Bernie2020? Not without black voters.

Bianca Delarosa
Jul 20, 2017 · 6 min read

So it’s 2017. Pardon my surprise at the idea that Bernie Sanders is the ‘frontrunner’ for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.


natesilver: Last week, Vox’s Matt Yglesias wrote a column claiming that Bernie Sanders — Clare, he’s the independent senator from Vermont who ran in the Democratic primary in 2016 and finished second to Hillary Clinton — was the Democrats’ “front-runner” for 2020. I’m sure you’ve all read that column?


Ok. Let’s ignore the fact the Bernie Sanders will be 79 years old by the time he would be expected to take office, and just deal with the overly optimistic view of Bernie’s chances in 2020.

First of all, Bernie was pretty much out of the game by Super Tuesday. As the primary swept across the South, it also swept away any chance for a Sanders win. Bernie did so poorly with black voters down south, ESPECIALLY black women, that the idea that there will be a dramatic change without his dedicated and sustained outreach over the next few years, is honestly mindblowing.

It’s not that black women simply hate Bernie Sanders, it’s that Bernie Sanders has nothing to offer us other than big talk and a weak legislative record. Black women are discerning. We have had politicians selling us color blind fantasies of economic equality for decades. We do not fall for it. For good reason. You cannot have economic equality without social justice. But Bernie only wants to work on one part of the package, and we can hear it loud and clear, every single time we ask him to get specific on how his plans help black people.

Additionally, in order for Bernie to beat a potential competitor like, Kamala Harris, for example, he will have to battle her on her own turf. California. The goldmine of delegates. And with a rising star like Kamala being a Senator of that state, his chances drop dramatically. Even so, that is just more evidence that Black women have been, and continue to be his biggest obstacle. If a black woman like Kamala decides to run, or a charismatic POC of any gender runs, Bernie will be in a world of hurt trying to convince black women to allow him to make a second impression on us.

The way Bernie ran his Southern campaign, and his outreach to black voters in general was lackluster, ineffective and, his campaign backers at the PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) issued a statement that bordered on being blatantly racist.


The ‘Confederacy’ is how Bernie’s most loyal supporters decided to refer to the millions of Democratic voters (a large portion of whom were black) just because they handed Bernie a loss at an 86–14 percent ratio in the state of South Carolina among black voters. In order for Bernie to have a chance in hell of winning the nom, he’d have to do far better than that with black voters down south, and so far, he does not look particularly interested in trying.



So, what has Bernie been doing to change the dynamic between himself and the black community? Has he taken steps to try to see where he failed with us so that he can use that information to improve his outreach? Has he listened to black women any better than he did when he was interrupted by Marissa Johnson and Mara Jacqueline Willaford in Seattle?

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, right, waits to speak after the Westlake Park stage is taken over by “Black Lives Matter” activists Mara Jacqueline Willaford, second from left, and Marissa Johnson, center. Rally organizer and emcee Robby Stern, left, allowed them to speak, but Sanders was not able to return to the podium. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)


The answer is no. Bernie has gone from phoning it in on ‘saying her name’ and semi trying to have a plan that relates to black voters, to completely blaming ‘Identity Politics’ for Democratic electoral losses.

“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton.

And he has spent a fair amount of time defending Trump voters from accusations of racism.

“Some people think the people who voted for Trump are racists, sexist and homophobes, just deplorable folks,” he said. “I don’t agree, because I’ve been there. Let us understand what’s going on.”

And he has been attacking the Democratic party, of which most black female voters are a strong part of.

And my answer is that Trump didn’t win the election, the Democratic Party lost the election,” he said to roaring applause.

“Let us be very, very clear: The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic party is an absolute failure,” he continued. “This is not my opinion, this is the facts.

And his Our Revolution group had been targeting Democrats. Nina Turner has openly declared that their group is willing to back Republicans over Democrats if they have a stated goal of enacting single payer.

CM: Will the group be endorsing non-Democrats?

NT: You know what, yes. We are open to it. And for me, I’ve also heard the senator say this lately too: Let’s put the political affiliation to the side. If there is a Republican or a Libertarian or Green Party person that believes in Medicare for all, then that’s our kind of person. If there’s somebody that believes that Citizens United needs to be overturned, that we need the 28th amendment to the Constitution that declares that money, corporate money, is not speech and that corporations should not have more speech than Mrs. Johnson down the street and Mr. Gonzalez around the corner, then that’s our kind of people.

And he has been on a tour of Trump voting areas to listen to the concerns of Trump voters.

It’s amazing, the degree to which, in this country, in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, Democrats have, to a large degree, forfeited these states, conceded these states to right-wing Republicans,” Sanders said in an interview before boarding a plane to leave Kentucky. “In many cases, these are working-class states, these are states where people are struggling economically. The idea that Democrats would not be fighting, and investing in, and working with people in these states, is to me, beyond comprehension.” He added: “You don’t win if you don’t show up.”

I’d like to make a couple of points about the last quote. My first point is this: when Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination he basically conceded the Democratic BLACK vote in the south. Bernie Sanders barely put in any effort.

Yet here he is touring the historically whiter southern states, and apparently only the Republican strongholds. I have yet to see him tour the black heavy areas of the deep south to listen to the concerns of struggling black voters. As a matter of fact, Bernie clearly mentions the white working class in his constant diatribes against Democrats. He never mentions any other kinds of people.

If his actions since the November disaster prove anything, they prove this; Bernie Sanders has not learned a thing from the harsh lessons black voters taught him down south. His outreach is nonexistent towards any groups that do not fall in the white working class category. If this is his game plan for 2020, winning Republican voters in Red States, then his competition for the nomination has a much easier job ahead of him or her. You cannot win the Democratic nomination without winning black voters. Ignore us at your peril.

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Bianca Delarosa

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I am more of a poet than a blogger.

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