You’re absolutely right. But that’s entirely beside the point.
I have always said that American socialists should have rebranded their name to anything other than Socialism a long time ago - it would have made it so much easier for the ideas to make progress here.
Right, but I’m unconvinced so far that socialism is as scary for voters as the conventional wisdom suggests. Bernie is openly socialist and has been for years. Videos of him talking about Cuba and whoever else have been out there for years – I remember watching them in '16. I think people who are really scared of socialism already know Bernie is a socialist. I think this is already baked in, just like all of Trump’s awfulness is/was baked in. Trump has said far, far worse things, including praising authoritarians, than Bernie – far more often and far more recently.
I’m sure there are some non-zero numbers of voters who might vote for Bloomberg or Biden but won’t vote for Bernie. Just like I’m sure there are some non-zero numbers of voters who will vote for Bernie but not Bloomberg and Biden. Which number is bigger? We’ll probably never know for sure – this is one of those unknowable things, because we can’t watch two different universes at the same time. And there’s almost know data that tells us who would be more “electable”. Nate Silver says it’s awfully hard to predict this, especially this early.
So I’m going by the issues, and who strikes me as having the most enthusiasm and excitement. I am convinced that the best chance to win is with enthusiasm and excitement. I’ve been contacted in person, at my house, by 5 different Bernie volunteers canvassing the neighborhood, from 5 different Bernie-supporting organizations. I’ve received phone calls and texts from a dozen more. Only one other candidate tried to contact me personally – Bloomberg (a phone call)… and it wasn’t a volunteer (does he even have any volunteers?). Right now I think Bernie has the best chance to win. It’s not a confidence or even a particularly strong feeling, but every argument against this has struck me as no more than a wild guess, the same as my predictions that Trump would be easy for Hillary to beat. I don’t have a problem if others think that some other candidate is more electable – they’re making different assumptions, and essentially different guesses, than I am. We’ll see. This stuff is not obvious or self-evident, as much as you or anyone else might be convinced it is. It’s all guessing.
Like I said, I don’t stay awake at night worrying that there may be some democrats for whom Bernie is too much of a socialist. If nominated, I have little reason to fear that these folks will not vote for Bernie to defeat Trump. 99.9% of the time.
What I worry about is that Bernie will drive the recovering Republicans to Trump by either voting for him or staying home in large enough numbers in KEY BATTLEGROUND STATES that will help neutralize another Dem majority vote victory.
It’s a legit worry. Every candidate has some legit worries about them. By my judgment, the legit worries about Bernie are the least significant, but this is just a guess. Just like any other estimates of which worries are most/least significant.
It’s completely off base to think that voters all know about Bernie’s admiration for Castro. I watch network TV news (on both CBS and ABC) to get a sense of what regular folks know, people who don’t read, don’t watch cable news. Which is a LOT of people. And they have never talked about this stuff. But they will!
The really sad part is that his following will never admit they were mistaken even if he loses badly to Trump. They might claim a mainstream Democrat would have lost even worse. The other factor will be that if he is tanking in the polls, Democrats in downballot races are likely to disavow him: every man and woman for themselves as they try to survive. After it’s all said and done, the progressive wing will claim that this is actually the reason he lost. If they would just have kept the faith and rallied behind him, it would have been the promised great political revolution for everyone.
My hope is that Bloomberg will hit him on this stuff and then the Bernie bros will go apeshit, launching into full Chomsky/Zinn mode: ranting about how evil the US is and opining that Bloomberg is just afraid he will be up against the wall “after the revolution”. When regular Democrats get a good look at what that crowd is all about, they are going to recoil.
Why would 80s videos of dumb things Bernie said about dictators be somehow INCREDIBLY RELEVANT AND POWERFUL, but many more 2018-2019 videos of Trump saying dumb (much dumber, in fact!) things about dictators wouldn’t matter?
I think this is just more pretending Trump is special and magical, and every other candidate is different and the public will necessarily see and treat them differently. If this stuff really matters a whole bunch, then it would have devastated Trump. I don’t buy it – or at least I don’t buy that this is anything more than a wild guess. We’ll see.
Oh? Is “most” 51% or like 90%
Did Obama ever call himself a socialist? Did he do anything with the Socialist Workers Party?
Correct on both counts. I didn’t vote for Trump, and if it looks like Bernie has a shot at winning I am voting for Trump.
Maybe Canada has fewer kinds of deodorant available. That must be why nobody wants to get into America.
Regards,
Shodan
Trump supporters have already decided. There is almost nothing so terrible that Trump has done or can do to lose their loyalty. It’s baked in.
Similarly, though morally a world apart, for Bernie supporters.
It will be up to the voters on the margins, the disenfranchised traditional Republican voter, to decide whether Trump’s known negatives are worse than Bernie’s less well known negatives. But it’s naive to suggest that they will be less afraid of Bernie’s socialism than of Trump’s corruption.
You’re just laser-focused on a specific slice (and a pretty small one, I believe) of voters. If those are the only ones to consider, then I’d agree with you. But there are tons of other voters, including lots of voters who will vote for Bernie but no other Democrat. We don’t know, and can’t know right now, which group is bigger.
But there is nothing to prevent us from speculating with wild abandon. 
Of course!
There’s capitalist societies which have a strong social safety net (e.g. the touted “Scandavian socialists”, or, I suppose “Democratic Socialists”) and the socialist societies that take over the means of production (the “Socialists Socialists”, or, as Republicans say “Commies”). It’s not that difficult to get behind the former, but unfortunately Bernie has a long record of getting behind both. While he may not be singing the latter’s praises lately, I have not heard any strong repudiation of his past remarks and associations. He generally is dismissive, with comments like “Why don’t you bring up my 3rd grade book reports?” This in spite of the fact that he was grown man at the time. Yes, I do think that will be a problem for him if he wins the nomination, because Republicans are not going to go at him with kid gloves about that.
That’s not “pretending” - that’s the defining reality in US politics today.
There’s long been a double standard, and it’s grown astronomically in Trump’s case. Remember 2016?
People in the middle need only one reason to vote for the Republican, and only one reason not to vote for the Democrat.
OK, by this reasoning Bernie would also be safe talking about Mexican rapists and grabbing women by the pussy. Trump proved that’s ok for anyone to talk like that. Right?
If there was any prospect of a big decline in support for Trump among R/R-leaning voters he’d be cooked, but I don’t know of evidence of this lately.
And to the extent such a decline might arise, or repeat the (proxy) abandonment of Trump by R-leaning voters in swing House districts in 2018, we’re talking ‘soft Republicans’, not actual conservatives. Actual conservatives with enough problem with Trump to perhaps not vote for him, knowing that’s helping the Democrats, exist. Public pundit type example exist. But I believe it’s a quite small group of voters.
But as for the relevant group soft/moderate R/R-leaning, to either not vote, or perhaps less likely vote for the Democrat, I think there is a risk of not only self described socialist but the actual policies, aura and persona of Sanders. Which could also affect those moderate House D’s who won 2016 Trump districts in 2018. Giving the House back to the GOP and Trump a mandate is more of a possibility I believe by nominating Sanders than others. I however doubt anyone’s ability to foresee the outcome accurately. I don’t think it’s even possible to say Sanders is more likely to lose than the other major choices, though I do think a relatively big loss is more of a possibility.
Just to be clear, that is also my position; Trump has not lost significant support, and those who are not happy with him will continue to hold their nose and vote for him in the coming election. Especially if the socialist boogeyman is the alternative.
That’s not really my point – my point is about people who are really, truly scared of someone who has praised authoritarians and communists. Further, that this stuff is already baked in, because it’s been known for so long. Bernie saying something now that’s really terrible is different than bringing up already-known clips from Bernie in the 80s, especially when Trump has said the same and worse just last year.
But this is all just based on my feelings. I understand that others will have different feelings – my main point is that all of this is feelings right now, with virtually nothing in the realm of data and facts. We just don’t know what’s going to happen, or who is more likely to win.
I know it’s not your point. It’s the immediate implication of “if Trump is immune to backlash for praising dictators then why would Sanders?” Is praise of dictators “special and magical” or can we not apply the same reasoning to pussy grabbing and Mexican rapists?