Bernie Sanders' Disastrous Decision To Run For President

This is not good news for the Democratic Party.

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by Ben Cohen

So, there you have it folks, the tireless Bernie Sanders has announced that he is running for president. Again. At the age of 77.

Regardless of what you might feel about Sanders as a person, from a purely political point of view, his presence in the 2020 Presidential election is nothing short of disastrous. It is worth spelling this out clearly: Bernie Sanders has no hope of winning in 2020. Given the militancy of his supporters and their willingness to turn against the Democrats (and sometimes small children) if they do not get their way, it means Sanders can only do damage to the Democrats and harm their chances of beating Trump.

This is something the Democrats can ill afford in perhaps the most important election in American history.

Why Bernie Can’t Win

Sanders’ decision to run is perplexing to say the least, particularly given no one involved in presidential politics outside of his own campaign team believes he can win. As Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote in the Atlantic last year when Sanders was mulling his options for 2020, “Most Republicans would see a Sanders candidacy as a gift, letting them paint the entire Democratic Party in socialism. The idea that he might emerge as the candidate against Trump is too much of a dream for them to even admit. Many Democrats agree.”

Given the emergence of new, younger, equally leftwing candidates who will also be running in 2020, Sanders is not only a liability when it comes to the political center, he is no longer unique either. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris for example, would have no problem taking Bernie on over economic issues. Cory Booker has the ability to galvanize the youth vote, just as Beto O’Rourke would if he decides to run (and the chances are he will).

Sanders cast himself as the anti-establishment candidate in 2016 because he was facing Hillary Clinton. It is a position he will not be able to repeat given he is entering a very, very different political landscape in 2020. For some reason Sanders does not appear to have gotten the memo, and believes that the same formula he lost on in 2016 will somehow magically work four years later. And let’s be perfectly honest about it — Sanders wasn’t just beaten by Hillary Clinton in 2016, he was hammered badly. Sanders lost to a candidate with extensive political baggage, little charisma, and a history of poor campaigning by over 3 million votes.

Regardless of Clinton’s “establishment” support, this isn’t exactly the best track record to run on in 2020. It would be one thing if Sanders were a young political upstart who took it to Clinton in a closely contest, but he was a 73 year old Senator with over four decades of experience in public office.

A strategy based on wishful thinking

Sanders’ team has announced that they believe they can win by beating Trump in the states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, taking away Republican strongholds in places like West Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana. If Sanders can pull white working class voters away from Trump, his people believe he can turn Presidential electoral politics on its head and radically change the country, just as Donald Trump did.

“It [Bernie’s message] could just radically change the map,” Ben Tulchin, Sanders’ pollster told Politico.

“As Bernie has showed, as Trump has showed, I don’t think we are in a binary, two-dimensional, left-right paradigm anymore.”

This may be true, but Sanders also has to bring everyone else to the voting booths too, and that means appealing to the rest of the Democratic Party. Given his contentious history with the organization (Sanders only declares himself a Democrat when running for President), this is not a given. Bernie’s supporters are also extraordinarily good at turning off other Democrats, and if the primaries are anything like 2016, it is safe to say they will do their best to harass anyone the deem insufficiently progressive. A Democratic Party that is not completely unified goes into the general election with a serious handicap, regardless of the nominee. If Sanders’ fans inflict enough damage on another candidate who beats him (which is by far the most likely scenario), those crucial white working class voters will head straight back to Donald Trump.

The importance of political reality

As the research emphatically shows, most Democrats do not want an ideologue to represent them in 2020. They want a candidate who can win. Sanders believes his message will propel him to victory over Donald Trump, but the political reality is that this almost certainly won’t be enough. Youth counts in presidential politics. Charisma counts in presidential politics, and an ability to, well, play presidential politics counts in presidential politics.

Donald Trump won in 2016 because he played the media system in America like a fiddle. He appealed to America’s fascistic streak, and the innate racism that exists beneath the country’s surface. He bullshitted enough people with the promise of free money and better healthcare, and bullied the Republican establishment into submission. It was a masterclass in the vicious politics of power, and there is no indication Sanders has the skills needed to take Trump on. At the risk of sounding pedantic, it must be remembered that Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in a landslide. If he couldn’t make it out of the primaries in 2016 against one of the weakest presidential candidates in recent memory, what makes anyone believe he can take on Trump?

Bernie’s legacy is at stake

If this sounds like a polemic against Bernie Sanders, please do not read it as such. Sanders is by almost all accounts a very decent human being with a stellar track record of delivering tangible results for the citizens of Vermont. He almost single handedly brought the concept of universal health care, free college education, and progressive taxation back into mainstream politics in America. He is an unashamed Social Democrat who spearheaded an impressive movement to bring economic inequality to the forefront of the national debate, paving the way for progressive candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to emerge and be taken seriously. Sanders deserves a huge amount of praise for this, and despite the fallout from the 2016 election, his net effect on politics in America is undoubtedly positive.

The issue here is solely Sanders’ ability to win. By entering an already crowded field, Sanders is simply helping divide the party at a time when cohesion is of primary importance. There are younger, fresher candidates with a better chance of beating Donald Trump, so Bernie’s decision to run will not only tarnish his legacy, but harm the country’s one shot at getting rid of the most dangerous president in American history.