Why do Democrats Want to Bet Against a Winner?
Or: Does Chris Matthews think we are all stupid?
Like all articles on The New Haberdasher, this story is presented to you for free. If you like what I do, consider supporting my work with a small monetary contribution at my Patreon and thank you.
Senator Sanders won the Nevada Caucuses tonight. This was not a surprise. He ran away with the win. This is also not really a surprise. He did so by capturing an outright majority of the Latinx vote. That was kind of surprising, but not really when you think that the Latinx population is the youngest and fastest growing demographic group in the US, and if we know nothing else, it is that young people love Bernie Sanders, and furthermore, Sanders has reached out directly to Latinos and Latinas in ways that other candidates never could grasp.
So, none of that is really all that surprising.
What is surprising to me is the paroxysms that his ascendancy is sending through the Democratic punditocracy. Chris Matthews, who is himself a conservative Democrat from Pennsylvania, and says so every chance he gets as if this gives him some sort of authority over the question of who Democrats ought to run in 2020, made an allusion comparing Sanders’ victory to the Nazis overrunning the Maginot Line. “It’s over”, he said quoting a French General to Churchill in 1940. We don’t really have to point out that the Nazis completely bypassed the Maginot line, so the metaphor itself doesn’t even make sense unless you are ignorant of history (and then, this is completely on you.) The crisis in his voice is palpable — He even said he is concerned about “dangers” of Trump’s opposition research, and noting “They’re going to kill him. But I think it’s a little late to stop him; that’s the problem.”
His voice is echoed across the talking heads on most of the Left.
I don’t particularly care what Mr. Matthews thinks about Senator Sanders’ victory here. What matters more is whether or not he is able to lead a bunch of folks to stay home. It is almost as if they are trying to make their thesis, that Sanders is not electable, into a reality. But unfortunately, for Chris Matthews and for James Carville and for the other heads who are trying to protect the citadel of Clintonite power from the advancing hordes of bloodthirsty Berners, people are not stupid, and I am sure their arguments are as transparent as their cynicism with regard to their true motivations.
“Sanders is unelectable”
So what is electability? Firefox’s spellcheck says it is not a word. But boiled down to its etymology, it means the ability to be elected.
So, does Senator Sanders have an electability problem? Even if we just looked at Nevada’s results tonight, the answer is obviously “no”. I mean: he clearly won the contest. He might not have been elected to any office tonight, but he did demonstrate that he can put together more votes than his rivals. In fact, he trounced his opponents in Nevada. And for weeks, talking heads and liberal blogs were talking about how Iowa and New Hampshire were not important because they were all white: What is really important is Nevada and South Carolina going into Super Tuesday (as if white votes didn’t matter. But I digress).
Nevada was important because it demonstrated how well a candidate could do with a Latinx population. And Sanders cleaned house in Nevada. He will also likely do pretty good in South Carolina as well, due to the momentum that this victory will provide him. Now we wait for the pundits to tell us all how Nevada is not as important as it was a week ago (it hasn’t happened, but if it does, I’ll come back and link it.)
Plus: it’s not like Sanders has never been elected to anything. The guy has been in public office for like 30 years. And the entire time, he has called himself a socialist. It’s almost like Matthews and Carville’s panic about all the opposition research assumes that nobody knows anything about Bernie Sanders. But I guarantee that all of his supporters know every g — D — ed utterance that comes out of that guy’s mouth! It will be no surprise when Donald Trump Jr. talks to his tribe on Fox News and says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have uncovered conclusive evidence that this man is a socialist!” I mean: what could they have on him that people do not already know already? And really, it’s doubtful that Sanders’ supporters, or Democrats in general will even care if Trump and Co. bring new stuff up to throw at Sanders. Because Democrats believe that Trump and Co. have never told the truth a day in their lives. That’s already baked in.
It’s like that scene from “Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?” I’ll just play it
The Demagogue, Homer Stokes, famous for saying “Is you is, or is you ain’t my constituents?” discovers that the band playing on stage were the ones who busted up the Klan rally. He proceeded to level an outrageous, if mostly true invective at the Soggy Bottom Boys. But the crowd, who prefers the hootenanny on stage to a dude who unilaterally declares that “This here music is over!” turns on him and ultimately runs him out of the room on a literal rail. Then, the crowd went back to having a good time.
Does Matthews really think that that crowd, or the one who supports Sanders, would have ever supported Stokes vs. the Soggy Bottom Boys, or Trump vs. Sanders? That is just utter and contemptible nonsense.
So much for the “electability” argument. Does anything really think that when given the choice between a wildly popular old man who talks about all the great things we’re going to get if he is elected, and appeals to hope and optimism, and an old man who rules by intimidation and is counting on the basic ill will of the American people to re-elect him, that Democrats are going to opt to stay home and just let Trump get back in there, or worse yet, vote for wickedness? That is such an incredibly ignorant belief to hold.
“Sanders hurts down-ballot Democrats”
Another argument I hear against Sanders is that he will make it harder for Democrats who were elected in 2018 in Trump districts to get re-elected. As in “Democrats’ victories all over the country in 2018 was essentially a fluke, and we are hoping for the same fluke again in 2020 to return these people to Congress. Sanders will decrease the chances of things randomly turning our way.”
This argument is simply ridiculous. The a priori assumptions here was that the elections were so close, and the hold that the Democrats have on ONE house of the legislature is so tenuous, that anything other than the exact same situation as existed in 2018 will be an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats in the House.
Sanders, who calls him a “socialist” will allow Republicans to paint those Democrats in so-called “Trump districts” as “radicals like Bernie.” Like they didn’t already try that in 2018. The GOP ran, in EVERY district against Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. They painted their opponent as a radical bent on destroying the American way. No Republican ran on “Look, we got some great ideas and we would like you to consider the possibility that what we believe in is better than what the Democrats believe in.” The notion that they will not attempt to paint every Democrat as a blood drinking commie in 2020 is just laughable.
So it really doesn’t make a bit of difference for most voters: The GOP painted them all as socialists and the people STILL voted for them. Now, if the people do not return the Democratic incumbent to office, don’t we think it is possible that that is a judgement on the job the incumbent did? Why is it impossible to believe that Democrats who won in 2018 were simply better candidates than their opponents? Or that they had a better GOTV organization? Why do we think that Bernie, who literally commands an army of loyal Berner partisans, who have remained loyal to him for 4 years now, is going to change outcomes in Congressional Districts?
If anything, you would think that Democrats would do BETTER, because the Berner Army is much larger now than it ever was, if Nevada’s results tonight are any indication. And if the Democratic incumbent loses their re-election bid, you would think that the blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of the moron who got elected and then did nothing for two years except cast a vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House.
Some final thoughts
Contrary to the fear mongers who are now providing the loudest voices on MSNBC and in other places which Leftists turn to for news, nominating Bernie Sanders might just be the thing that the Democratic Party needs to revitalize itself.
It is simply not true that Sanders’ supporters threw the election in 2016. Clinton’s loss to Trump was identical to Al Gore’s 2000 loss to W: Had these candidates been better, worth voting FOR rather than simply being a vote cast against, then they would have won. Trump in 2016 won by default, a TKO. He won because Clinton was a neo-liberal, her values were compromised, she was an avid supporter of the War, and of the Crime Bill sponsored by her Husband where she described blacks as “super predators.” And she proudly sat on the WalMart board of Directors while she was First Lady of Arkansas. None of that has to do with “her emails” and none of that has to do with Trump. She lost for the same reason Biden is not going to win. She may have been the most qualified candidate to come along in a generation (she truly was, and I believe that.) But at the end of the day it boiled down to the fact that the people she needed to vote for her just didn’t like her and didn’t want her to win because she was just not a good person.
She was just not liked. That’s really what it is about.
Sanders, on the other hand, is adored. By tens of millions. And the people who adore the man are the future of this country: They are almost all young, they are almost all well educated, and they are frustrated that they keep getting told to shut the hell up by people like Chris Matthews, who may as well have said “Listen, kids, we adults know what is good for you. We’ll supply the candidate, and all we need for you to do is vote for, most likely, him.” They aren’t going to allow that to happen twice.
I asked my friend to make the case to me for Bernie Sanders. Besides the obvious, “Medicare for all, Free College, etc etc etc…” which I don’t happen to find particular convincing, knowing that Presidents must rely on a friendly Congress to do just about anything, she made the following argument to me, which I will try to faithfully replicate.
Look: We know that whatever the President proposes is going to get watered down. So why shouldn’t elect a President who will open with the highest bid, knowing that it is going to get watered down? Why should we elect a President who is going to start with the Lowest bid? Why not start from the most radically leftwing position, and let it get moderated, rather than start with the most moderate positions and let them get turned into conservative positions?
And I must say, that made more sense to me than anything I have heard vis a vis a case for Bernie Sanders.
I do not know anything about the Greens or the Socialists this year. I don’t particularly care — whoever they run, I doubt they really have much to say to me one way or another, especially the SP who seems to have adopted the socialism of exclusion as their mantra. But the one thing I am sure of is that if Chris Matthews et al have their way, a Republican will win in 2020, whether it be Trump or a DINO running in the Democratic Party.
I have argued that outcomes are impossible to control, and this is true. But I have also counseled that a person should do the best he can with the things he can control. At the end of the day, it is not such a radical thing, therefore, to bet on a person who has already demonstrated that he can win elections. Sanders did that this evening: he demonstrated it conclusively. So perhaps I should bet on the winner, and let the chips fall where they may.
Like all articles on The New Haberdasher, this story is presented to you for free. If you like what I do, consider supporting my work with a small monetary contribution at my Patreon and thank you.
