I think it depends on a number of things that he does in the general election campaign.
Don’t say the word “millionaire”, and don’t even say the word “billionaire.” Say instead “the billionaire class” or “an inner circle of billionaires.” He needs to lean into the idea that the billionaires are on a tier WAAAAAAAY above even the millionaires, and certainly way above the middle class. He needs to promote the idea that the billionaires are an elitist cabal. He should talk about the Skull & Bones and the Bilderberg Group and the Bohemian Grove. I know this stuff overlaps with conspiracy theory bullshit, but that’s part of its appeal. Bernie has already cemented the idea that he’s fighting the billionaires. OK. Now he needs to make America hate the billionaires. We already know that they’re villains to him. If he’s going to win, they need to be the villains to US. They cannot merely be an abstraction.
He cannot merely be the “angry yelling man.” He NEEDS for his speeches to also incorporate some humor, some levity, some level-headed optimistic talk - he needs to warm peoples’ hearts, he can’t just be raising the blood pressure every time he talks. Some anger is OK. 100% anger all the time is NOT OK. Remember that Trump did not campaign on 100% anger. He was angry at a lot of things but he also threw in a lot of humor, sarcasm, and “aren’t you folks beautiful?” flattery.
He needs to make it REALLY clear that he is not a communist. If the topic ever comes up, he NEEDS to have a simple and effective rebuttal to the conflation of socialism with communism. Just saying “we need to be more like Sweden and Denmark” is not going to cut it. He needs to explain why his ideas for America are NOT communism, they are NOT related in any way to the Soviet Union or to any communist dictatorship.
Above all: he needs to refute the idea that he wants to “burn it all down.” I repeatedly hear people describe Sanders this way. It’s bullshit. He doesn’t want to burn it all down. The things he wants to implement ALREADY EXIST IN MANY OTHER COUNTRIES.
All good points, Lamoral. This is one time the debates might make a difference- seeing a pretty bright guy (regardless of who is nominated) vs a babbling idiot may turn the tide.
If Sanders’ chance is only 49% we should vote No? I fear his chance is much worse than that.
A lot can happen over the next eight months, but I’m afraid developments will favor Trump. The GOP will crank up its Lie Machine and has a huge campaign fund ready to go; some moderate Ds may give only lukewarm support to Bernie; Putin may find a way to give his puppet a pop in popularity. The Ds are not adept at the political game, I’m afraid; for example, they should have handled the impeachment better.
A recession may be America’s best hope, but time is running out and, anyway, I expect Trump to take measures to “goose” the economy in the near term.
Trump blustered his way to the top against Rubio, Kasich, JEB etc., and then bullied his way against Hillary.
Debating Trump successfully has nothing to do with smarts. What’s required is to call out his tantrums as rude and infantile, while remaining calm. I hope Bernie is the man to do that.
Bernie will debate Trump EXACTLY the way we see him debate now. With much hand-waving and yelling. He’ll be right, of course. But he’s unlikely to convince anyone that isn’t already convinced.
I hear this repeatedly on this board and I have to wonder what reality the people are living in who put forth the idea that Trump would not debate his opponent. Trump LIVES for that stage. He would sooner cut off his own dick with a pair of pruning shears than miss an opportunity for the whole country to see him shit-talk the Democratic nominee. He’s GOING to be on that goddamn stage and whoever debates him is going to have to prepare very, very hard for it.
I think Trump is a bigger coward than he is a narcissist. Or rather, his narcissism will not allow him to expose himself to embarrassment. I doubt he’d debate someone like Buttigieg or Warren. I think he’s much less afraid of facing off against Sanders or Biden.
It’s pretty clear that both Russia and trump would like to see Bernie as the candidate. I know about the “be careful what you wish for” effect, but they’ve probably already got reams of actual dirt on Bernie, then add to that the “shit they just make up”. They’ll probably find an old CPUSA card for Bernie, it’s not like the Russians don’t have blank ones around somewhere.
I’m not sure they will: when you’re willing to lie outright, and when your base is so willing to believe the lies, your path is pretty easy.
Sanders is much less likely to say, “No I’m not.” He’s a lot likelier to say, “I’m socialist if you think that public schools and public firefighters and public roads are socialist.”
No doubt, this is gonna be his biggest negative, and he’s gonna have an uphill climb to overcome it. But it’s not like he’s “Biden, only socialist.” His strong views are his biggest strength as well as his biggest disadvantage: because he’s not changing what he says with polls, he’s willing to say things that people find outrageous, and also things that people find inspiring.
I got no idea whether he’ll beat Trump. I could see it being a blowout election in either direction. But I think he has a better chance of beating Trump, by virtue of undermining Trump’s support in working-class white neighborhoods, than other candidates do.
I think Bernie can use a “return to normalcy” type message. It’ll sound like “make the economy work for everyone, not just Trump’s rich friends”, “don’t worry about healthcare, you’ll be covered”, and “Trump wants to whine instead of work for you”. It just has to sound truthy.
The American people have listened to the idiot in chief rant for four years instead of making anyone’s life better.
This is actually one of the things I like best about Bernie, in terms of his potential ability to win – he doesn’t get terribly specific, but rather keeps it general with pronouncements that are very popular (i.e. health care for everyone, free college, etc.). Getting into specifics is usually a bad idea, from a messaging perspective. That shows that Bernie’s not just some wide-eyed true believer, but a savvy politician and political messenger (I think he’s at least partially a true believer – more so than most politicians – but his savviness is in highlighting the pure and authentic parts while successfully hiding his political skills and ruthlessness). At least IMO.
That’s my fear- the place hasn’t burst into flame, and Sanders’ relatively extreme left-wing positions are going to be frightening, or at least generate a little unease in the swing voters, and as a result, the swing voters are going to go with the devil they know.
I honestly think Sanders is the worst possible candidate of the remaining ones because he’s extreme; making it a contest of far-left extreme positions vs. Trump isn’t a winning one. IMO a better plan would be to make it a relatively moderate, sane, dignified candidate vs. unhinged asshole Trump would be better, especially if they can goad him into acting crazy at every opportunity.
Okay, so because Bernie is not winning a majority of the primary votes, therefore someone else, who is winning significantly fewer votes than Bernie in the primaries, and clearly not a majority, is more suited to beat Trump?
This line of thinking really makes no sense. No one really wins a majority of a contested multi-part race. Otherwise it wouldn’t really be competitive.
Anyway, to answer the OP’s question: I think Bernie could win a fair election against Trump. I do not believe that is what we will have. The GOP has not been de-funding, de-tasking, and otherwise making it easier to rig our elections for no reason. They fully intend, both internally and with external help, to rig the 2020 election. Since democrats have been offering feeble resistance, our news media will not talk about the issue, and no one else is going to save us from this, there is every reason to believe the 2020 election will be flat out rigged. Not just propaganda and influence, not just “legitimate” tools like Gerrymandering, but flat out rigged vote totals. We do not audit our election, and we’ve only tried to weaken election security even though we know our elections are under attack. Republicans know, now, that they are above the law, and there’s no one to stop them. The 2020 election will be 100% rigged like a banana republic.
And there won’t even be any consequence for it. No one will get violent, maybe a few little marches here and there. Our corporate owned media will assure is that even though foreign actors clearly wanted to interfere with the election, and even though there’s no reason to think they’d stop at propaganda, that don’t worry, we’re sure no actual vote counts were changed even though we’ve done nothing whatsoever to verify this.
This board is not progressive. This board is firmly in the democratic establishment camp. Fight over issues like identity politics, concede all economic issues to the billionaire class. The board was way more pro-Clinton than pro-Bernie 4 years ago, and it’s just as anti-Bernie as it was then, there’s just not a clear, good candidate to rally around.
