't shy about it. She encouraged the snake campaign against Elizabeth Warren. After Bernie ended his campaign she unleashed her vitriol on any Democrat she could snap back to. I began to suspect, then, that she was a Russian asset, perhaps unsuspectingly at best.
Right, they wanted someone who talked a big game but at the end of the day would not actually challenge any existing power structures. Which is what the Democratic Party exists to do. Take leftist/ worker/ environmentalist energy and subsume it into the corporate friendly Democratic Party. The media was united against Bernie (wonder why), and scared everyone into believing he could never win. Americans are inherently conservative and reactionary , even democrats.......Which is why we got Joe "Nothing will fundamentally change" Biden.
But enough people didn't agree with him for him to win.
Biden is also doing quite well and passing a lot of shit, even with the smallest of majorities.
Biden has done far more than Sanders ever could have gotten done with the most closely divided Congress in the last century and people still shit on him. Do Americans not realize the US has a President and not a King?
> Right, they wanted someone who talked a big game but at the end of the day would not actually challenge any existing power structures.
Someone who talked a big game but never actually challenged existing power structures....
That's Bernie Sanders, lmao
Y'all just like that he told you everything you wanted was going to happen in 4 years, and that by 2020, you'll live in an utopia if you voted him into office.
B-b-but he’s the amendment king!
My favorite is when his stump speech went from tax the millionaires and billionaires to just billionaires after his book brought in the dough
For real. The man has been in office since 1991 and the only things he accomplished is privatization of the VA and renaming Post Offices.
The internet loves Bernie because he feeds them simple messages and they don’t want to admit they’ve also been influenced by the Republican machine that has been working against Hilary for decades. Because Hilary is an actual threat to accomplish things Republicans are against - Bernie is not.
Republicans would have loved President Sanders because he would accomplish nothing but the public would blame the Democrats instead of Bernie’s own incompetence.
Really what would Bernie do that Joe couldn't do. You know you can't actually wag your fingers and make Republicans do things if you don't have a filibuster proof majority...and guess what...Bernie defended the filibuster on the campaign trail...one of his biggest differences with Warren.
Don’t know why you’re getting voted down. This is the truth. The Democratic Party rarely acts in the interest of labor. Sanders’ campaign had labor on the front of its mind in policy proposals.
I think about this a lot.
What if the DNC didnt fuck over Sanders in favor of Hillary? Would Trump have lost? How different would everything be? COVID-response, Tax cuts, healthcare, infastructure...
On a similar note: What if Al-Gore pressed the election issue further and ended up winning? No Iraq war? Maybe 9/11 was averted (Bush allegedly ignored CIA warnings of suicide-hijackings in August 2001). How different would the environmental crisis be right now?
These what-ifs run through my mind every time I see something related to Bush or Trump and their consequences..
It probably would be different, but I think people overestimate the differences.
I have a very hard time believing 9/11 wouldn’t have averted or there would be major environment reform as nice as that sounds. Trumps COVID response if anything was anything but “party of small government.”
The only thing on that list that may very well have been pretty different as I would believe the Iraq war would have never happened with a different leader.
.
Didn’t Sanders do this: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-campaign-penalized-dnc-after-improperly-accessing-clinton-voter-n482341
> What if the DNC didnt fuck over Sanders in favor of Hillary?
Hillary had [3.7 million more votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries) than Sanders in the Dem primary. The DNC favoring Hillary didn't have anywhere close to enough impact to change that result. A lot of people are misinformed about what actually happened, like leaking a few obvious debate questions and trying to plant a few articles somehow changed the minds of 4 million primary voters in Hillary's favor.
So the answer to your question is Hillary still would have easily won the primary and everything would have likely played out the same, except there's a small chance Bernie not spreading misinformation about the primary being rigged/stolen would have tilted things away from Trump winning.
>The Democratic Party never wanted a Democrat
Huh? He could have started by actually being a member of the Democrat party. Not just when it was convenient, whenever he wanted to run for president again.
But people still act all hurt when the party despised - and did not advocate for and try to change from the inside - did not roll out the red carpet for him. Why should it?
Bernie and Warren split the progressive lane in the 2020 primaries with Bernie far and away leading it, while the “moderate” lane was super crowded. After he tied Iowa, won NH, and absolutely blew out Nevada, then getting beat in SC by Biden, the moderates all dropped out and endorsed Biden, while Warren stayed in. Had the moderate lane remained splintered, and/or Warren dropped out before Super Tuesday to endorse him, he would have had a shot.
Also, like... if you want Warren supporters to fall in line behind you, maybe don't spend the preceding three months hurling absolute vitriol at them? Not just Warren herself, or even the campaign staffers, but anyone IRL or on the internet who happens to offhand mention they're a Warren supporter?
You can't stab someone in the back, repeatedly, for months on end, and then demand loyalty from them.
Sanders also heavily campaigned against Bloomberg, who he thought would be his main competition. Massive misstep by his campaign to focus so aggressively on a non candidate while Biden was still in the race.
Why are you (and everyone) leaving out the fact that Bloomberg was in the race splitting the moderate vote with Biden?
The Biden + Bloomberg vote share was far greater than the Sanders + Warren vote share
Warren’s share of vote on Super Tuesday was slightly lower than Michael Bloomberg’s according to the polls casted before ST.
And, if you think Liz’s liberal middle class suburban women votes were going for Bernie in the first place, y’all out of mind.
At that point, most of her “progressive” voting bloc already flock to Sanders.
Y’all don’t get to blame Liz for this.
Very true. And that is how the primaries work. But then again when you look at the ones Biden won...
> Biden won Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia; Bernie Sanders won California, Colorado, Utah, and his home state of Vermont.
Sanders did win the biggest blue state, aka CA.
A lot of rewriting of history on Reddit here. If it was Biden vs Bernie straight up across America it would be around 60% to 40% in the primary. Bernie was never going to win, conspiracy by the DNC to sabotage his campaign or not.
It's funny how his 2020 campaign reminded me of Clinton's 2016 campaign, in that they both seemed to be oddly blindsided when everything didn't automatically go their way.
This. People don't talk about this much but Sanders' 2020 campaign was noticeably worse than his 2016 campaign. Possibly because all the competent campaign staff had other campaigns to work with and he was left with crazy true believers like David Sirota and Nina Turner who ran this off-putting toxic campaign rooted in delusion.
Idk Bernie was making a killing, first one to ever win the first three states but then the South Carolina endorsement along with the other candidates shortly after completely flipped the tides
Bernie was not making a killing. He won 25 percent of the vote in Iowa. 25 percent of the vote in NH. And those were states set up to be very good for him, but Pete beat him in Iowa and was barely behind him in NH.
Dude ran in 2016, spent the next four years building a national profile, had a ton of money, and lost / tied two state upfront that were stocked with his demo?
Not 'making a killing.' More like 'doing surprisingly poorly.'
Bernie was only ever ahead against a split vote and I say that as someone that supported him. His only chance was I’d the other candidates stayed in too long and split bidens base.
Honestly you might be right. I remember it was close and the conspiracies about the software that was used it linked to Buttigeg. I just remember thinking after NH primaries the other moderate candidates have to rally around one person and drop out or the vote will be split AND Bernie’s camp better prepare for it.
I don't know about 2016, but in 2020 his campaign didn't make a whole lot of sense. He pretty much followed the exact same campaign strategy that lost him the nomination the first time. He even did worse in 2020 because Biden wasn't nearly as hated as Hillary was.
Part of me wanted Bernie to win to see the Berniebros turn on him when he did nothing different than maintain the status quo.
Because now we’ll forever have, “If only Bernie…”
I wasn't a big fan of his because his plans were weak. I liked what he was saying, but his whole plan was "rich people will pay." But, especially during his first campaign, he didn't say how.
If all you had to do was ask nicely, they'd do it already
It is easy to blame voters, but politicians campaign for the direct purpose of enticing voters. Granted, we should want informed voters, but you have to work with what you have, and if you cannot make the sale, why would anyone want to buy?
I think they might have meant in the primary. There was an issue in several primaries where Bernie supporters just didn't show up to the primary elections like at all.
Dem Socs can't lead the coalition with Soc Dems until the general decline actually hits the upper middle class.
Bernie woke something up in the 40 and under crowd, much like Goldwater did in '64. It may take 20 years to see it, but the seeds have been planted.
He’s not even dem soc he’s soc dem he just said the wrong thing. I get annoyed when people mix them up because it makes soc dem seem less acceptable to the general population when in fact most would support it.
The voter base from which he garnered most of his support, young people, are the least reliable voting age group you can get. Of 18-29 just 27% showed up at the polls in 2022. That was down 4 points from the 2018 midterm. In 2020 they had 50% turnout up from 39 in 2016 thought which was solid. However it pails in comparison to the +70% turnout of 60+ year old voters. And people wonder why politicians are so old….
In both his primaries, he was almost completely wiped out in the black vote, a major wing of Democratic voters.
Labeling himself as socialist would have made him completely unpalatable in the general. It’s one of the dirtiest of dirty words to the average voter.
Yeah I said the same exact thing. But him marketing himself as a socialist was probably a decent move in a crowded field. But he should have imagined the democrats would drop out and endorse Biden.
I think democrats in polls do have a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism.
I think he couldn’t sell his electability to primary voters. I think that is his main flaw. He also for some reason associates himself with the word socialism even though his policy isn’t socialism. It’s honestly strange strategically to do that.
>He also for some reason associates himself with the word socialism even though his policy isn’t socialism. It’s honestly strange strategically to do that.
This drives me nuts, to the point that I think it exhibits a basic lack of political strategy and cunningness that would have doomed his presidency at every angle .
I find it amazing that Bernie cores FDR as the best president, yet seemed to take so few lessons from him and his political maneuvering that made him successful to begin with.
Yeah I think Bernie is probably a socialist in his personal life. Like I think if you were his good friend and you talked to him over some beers about politics he is probably to the left of his policy (again his policy is not socialist) if I had to guess. But I think most politicians are probably to the left or right of their policy. Like most Republican politicians probably on principle don’t agree with food stamps but they don’t destroy food stamps entirely they just chip away at the program.
I think Bernie was good at talking to crowds but he was the opposite of cunning. I think he’s not very cut throat either, he always came across as too nice to actually make the changes he wants.
Basically I think he’s a guy with decent policy who is good at giving speeches but lacks political awareness.
For me, there was the electability problem as well as my belief that he wouldn't actually get anything done. With a divided Congress, Biden has gotten some stuff done but not more items on his liberal wishlist (like codifying Roe). The idea that Bernie would roll in and create universal healthcare and all that is wishful thinking...he never would have had the legislative support for a single item in his agenda.
People want to be left alone in America. Left alone to die, be unhealthy, be in medical debt, doesn’t matter. Over everything else, they want to be left alone
>The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful.
You want to know why he lost to Hillary
1. He's not a Democrat...hard core Democrats in the primaries especially older Democrats are not going to vote for an Independent over one of their own.
2. Hillary through Bill Clinton actually has a strong fanbase...I know that's shocking on reddit. But lots of people loved the Clinton years and many felt Hillary was accomplished enough to be a good President.
3. Bernie doesn't appeal to older voters but especially not older black voters. From what I gathered they felt he pandered to a lot of other groups at their expense and so they went with Hillary instead.
4. The ghost of George McGovern...the liberals ran somebody unabashedly liberal and got curbstomped. Many Democrats felt that Bernie gave waaay to many McGovern feelings.
Edit: Look Bernie Bros you can have all your conspiracy theories but Hillary had a lot more votes. I’m sorry if it’s a shock more people prefer the former First Lady and the Secretary of State over a an Independent Senator from Vermont.
>He's not a Democrat...hard core Democrats in the primaries especially older Democrats are not going to vote for an Independent over one of their own.
I've never understood why this is so hard for so many folks to understand. There is a lot of work that goes into building and maintaining the party, and people just take it for granted.
People knock on doors, donate money, sit on committees. For tens of thousands of people across the country, the Democratic party is a part-time job that they don't get compensated for.
Then Bernie shows up and expects the entire apparatus to just start working for him because he filled out a few forms. Folks were supposed to forget everything they had been working on for their entire lives and just volunteer for & donate to Bernie now.
It was never going to happen.
That's a really good question and I'll take a couple stabs at it:
It worked for Trump but the GOP fought him like hell. Difference between the Bernie situation though is that Trump was running against several other candidates that splintered establishment GOP support. If the GOP has consolidated behind one candidate way earlier, such as Jeb or Cruz, Trump may not have gotten the nomination. Bernie was fighting one other candidate, a candidate with more on paper qualifications and name recognition than anyone running against trump on the GOP side
And even thought it "worked" for Trump there were still some GOP voters that voted for Hilary instead of Him. Some of which were high profile
Yep thank you. It’s shocking to me that people don’t understand how the Secretary of State, Senator, Yale Law Grad, generational woman was popular among mainstream democrats.
And as First Lady, championed Universal healthcare, something that should have been passed by Congress in the 90s. Imagine how Americans lives would have benefited from that!
Because regardless of commercials and social media, the majority of the US doesn’t really want either hardcore conservatives or hardcore “Progressives.” They want someone closer to the middle.
Probably because he failed to appeal to the black voters that he needed both times and also had a terrible campaign strategy that relied on other candidates not dropping out and splitting the votes the second time.
He got cocky. He won Nevada and they thought they were cruising. It was a 60 minutes article. Then South Carolina happened and it became clear to many candidates they couldn't win, so they dropped out. Which is the way it's supposed to work.
People still, to this day, act like the moderate wing of the Democratic primary field had some kind of responsibility to remain in the race and keep it fragmented long enough for Bernie to cement his lead, and that it was a great conspiracy that led the trailing moderates to drop out and - shocker - endorse the leading moderate.
He not only did this, he DOUBLED DOWN on it when the media gave him a chance to correct himself. Not only did he lose Florida for himself, he freaked out Cubans so much that he took down every Democrat with him including Biden.
Well the good thing is he freaked the Democratic establishment and Dem voters out because they realized that he would dump a key swing state and be ready to lose to Donald in to win an argument from 60 years ago, and they all consolidated around Biden.
This gaffe hurt him way more than the Bernie people could ever accept. Dem primary voters were absolutely horrified by it and wondered what other toxic stuff would Bernie say. Then, they realized that they didn't know Bernie very much at all. What other skeletons were in his closet? His tone deafness killed his campaign more than anything.
As for Florida, the gaffe has screwed Dems big time down there for a long time.
Leaving aside that he was being an apologist for an authoritarian dictator. What Bernie did was the equivalent to going to the Iowa State Fair and saying “fuck ethanol subsides!!” It was a big fuck you to a key swing state and since he doubled down on it, it was clear he was willing to do the same thing with the other 10-15 swing states.
Because the average working class U.S. citizen doesn't want a "revolution." They want stability. They want people with practical, achievable plans. Even if they liked the things he said, they knew that these types of beliefs are mostly held by high schoolers and college students who don't really understand what it's really like to be a working middle class adult and not someone who dreams of somehow overturning everything. He was a New Englander who mostly focused on young people and people in large cities instead of the more rural Democrats who were the ones who actually needed played to in order to get valuable swing state votes. I could go on for an hour.
This is it. When you won’t let a leftist populist win in an era where people want a populist leader you create a bottleneck and uninformed people break for the only other person offering change even if they don’t meaningfully understand that one is genuine and one is a demagogue and a con.
Yes and no. Don't forget the Trump campaign slogan. Make America great *again*. Trump campaign was framed as a return to recent normalcy. He portrayed the establishment as a tumor on an otherwise effective nation. Just get rid of the corrupt leaders and everything snaps back into place. Compare that to the leftist vision of completely reshaping the country. That's the difference between the two messages.
Bernie Sanders in 1989...."We need to tax the millionaires more. They do not pay enough taxes"
Bernie Sanders in 2023..."We need to tax the billionaires more. They do not pay enough taxes"
Outside of hyper-progressives, no one likes Bernie Sanders. The right thinks he’s a radical communist, moderates think he’s a radical socialist, people in the center-left like some of his stuff but also realize that he wouldn’t be effective anyway.
EDIT: this is for everyone to see. Bernie Sanders is not as popular with demographic necessary to win national elections as he is with younger people and nonwhites. Yes, he is popular. Just not with the right people.
Yet his supporters have failed to show up in sufficient numbers to win him the nomination in 2 series of primaries.
He most certainly is popular, just not with the people who show up.
It doesn’t matter how popular he is with teens who don’t vote. Bernie is generally unliked by the voting public and within Congress. If, by the grace of God, he were to actually win a nationwide general election, he wouldn’t even be an effective president.
Hillary Clinton had pretty high approval ratings around the time she finished her stint as Secretary of State. If you think a President Bernie Sanders or even a presidential candidate Sanders would have that same approval, I'm afraid I've got some bad news.
I think this is one of the big things that I criticize Bernie for. I don’t hate him by any means, but I believe that a successful president (even presidential candidate) needs to have skill and success in being able to compromise and reach across the isle to, well, pass legislation! Bernie is notoriously stubborn in the senate, and I think that’s a big issue going against anyone wanting to run for president. I think he’s a lot more effective at being a big voice for issues rather than actually getting stuff done behind the scenes
Same. At the end of the day he's better at advocating from the media pulpit than at actually get legislation passed. That's a legitimate use of his time as a senator, IMO, but it's not practical as a president.
Because Bernie Sanders doesn't work. Patrick Lahey was the Vermont senator who we should have wanted for president, but Lahey was too busy doing the job.
Bernie Sanders for all his time in office has authored and passed 3 bills. 2 were for banking post offices.
As it turns out, young would be socialists aren’t willing to put in the work for an elderly multimillionaire who made his money selling books on the free market.
That and the support for socialism is well overstated in the USA.
I would've been more willing to vote for him if he had explained how we pay for his proposals and tackle the national debt issue. He was saying a lot of idealistic things and I couldn't agree with him as a Republican.
Because he couldn’t convince enough people to vote for him in a primary, it’s as simple as that.
Like Trump, populist Bernie is polarizing. You love him or you can’t stand him. I voted for Nader in 2000, but never voted for Bernie. If you can’t win over someone like me, then it’s a bad start.
It has nothing to do with the DNC, or the establishment… he didn’t have the numbers except for online. The fact that Obama was the 2008 nominee should be proof enough that it wasn’t the DNC of Hillary that stood in the way. They may not have made it easy, but it was winnable.
Bernie isn’t exactly a coalition builder. He poo pooed NARAL and PP in 2016… and suggested courts weren’t a priority and that worries about Roe were unfounded. That alienated a lot of people.
He ran in a party that he often puts down and hasn’t done much to build up… that cost him votes.
He surrounds himself with obnoxious people like David Sirota and Brie Brie… alienating people even after 2016.
He spread “it was rigged” nonsense before Trump. Some people still believe that. He’s split the left, intentionally or not. He also makes apologies for racists on the right, as if that isn’t a primary driver… and he did it a few days before the ‘16 general election on top of that.
He was all talk with little substance, that’s a turn off to many voters as well. He’s passed or co-signed little legislation, and mostly just criticizes everyone in hindsight. His appeal is mostly cynicism against the establishment or a desire to go further left than a majority of Americans.
Because we don’t really have a left here compared to what progressive parties are like in other countries. Democrats are the best we have and they’re just a teeny tiny bit left of center. So, for too many people here, Bernie is seen as a socialist and socialism is equal to communism in too many minds.
Why is it even slightly surprising that the DNC would support a Democrat who had been raising money for the party for decades as opposed to an independent who showed up to feed at the funding trough that Hilary filled, and only joined the party so that he had access to the Party's funds to run for President?
Truly, the mind boggles.
Ironically, his age was the biggest excuse I heard from people, and now that's the number 1 argument against Biden, Trump, and many other senators and politicians. It's a justified argument, it was just frustrating to hear against Bernie when he is kicking a bit stronger than these other guys.
The democrats wanted Hillary. Should have had Sanders, and it's to late for him now. He should have talked more about his civil rights work. We lost someone good in him.
What civil rights work? Marching back in the 60s? There’s a reason black people didn’t vote for him: marching is all well and good but if you haven’t advanced their needs in the legislature then you aren’t doing anything for them
Bernie would have lost, too. The GOP would have had a field day with his "Commie loving" past. They would have made him look like the next Joe Stalin by the time they were done. Young voters may not understand this, but the Cold War is still well remembered by the over 40 crowd, and they vote a lot more than the youth do.
I’ve known Trump supporters who agree with pretty much everything Sanders says…except that they would definitely “never vote for a commie”.
Yeah, anything that is remotely socialist-sounding is just toxic branding for an American presidential candidate.
Whether it’s fair or not, the GOP would have plastered his written comments that he wrote in the Vermont Freeman in the 70’s all over conservative media for the entire run up to the election if he won the democratic primary. Trump would have called him a rapist on national television every chance he got and I really think that would have fucked his ability to get elected.
We never got to see the Republican hit file on Sanders but it’s safe to say that there must be some zingers in there
Just that video of Sanders in a middle school classroom saying “(ethnicity) stink. (Other ethnicity) are gangsters. (Other ethnicity) are greedy,” would have been played in commercials on a loop. The Republicans have never seen an out-of-context quote that they didn’t like. And, let’s be real, even if he was only citing examples of stereotypes that he doesn’t believe, you don’t talk to *children* that way. Because some of those children are going to repeat those taunts back on the playground
> He should have talked more about his civil rights work.
He did no civil rights work. from 1963 - 2015.
His "Civil rights work" lasted several months, a fight he quit the moment he got arrested once. Even though he was only in jail for less than 15 minutes, he left and never looked up until it was time to be president, and he had to get black votes. Couldn't rely just on lily white Vermont
He’s an old white male multi-millionaire socialist. Never had a shot. He’s too far left for the average democrat. He’s too old and comes off as angry white man. He’s also too rich for the socialists.
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He was doomed the moment he said he was a socialist Should have at least called it something else To me Bernie is this kind of far left Goldwater. Someone who probably will never win but will DEFINITELY have a big effect later Edit: When I say "call himself socialist" I understand the difference between dem socialism and full socialism. What I'm trying to say is that there are a LOT of better names he could have used. Socialism is a poisoned term in American society, for better and/or worse.
Welfare Capitalist. Or he could have said he is a FDR Democrat.
It is funny Trump used his stuff to talk to the working class like making the rich pay more and Healthcare in 2016. Than getting in office and doing the quite opposite.
I mean the sad reality here is everyone says they hate how socialist Bernie is, but Trump himself gave out trillions… just directly to businesses while we get a tiny piece of the pie as checks. I had family berating me for “chasing his checks” since I guess they actually believed it when Trump put his signature on there. We could have had Medicare reform and instead we sent super wealthy people billions… socialism indeed.
I think Bernie is the perfect amount of socialist, the problem is most people in America are morons that do not realize they would actually benefit from a degree of socialism and just automatically say “HeS sOcIAliSt” because it’s just so taboo to them and they don’t fully understand what he proposes.
I am NOT supporting Trump at all, but it is a bit disingenuous to use COVID funds as an example of overarching policy, especially because congress was supporting it too.
Well he did pass the SALT tax which really affected high earners in high tax states like NY and Cal
You mean middle class voters in those states. It was a politically motivated bullshit stunt to make blue states pay even more to red states who don't pay their fair share.
FDR democrat is a good name for it. Welfare on the other hand makes many people see red and get angry
Yeah that may of helped him with centrists
Like “social democrat”
He actually IS a social democrat, which is why it always bothered me that he called himself a socialist
He used “Democratic socialist” which is a term nobody uses anywhere. He’s a weird dude.
Only in the US do social democrats call themselves democratic socialists, and it is the place where that term carries the most baggage.
Yeah, I think many get lost in trying to impress each other and show they're part of the in-group and saying they're "socialist" achieves that even if it results in many immediately turning against them. Outside of the US (and UK, some in the Labour Party like Blair have used democratic socialism as synonymous with social democracy (and saying he is one)), democratic socialism generally means those to the left of social democrats, seek greater and faster changes towards socialism compared to social democrats, but can hold varying views, just that they support socialism under democracy, not one party states.
The DSA would like a word
There are a few moderately influential political parties under the “Democratic socialist” banner, but in terms of US politics it has no relevance
I think the idea was to try to normalize the term "socialism" so that it doesn't cause baby boomers to hide under something heavy. Socialism is really more of a spectrum. From Laissez Faire Capitalism to Communism, socialism is literally everything between. If the Chinese were actually communists there wouldn't be Chinese billionaires, would there? If socialism and communism meant the same thing then Swedish people wouldn't own homes, would they? The fact of that matter is that you're surrounded by socialism *every day*. It's simply a cold war holdover that the word is used almost exclusively in the pejorative. From the electrical grid to clean water and roads, police and fire departments, schools and hospitals, we've been socialists for a long time. The question isn't whether socialism is evil, it's *how much* socialism are we willing to accept?
I think he is an actual socialist because he has praised (controversially) actual socialist governments like Nicaragua and Cuba, even in cases where they've suspended the constitutional rights of their citizens. I think what he discovered about a decade ago is that if he calls capitalist socialist democracies like Denmark and Sweden "democratic socialism", then he and socialism become much more popular (at the expense of confusing people about what socialism actually is, much to the chagrin of capitalists and also many socialists). He didn't invent that confusion; it was invented by Republicans who wanted to paint all social spending as "socialism". Bernie sure did capitalize on it though
Meanwhile Denmark doesn't want any of it and has asked for Americans to [stop calling us socialist](https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/denmark-tells-bernie-sanders-to-stop-calling-it-socialist/).
Yeah the whole discussion of socialism vs capitalism has become a huge mess
Denmark directly responded to that comment saying, in essence, “you have no idea what our economic or government system is, keep our name out your mouth”.
Also like, it doesn't really matter how much of a DemSoc you are if the legislature you're in won't pass any policy beyond SocDem stuff. He hit the reasonable limit of what he could pull off
Even that would be too close to socialist for a majority of Americans imo.
When pushed, even Bernie admits he is not really a socialist. He just wants the same basic social programs enacted that other capitalist countries have enacted. The US is so far to the right that any proposal that helps everyone or even only helps the very poor is automatically considered socialism or communism. This is kind of a sick joke because tax cuts to the wealthy, tax breaks to corporations, and many other items that directly help these entities is automatically considered normal or a part of being a capitalist society.
Don't forget the bailouts to corporations, ya know corporate socialism.
Idk. Polling always indicated he fared well against republicans in a general election. I’d say his problem was more that he did not have the support of his own party
>I’d say his problem was more that he did not have the support of his own party That was part of the actual problem: Bernie is actually a Democratic Socialist who became a Dem so he could run for president.
Understandable. Maybe. But I'm just saying that they would grab that rope and never let go
Does that matter, though? Obama is nobody’s communist and they’ve called him that relentlessly. I just don’t think that criticism lands much.
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It’s amazing that people still think this was the issue after watching Biden be labeled a socialist by the GOP.
Biden has never called himself a socialist nor has he done some shit that could label him as such
To be fair, Sanders' biggest fuck up is overestimating the intelligence of American voters. You'd think in the age of information, people would use things like the internet to their advantage and actually look up his track record and research the things he talked about, but instead, Americans heard "democratic socialism", and said, "he's the next Stalin."
He had the Democratic party working against him. He broke records for small individual donations and all across the country not just a particular state or region. You can't win the nomination of a private organization if the organization does not want you to win.
>You can't win the nomination of a private organization if the organization does not want you to win. Trump won the Republican primary despite an openly hostile GOP. You can win the nomination of a private organization if their bylaws allow it. The DNC has failsafes to stop populist candidates from gaining traction in close elections. The GOP does not.
You also can't win with less votes and less pledged delegates.
He vacationed to the USSR in the 80s.
Didn’t stop Trump
Too far left. Not a Christian. Old. Bernie has a very high floor because of his support base, but a very low ceiling. If someone younger had sanders support, they could probably make a run at the white house.
Timing is everything in the measurements of world history. Lincoln was as much a product of circumstance as he was a testament to his achievement and his character. The trust in and reverence for Bernie Sanders held by the majority of the left, and many outside of it, is in large part because of the consistency of his messaging for his entire political career. He has said the same things his entire career. What's interesting and makes him endearing is that his views were very unpopular 30 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, and are with greater and greater frequency becoming total mainstream. Not just with the left, but with the center and even the right. Ask the typical fascist Redhat and you'll find half, if not more, believe in the policy agenda of Bernie Sanders on economics. Bernie would have never reached the level of esteem he currently holds if the political climate was more accepting of his views at any point. If he was president, the mystique surrounding his potential would evaporate. If his views were popular 25 years ago, he wouldn't have been the exception to the norm.
>Timing is everything in the measurements of world history. Lincoln was as much a product of circumstance as he was a testament to his achievement and his character. Even more so. A president embodies a historical moment, they do not define it themselves
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The man had a heart attack during the campaign. It was an issue.
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He calls himself a socialist, that’s conceding too much to the republicans. You call yourself a socialist, they will call you a communist. To low information voters, labels matter.
That plays to the right wingers that would never vote for him anyway , but not so much to the left and center. Might be enough to “get out the vote” on the right. From my perspective the issue was he was always a fringe candidate like the Green Party, so he never really had to develop his policies well. Once he started threatening HRC he had to figure out the how, and that he struggled with. Easy to advocate for a utopia when you don’t need to actually make it work
This^ He can claim all he wants to young impressionable voters, but people that actually have to put rubber to road want a plan with instructions how to make it work. It isn't the socialism/Communism per se, it' ideas are great, but they need to be implemented and he doesn't have a clue other than...somehow.
And what exactly was Hillary's plan. I remember her ads saying " good paying jobs". No explanation as to what jobs, what pay or what the hell she would be doing to make that vague promise happen.
Yeah, for all the talk, the DNC didn't have a plan, they were trying to appeal to idealism with empty words. At least when Pres Obama ran as Sen Obama he had a vague idea of implementation. You can't govern with ideals alone.
He advocated for a European-style social democracy and when told that would double federal outlays, he promised to raise taxes on less than 1% of the population to fund it. Nobody in the world does that.
Eh. They’re calling Biden a socialist and communist. Now we just get all the labels with none of the universal healthcare.
and the labels didn’t stick to biden, that’s why he won the election
He ran on the "I'm not Trump" ticket -seemed to work for him
Lol Biden very clearly did not win the election because of labels sticking or not
They call Joe Biden a communist.
People were too afraid of the socialist label.
He literally lived on a commune. And called himself Communist when it was cool. But the Democrat party threw him under the bus for Hillary. You can't blame the Republicans for THAT.
It became more of an issue when he had a heart attack for people. I still supported him, but I’m sure others were concerned.
Even young wouldn't have a chance. When your policies and slogans appeal to young people-literally the least reliable voter demographic- you've signed your death warrant.
It's a real shame no one young has Sanders support. Because, while people like AOC exist, they don't have the same working class appeal that Bernie has/had. Because they get too into woke culture and that turns off a lot of people.
LOL THE reason Bernie couldn’t win was his inability to attract a large amount of black voters to his campaign. Biden “outwoked” Bernie. Joe “racial Jungle” Biden. The problem with white progressivism its head too far up it’s own ass to even think “hey maybe we can’t talk to black people “
Sanders had 4 years to address this issue and never did. Heck, is not like he didn't know the main player in 2020. Clyburn and Sanders had worked together before. So, he did not address a weak point, and did not coordinate with Warren when Obama railed everyone behind Biden.
His campaign was run by Biahna Joy Gray, a massive Democrat hater online and she wasn't shy about it. She encouraged the snake campaign against Elizabeth Warren. After Bernie ended his campaign she unleashed her vitriol on any Democrat she could snap back to. I began to suspect, then, that she was a Russian asset, perhaps unsuspectingly at best.
The Democratic Party wanted a Democrat. Simple as that
Right, they wanted someone who talked a big game but at the end of the day would not actually challenge any existing power structures. Which is what the Democratic Party exists to do. Take leftist/ worker/ environmentalist energy and subsume it into the corporate friendly Democratic Party. The media was united against Bernie (wonder why), and scared everyone into believing he could never win. Americans are inherently conservative and reactionary , even democrats.......Which is why we got Joe "Nothing will fundamentally change" Biden.
Bernie has his finger on the real issue. Post office naming.
But enough people didn't agree with him for him to win. Biden is also doing quite well and passing a lot of shit, even with the smallest of majorities.
Biden has done far more than Sanders ever could have gotten done with the most closely divided Congress in the last century and people still shit on him. Do Americans not realize the US has a President and not a King?
> Right, they wanted someone who talked a big game but at the end of the day would not actually challenge any existing power structures. Someone who talked a big game but never actually challenged existing power structures.... That's Bernie Sanders, lmao Y'all just like that he told you everything you wanted was going to happen in 4 years, and that by 2020, you'll live in an utopia if you voted him into office.
B-b-but he’s the amendment king! My favorite is when his stump speech went from tax the millionaires and billionaires to just billionaires after his book brought in the dough
For real. The man has been in office since 1991 and the only things he accomplished is privatization of the VA and renaming Post Offices. The internet loves Bernie because he feeds them simple messages and they don’t want to admit they’ve also been influenced by the Republican machine that has been working against Hilary for decades. Because Hilary is an actual threat to accomplish things Republicans are against - Bernie is not. Republicans would have loved President Sanders because he would accomplish nothing but the public would blame the Democrats instead of Bernie’s own incompetence.
Really what would Bernie do that Joe couldn't do. You know you can't actually wag your fingers and make Republicans do things if you don't have a filibuster proof majority...and guess what...Bernie defended the filibuster on the campaign trail...one of his biggest differences with Warren.
Better yet what has Bernie actually accomplished as a senator in the past decade?
Don’t know why you’re getting voted down. This is the truth. The Democratic Party rarely acts in the interest of labor. Sanders’ campaign had labor on the front of its mind in policy proposals.
Exactly. Which is why during both primaries, the party itself did everything it could to sanatorium his campaign, and sadly it worked
I think about this a lot. What if the DNC didnt fuck over Sanders in favor of Hillary? Would Trump have lost? How different would everything be? COVID-response, Tax cuts, healthcare, infastructure... On a similar note: What if Al-Gore pressed the election issue further and ended up winning? No Iraq war? Maybe 9/11 was averted (Bush allegedly ignored CIA warnings of suicide-hijackings in August 2001). How different would the environmental crisis be right now? These what-ifs run through my mind every time I see something related to Bush or Trump and their consequences..
It probably would be different, but I think people overestimate the differences. I have a very hard time believing 9/11 wouldn’t have averted or there would be major environment reform as nice as that sounds. Trumps COVID response if anything was anything but “party of small government.” The only thing on that list that may very well have been pretty different as I would believe the Iraq war would have never happened with a different leader. .
Didn’t Sanders do this: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-campaign-penalized-dnc-after-improperly-accessing-clinton-voter-n482341
> What if the DNC didnt fuck over Sanders in favor of Hillary? Hillary had [3.7 million more votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries) than Sanders in the Dem primary. The DNC favoring Hillary didn't have anywhere close to enough impact to change that result. A lot of people are misinformed about what actually happened, like leaking a few obvious debate questions and trying to plant a few articles somehow changed the minds of 4 million primary voters in Hillary's favor. So the answer to your question is Hillary still would have easily won the primary and everything would have likely played out the same, except there's a small chance Bernie not spreading misinformation about the primary being rigged/stolen would have tilted things away from Trump winning.
>The Democratic Party never wanted a Democrat Huh? He could have started by actually being a member of the Democrat party. Not just when it was convenient, whenever he wanted to run for president again. But people still act all hurt when the party despised - and did not advocate for and try to change from the inside - did not roll out the red carpet for him. Why should it?
Bernie and Warren split the progressive lane in the 2020 primaries with Bernie far and away leading it, while the “moderate” lane was super crowded. After he tied Iowa, won NH, and absolutely blew out Nevada, then getting beat in SC by Biden, the moderates all dropped out and endorsed Biden, while Warren stayed in. Had the moderate lane remained splintered, and/or Warren dropped out before Super Tuesday to endorse him, he would have had a shot.
I feel like I'm going insane reading all the responses to this question with the exception of this.
Right?? The moderates were a majority of the democratic primary voters. He lost because the democratic primary voters wanted someone more moderate.
Also, like... if you want Warren supporters to fall in line behind you, maybe don't spend the preceding three months hurling absolute vitriol at them? Not just Warren herself, or even the campaign staffers, but anyone IRL or on the internet who happens to offhand mention they're a Warren supporter? You can't stab someone in the back, repeatedly, for months on end, and then demand loyalty from them.
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>literally stabbed him in the back Bro come on, please don't do this to my language.
Sanders also heavily campaigned against Bloomberg, who he thought would be his main competition. Massive misstep by his campaign to focus so aggressively on a non candidate while Biden was still in the race.
Why are you (and everyone) leaving out the fact that Bloomberg was in the race splitting the moderate vote with Biden? The Biden + Bloomberg vote share was far greater than the Sanders + Warren vote share
There's more details to it, but this is a pretty damn good birds eye view of what happened.
Warren’s share of vote on Super Tuesday was slightly lower than Michael Bloomberg’s according to the polls casted before ST. And, if you think Liz’s liberal middle class suburban women votes were going for Bernie in the first place, y’all out of mind. At that point, most of her “progressive” voting bloc already flock to Sanders. Y’all don’t get to blame Liz for this.
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Very true. And that is how the primaries work. But then again when you look at the ones Biden won... > Biden won Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia; Bernie Sanders won California, Colorado, Utah, and his home state of Vermont. Sanders did win the biggest blue state, aka CA.
He won it but not by nearly the margin he needed, because unlike the GOP primary, Democrats don't do WTA.
A lot of rewriting of history on Reddit here. If it was Biden vs Bernie straight up across America it would be around 60% to 40% in the primary. Bernie was never going to win, conspiracy by the DNC to sabotage his campaign or not.
Wrong question: Why couldn't America make Bernie Sanders work? Right question: Why couldn't Bernie Sanders make his campaigns work?
It's funny how his 2020 campaign reminded me of Clinton's 2016 campaign, in that they both seemed to be oddly blindsided when everything didn't automatically go their way.
This. People don't talk about this much but Sanders' 2020 campaign was noticeably worse than his 2016 campaign. Possibly because all the competent campaign staff had other campaigns to work with and he was left with crazy true believers like David Sirota and Nina Turner who ran this off-putting toxic campaign rooted in delusion.
Briahna Joy Gray
Oof…his campaign staff in 2020 really was terrible.
Bernie’s 2020 campaign was so bad that people on 4chan started using his campaign as a source for new racial slurs. Very weird moment in history.
Idk Bernie was making a killing, first one to ever win the first three states but then the South Carolina endorsement along with the other candidates shortly after completely flipped the tides
Bernie was not making a killing. He won 25 percent of the vote in Iowa. 25 percent of the vote in NH. And those were states set up to be very good for him, but Pete beat him in Iowa and was barely behind him in NH. Dude ran in 2016, spent the next four years building a national profile, had a ton of money, and lost / tied two state upfront that were stocked with his demo? Not 'making a killing.' More like 'doing surprisingly poorly.'
Bernie was only ever ahead against a split vote and I say that as someone that supported him. His only chance was I’d the other candidates stayed in too long and split bidens base.
He lost the first won and tied the second won, and then lost the 4th. What election are you referring to?
In his defense Bernie lost Iowa I think by less than a percentage and won New Hampshire with less than 3.
From what I recall, Bernie won the popular vote in Iowa but lost in delegates to Buttigieg due to his votes' distribution.
Honestly you might be right. I remember it was close and the conspiracies about the software that was used it linked to Buttigeg. I just remember thinking after NH primaries the other moderate candidates have to rally around one person and drop out or the vote will be split AND Bernie’s camp better prepare for it.
guess they should've moved on from caucuses I Wonder Why They Didn't
I don't know about 2016, but in 2020 his campaign didn't make a whole lot of sense. He pretty much followed the exact same campaign strategy that lost him the nomination the first time. He even did worse in 2020 because Biden wasn't nearly as hated as Hillary was.
Part of me wanted Bernie to win to see the Berniebros turn on him when he did nothing different than maintain the status quo. Because now we’ll forever have, “If only Bernie…”
I wasn't a big fan of his because his plans were weak. I liked what he was saying, but his whole plan was "rich people will pay." But, especially during his first campaign, he didn't say how. If all you had to do was ask nicely, they'd do it already
Populism 101. Grandstanding, very little details
Exactly he was a demagogue
It is easy to blame voters, but politicians campaign for the direct purpose of enticing voters. Granted, we should want informed voters, but you have to work with what you have, and if you cannot make the sale, why would anyone want to buy?
I was so frustrated with his supporters mostly. The percentage of them that showed up to vote was absurd.
A higher proportion of Sanders supporters voted for Clinton in the 2016 general than the proportion of Clinton supporters who voted for Obama in 2008.
I think they might have meant in the primary. There was an issue in several primaries where Bernie supporters just didn't show up to the primary elections like at all.
Dem Socs can't lead the coalition with Soc Dems until the general decline actually hits the upper middle class. Bernie woke something up in the 40 and under crowd, much like Goldwater did in '64. It may take 20 years to see it, but the seeds have been planted.
He’s not even dem soc he’s soc dem he just said the wrong thing. I get annoyed when people mix them up because it makes soc dem seem less acceptable to the general population when in fact most would support it.
Why does this Bernie guy care so much about others when he's an atheist? " My Mom "
The voter base from which he garnered most of his support, young people, are the least reliable voting age group you can get. Of 18-29 just 27% showed up at the polls in 2022. That was down 4 points from the 2018 midterm. In 2020 they had 50% turnout up from 39 in 2016 thought which was solid. However it pails in comparison to the +70% turnout of 60+ year old voters. And people wonder why politicians are so old…. In both his primaries, he was almost completely wiped out in the black vote, a major wing of Democratic voters. Labeling himself as socialist would have made him completely unpalatable in the general. It’s one of the dirtiest of dirty words to the average voter.
Americans just don’t like socialism for the most part.
Yeah he really shouldn't market himself as one. He's a Social Democrat. He doesnt advocate for the end of capitalism or anything.
Yeah I said the same exact thing. But him marketing himself as a socialist was probably a decent move in a crowded field. But he should have imagined the democrats would drop out and endorse Biden. I think democrats in polls do have a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism.
Not enough people liked his message. The better question is why could Bernie not sell his message to America?
I think he couldn’t sell his electability to primary voters. I think that is his main flaw. He also for some reason associates himself with the word socialism even though his policy isn’t socialism. It’s honestly strange strategically to do that.
>He also for some reason associates himself with the word socialism even though his policy isn’t socialism. It’s honestly strange strategically to do that. This drives me nuts, to the point that I think it exhibits a basic lack of political strategy and cunningness that would have doomed his presidency at every angle . I find it amazing that Bernie cores FDR as the best president, yet seemed to take so few lessons from him and his political maneuvering that made him successful to begin with.
Yeah I think Bernie is probably a socialist in his personal life. Like I think if you were his good friend and you talked to him over some beers about politics he is probably to the left of his policy (again his policy is not socialist) if I had to guess. But I think most politicians are probably to the left or right of their policy. Like most Republican politicians probably on principle don’t agree with food stamps but they don’t destroy food stamps entirely they just chip away at the program. I think Bernie was good at talking to crowds but he was the opposite of cunning. I think he’s not very cut throat either, he always came across as too nice to actually make the changes he wants. Basically I think he’s a guy with decent policy who is good at giving speeches but lacks political awareness.
For me, there was the electability problem as well as my belief that he wouldn't actually get anything done. With a divided Congress, Biden has gotten some stuff done but not more items on his liberal wishlist (like codifying Roe). The idea that Bernie would roll in and create universal healthcare and all that is wishful thinking...he never would have had the legislative support for a single item in his agenda.
This is the correct question
Plenty of people liked his message. The problem was his message was extremely narrow and the math behind his vision doesn't even make sense
People want to be left alone in America. Left alone to die, be unhealthy, be in medical debt, doesn’t matter. Over everything else, they want to be left alone
>The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful.
You want to know why he lost to Hillary 1. He's not a Democrat...hard core Democrats in the primaries especially older Democrats are not going to vote for an Independent over one of their own. 2. Hillary through Bill Clinton actually has a strong fanbase...I know that's shocking on reddit. But lots of people loved the Clinton years and many felt Hillary was accomplished enough to be a good President. 3. Bernie doesn't appeal to older voters but especially not older black voters. From what I gathered they felt he pandered to a lot of other groups at their expense and so they went with Hillary instead. 4. The ghost of George McGovern...the liberals ran somebody unabashedly liberal and got curbstomped. Many Democrats felt that Bernie gave waaay to many McGovern feelings. Edit: Look Bernie Bros you can have all your conspiracy theories but Hillary had a lot more votes. I’m sorry if it’s a shock more people prefer the former First Lady and the Secretary of State over a an Independent Senator from Vermont.
>He's not a Democrat...hard core Democrats in the primaries especially older Democrats are not going to vote for an Independent over one of their own. I've never understood why this is so hard for so many folks to understand. There is a lot of work that goes into building and maintaining the party, and people just take it for granted. People knock on doors, donate money, sit on committees. For tens of thousands of people across the country, the Democratic party is a part-time job that they don't get compensated for. Then Bernie shows up and expects the entire apparatus to just start working for him because he filled out a few forms. Folks were supposed to forget everything they had been working on for their entire lives and just volunteer for & donate to Bernie now. It was never going to happen.
The Democratic Party has a right to run a Democrat on its ticket. It really is that simple.
Food for thought: so how did T**** do it with the Republicans?
That's a really good question and I'll take a couple stabs at it: It worked for Trump but the GOP fought him like hell. Difference between the Bernie situation though is that Trump was running against several other candidates that splintered establishment GOP support. If the GOP has consolidated behind one candidate way earlier, such as Jeb or Cruz, Trump may not have gotten the nomination. Bernie was fighting one other candidate, a candidate with more on paper qualifications and name recognition than anyone running against trump on the GOP side And even thought it "worked" for Trump there were still some GOP voters that voted for Hilary instead of Him. Some of which were high profile
Yep thank you. It’s shocking to me that people don’t understand how the Secretary of State, Senator, Yale Law Grad, generational woman was popular among mainstream democrats.
And as First Lady, championed Universal healthcare, something that should have been passed by Congress in the 90s. Imagine how Americans lives would have benefited from that!
Because regardless of commercials and social media, the majority of the US doesn’t really want either hardcore conservatives or hardcore “Progressives.” They want someone closer to the middle.
Probably because he failed to appeal to the black voters that he needed both times and also had a terrible campaign strategy that relied on other candidates not dropping out and splitting the votes the second time.
idk, maybe praising Fidel Castro at the Democratic debates
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He got cocky. He won Nevada and they thought they were cruising. It was a 60 minutes article. Then South Carolina happened and it became clear to many candidates they couldn't win, so they dropped out. Which is the way it's supposed to work.
People still, to this day, act like the moderate wing of the Democratic primary field had some kind of responsibility to remain in the race and keep it fragmented long enough for Bernie to cement his lead, and that it was a great conspiracy that led the trailing moderates to drop out and - shocker - endorse the leading moderate.
Which is ironic because if republicans did this in 2016 Trump probably would have lost the primary
He not only did this, he DOUBLED DOWN on it when the media gave him a chance to correct himself. Not only did he lose Florida for himself, he freaked out Cubans so much that he took down every Democrat with him including Biden.
Well the good thing is he freaked the Democratic establishment and Dem voters out because they realized that he would dump a key swing state and be ready to lose to Donald in to win an argument from 60 years ago, and they all consolidated around Biden.
This gaffe hurt him way more than the Bernie people could ever accept. Dem primary voters were absolutely horrified by it and wondered what other toxic stuff would Bernie say. Then, they realized that they didn't know Bernie very much at all. What other skeletons were in his closet? His tone deafness killed his campaign more than anything. As for Florida, the gaffe has screwed Dems big time down there for a long time.
Leaving aside that he was being an apologist for an authoritarian dictator. What Bernie did was the equivalent to going to the Iowa State Fair and saying “fuck ethanol subsides!!” It was a big fuck you to a key swing state and since he doubled down on it, it was clear he was willing to do the same thing with the other 10-15 swing states.
TNO portrait
*Oh* Yep, that'll do it.
Because the average working class U.S. citizen doesn't want a "revolution." They want stability. They want people with practical, achievable plans. Even if they liked the things he said, they knew that these types of beliefs are mostly held by high schoolers and college students who don't really understand what it's really like to be a working middle class adult and not someone who dreams of somehow overturning everything. He was a New Englander who mostly focused on young people and people in large cities instead of the more rural Democrats who were the ones who actually needed played to in order to get valuable swing state votes. I could go on for an hour.
Well, I've heard the argument that the reason why Trump was elected was because the American people genuinely wanted change.
This is it. When you won’t let a leftist populist win in an era where people want a populist leader you create a bottleneck and uninformed people break for the only other person offering change even if they don’t meaningfully understand that one is genuine and one is a demagogue and a con.
Yes and no. Don't forget the Trump campaign slogan. Make America great *again*. Trump campaign was framed as a return to recent normalcy. He portrayed the establishment as a tumor on an otherwise effective nation. Just get rid of the corrupt leaders and everything snaps back into place. Compare that to the leftist vision of completely reshaping the country. That's the difference between the two messages.
Bernie Sanders in 1989...."We need to tax the millionaires more. They do not pay enough taxes" Bernie Sanders in 2023..."We need to tax the billionaires more. They do not pay enough taxes"
And the difference is ... Sanders became a millionaire in the intervening years.
Sanders became a millionaire by writing popular books. There is no conflict in doing that with his beliefs.
The point is he didn’t wanna pay more taxes so he changed his mantra. Slimey af
Bernie Sanders current politics is left of the current American. I think he helped change that. He wasn’t winning though.
Outside of hyper-progressives, no one likes Bernie Sanders. The right thinks he’s a radical communist, moderates think he’s a radical socialist, people in the center-left like some of his stuff but also realize that he wouldn’t be effective anyway. EDIT: this is for everyone to see. Bernie Sanders is not as popular with demographic necessary to win national elections as he is with younger people and nonwhites. Yes, he is popular. Just not with the right people.
I'll remind you that Sanders is the most popular senator and his nationwide approval rating is also pretty high.
Yet his supporters have failed to show up in sufficient numbers to win him the nomination in 2 series of primaries. He most certainly is popular, just not with the people who show up.
It doesn’t matter how popular he is with teens who don’t vote. Bernie is generally unliked by the voting public and within Congress. If, by the grace of God, he were to actually win a nationwide general election, he wouldn’t even be an effective president.
Hillary Clinton had pretty high approval ratings around the time she finished her stint as Secretary of State. If you think a President Bernie Sanders or even a presidential candidate Sanders would have that same approval, I'm afraid I've got some bad news.
He’s not presidential. He doesn’t compromise or work out legislation. He doesn’t meet anyone in the middle. He’s not a deal-maker.
I think this is one of the big things that I criticize Bernie for. I don’t hate him by any means, but I believe that a successful president (even presidential candidate) needs to have skill and success in being able to compromise and reach across the isle to, well, pass legislation! Bernie is notoriously stubborn in the senate, and I think that’s a big issue going against anyone wanting to run for president. I think he’s a lot more effective at being a big voice for issues rather than actually getting stuff done behind the scenes
Same. At the end of the day he's better at advocating from the media pulpit than at actually get legislation passed. That's a legitimate use of his time as a senator, IMO, but it's not practical as a president.
What my dad said to me: Centrists and moderates will vote for Trump over Bernie." I don't agree with it, but I'm not sure he's wrong either.
Your dad is right
Because Bernie Sanders doesn't work. Patrick Lahey was the Vermont senator who we should have wanted for president, but Lahey was too busy doing the job. Bernie Sanders for all his time in office has authored and passed 3 bills. 2 were for banking post offices.
As it turns out, young would be socialists aren’t willing to put in the work for an elderly multimillionaire who made his money selling books on the free market. That and the support for socialism is well overstated in the USA.
I don’t know anyone who thinks socialism is popular in America, and all my friends are on the left.
Have you ever been on this website called Reddit?
I would've been more willing to vote for him if he had explained how we pay for his proposals and tackle the national debt issue. He was saying a lot of idealistic things and I couldn't agree with him as a Republican.
Because he couldn’t convince enough people to vote for him in a primary, it’s as simple as that. Like Trump, populist Bernie is polarizing. You love him or you can’t stand him. I voted for Nader in 2000, but never voted for Bernie. If you can’t win over someone like me, then it’s a bad start. It has nothing to do with the DNC, or the establishment… he didn’t have the numbers except for online. The fact that Obama was the 2008 nominee should be proof enough that it wasn’t the DNC of Hillary that stood in the way. They may not have made it easy, but it was winnable. Bernie isn’t exactly a coalition builder. He poo pooed NARAL and PP in 2016… and suggested courts weren’t a priority and that worries about Roe were unfounded. That alienated a lot of people. He ran in a party that he often puts down and hasn’t done much to build up… that cost him votes. He surrounds himself with obnoxious people like David Sirota and Brie Brie… alienating people even after 2016. He spread “it was rigged” nonsense before Trump. Some people still believe that. He’s split the left, intentionally or not. He also makes apologies for racists on the right, as if that isn’t a primary driver… and he did it a few days before the ‘16 general election on top of that. He was all talk with little substance, that’s a turn off to many voters as well. He’s passed or co-signed little legislation, and mostly just criticizes everyone in hindsight. His appeal is mostly cynicism against the establishment or a desire to go further left than a majority of Americans.
Because we don’t really have a left here compared to what progressive parties are like in other countries. Democrats are the best we have and they’re just a teeny tiny bit left of center. So, for too many people here, Bernie is seen as a socialist and socialism is equal to communism in too many minds.
socialism is stupid. Dem socialism is only slightly less stupid.
He didn't have the support of the Democratic establishment, for one.
Neither did Obama in 2008.
Why is it even slightly surprising that the DNC would support a Democrat who had been raising money for the party for decades as opposed to an independent who showed up to feed at the funding trough that Hilary filled, and only joined the party so that he had access to the Party's funds to run for President? Truly, the mind boggles.
I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the question.
Ironically, his age was the biggest excuse I heard from people, and now that's the number 1 argument against Biden, Trump, and many other senators and politicians. It's a justified argument, it was just frustrating to hear against Bernie when he is kicking a bit stronger than these other guys.
His views are not broadly popular enough within the Democratic Party, much less the nation as a whole.
America could but the DNC had other plans.
The democrats wanted Hillary. Should have had Sanders, and it's to late for him now. He should have talked more about his civil rights work. We lost someone good in him.
What civil rights work? Marching back in the 60s? There’s a reason black people didn’t vote for him: marching is all well and good but if you haven’t advanced their needs in the legislature then you aren’t doing anything for them
yeah and constantly throwing it in people's faces is like the most aggravating white liberal behavior lmao
Bernie would have lost, too. The GOP would have had a field day with his "Commie loving" past. They would have made him look like the next Joe Stalin by the time they were done. Young voters may not understand this, but the Cold War is still well remembered by the over 40 crowd, and they vote a lot more than the youth do.
I’ve known Trump supporters who agree with pretty much everything Sanders says…except that they would definitely “never vote for a commie”. Yeah, anything that is remotely socialist-sounding is just toxic branding for an American presidential candidate.
Whether it’s fair or not, the GOP would have plastered his written comments that he wrote in the Vermont Freeman in the 70’s all over conservative media for the entire run up to the election if he won the democratic primary. Trump would have called him a rapist on national television every chance he got and I really think that would have fucked his ability to get elected.
We never got to see the Republican hit file on Sanders but it’s safe to say that there must be some zingers in there Just that video of Sanders in a middle school classroom saying “(ethnicity) stink. (Other ethnicity) are gangsters. (Other ethnicity) are greedy,” would have been played in commercials on a loop. The Republicans have never seen an out-of-context quote that they didn’t like. And, let’s be real, even if he was only citing examples of stereotypes that he doesn’t believe, you don’t talk to *children* that way. Because some of those children are going to repeat those taunts back on the playground
> He should have talked more about his civil rights work. He did no civil rights work. from 1963 - 2015. His "Civil rights work" lasted several months, a fight he quit the moment he got arrested once. Even though he was only in jail for less than 15 minutes, he left and never looked up until it was time to be president, and he had to get black votes. Couldn't rely just on lily white Vermont
Too Jewish, too socialist. Signed, a Jewish socialist. Berners also didn’t help.
Because he cannot work. His ideas have always failed, miserably, with zero exceptions.
He’s an old white male multi-millionaire socialist. Never had a shot. He’s too far left for the average democrat. He’s too old and comes off as angry white man. He’s also too rich for the socialists.