Why don't you support Bernie Sanders? (if you don't)

Politics & Elections
981

The parts of Bernie’s platform that are unpopular are abolishing private health insurance(i.e. Medicare for all), abolishing ICE, providing health insurance for illegal immigrants, decriminalizing border crossings, letting imprisoned felons vote and banning fracking(unpopular in Michigan,PA and Wisconsin). That is a lot of targets for a Republican attack ad campaign. Of these MFA is particularly important because it is such a huge policy which will affect practically every voter in some way. But the immigration stuff will present a very juicy target also particularly aimed at working-class whites.

The wider economic context is also important. Unemployment is at a near-record low. Median wages are at a record high and have been growing strongly for six years. Trump has a 54% approval rating on the economy around ten points higher than his general approval rating. You could hardly pick a worse time to run on a platform of a socialist revolution.

982

54% of people support a single-payer plan that eliminates private insurance and lets them keep their doctors (fig. 10).

More importantly, support for single-payer is divided on very partisan lines, which closely map to political messaging about it (fig. 4, fig. 7). The kind of “unpopularity” that wins elections.

983

How does that kind of support translate to the state electoral college mapping? I think you’ll find that a 54% support for single payer is not enough. The country isn’t there yet. It should be. It’s stupid that it’s even so close. But here we are in 2020 USA.

984

So what should we do? Nominate Sanders now. Hold the election. And if it turns out that he can’t win, we just ask for a do-over and nominate somebody else.

Obviously, we don’t know how Sanders will do in a general election. But we can make reasonable predictions. And those reasonable predictions say that Sanders is not a strong candidate.

985

I’m surprised we haven’t heard private health insurance companies themselves putting up much protest/fight yet against Medicare for All, considering it would make their entire existence obsolete.

986

OK. Note that Fig 9 suggests that support is highly sensitive to the possibility that MFA leads to delays in “some medical tests and treatments” in which case opposition goes up to 70%. You can bet that this will be a massive part of the attacks on MFA and there will be plenty of examples from Canada that will be cited. Also note that the general trend in the main question has been downwards from 57% to 51%. And no one is really attacking MFA yet. If Bernie becomes the nominee you will see a massive round of attacks from both Trump and the health insurance industry. So I remain unconvinced that MFA is anything other than a big political risk.

987

Vote for who you think combines the best chance to win with the best issues by your judgment. For me, that’s Sanders.

I don’t think those predictions are “reasonable”. I think every other candidate has weaknesses too, and IMO (which is a guess just like yours), the other candidates’ weaknesses are greater than Bernie’s.

But I’m not saying you’re wrong if you think Bernie is a weaker candidate (I disagree with this, but it’s based on feelings) – I’m saying you’re wrong if you have certainty or even strong confidence that he can’t win. By all means, support another candidate if you think that’s the best path. And if Bernie wins the nomination, I hope you’ll support him, as I will support whomever the party nominates. We’ll see who wins, but anyone who says, this early, that they know, or have any confidence about, who can win in the general election, is full of crap.

988

It’s less popular in purpler states, in the polls I’ve seen, to be sure. I don’t think I follow what you mean by “not enough,” though. The claim was that Sanders is unelectable because of his unpopular ideas. I wasn’t suggesting this number in particular is a sign of Sanders’ appeal to Floridians or whatever. Just that it’s not a “weakness” that’s going to bring everything “crashing down.” 54% is, all told, not so scary.

Certainly it’s a better forecast than if you polled voters about how they felt about being friends with Vladimir Putin or bragging about sexual assault in 2015. Not a serious comparison, but it is true that nobody’s ever really made a national pitch for genuinely universal healthcare. If the Democrats actually sell a coherent, even remotely unified plan to their base I’d expect that to move substantially, in the same way that Trump gave people permission to say “eh what the fuck - my opinion about this is different now.” Unless and until that happens, there’s always that confounding factor of voters keying their opinions to that of their candidate of choice – Clinton wasn’t for single-payer, Biden’s not, Mayor Pete’s not, and so on, so why wouldn’t the Democratic base poll similarly?

OK. Is Medicare for All “unpopular,” though?

989

Latest Morning Consult national poll:

Bernie 32%
Bloomberg 20%
Biden 19%
Buttigieg 12%
Warren 10%
Klobuchar 6%
Steyer 3%
Gabbard 2%

Also, from that same poll, for the first time Bernie is now #1 in the black vote across the nation.

990

I think any realistic version of it, which would involve increased taxes and at least some delays in treatments, is unpopular.

991

Don’t you think you should provide a cite for this? It would help all parties to this, from all sides.

992

Eyccch. I despair for the Democratic Party which Bernie has so often insulted.

993

Beating Trump is more important than defending the honor (or whatever) of the Democratic party.

994

I’m not a Bernie supporter but he did impress me in the 60 minutes interview. Maybe it was seeing him calm and smiling instead of angry and yelling. I may not be as opposed to his policies as I thought. That said, I do fear that he cannot beat Trump. Right now, though, he’s higher than Biden on my list because I think Biden is just too gaffe-prone. If Bernie is the nominee, I will go all in for him. I think he needs to keep selling the narrative that what he proposes is akin to the New Deal and similar to what they have in Scandinavia. He also needs to keep selling the positives of Medicare for All (ie, no high deductibles or copayments, complete freedom to choose any doctor you want, not just one on your employer’s network, not having to change doctors and plans every time your employer wants to change, not having to worry about losing insurance if you lose your job, not having to worry about balance billing etc).

995

Yep. ‘Socialism’ sounds appealing to a fairly small minority of Americans, who believe that Bernie will hammer the rich (and do some re-distributin’). (My emphasis.)

That doesn’t mean there aren’t major problems to be solved with the current system: there are. Rising income and asset inequality actually do threaten the prosperity of our nation, and must be dealt with. But they must be dealt with intelligently, not with simplistic ‘the rich are evil’ resentment politics.

Quote for the day:

—Garry Kasparov, https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1232057331543920641

996

These links are for House races because the number of presidential elections isn’t statistically significant.

997

There are no americans that want socialism because it’s a fairer way to address societal problems? They must have venal and small reasons for what they think and do? Because balance or something?

998

Are you accidently hitting the CAP button randomly, or is there an actual pattern/set of rules when you post?

999

Bernie doesn’t even know how much all of his stuff will cost: Bernie Sanders' disastrous answer on '60 Minutes' | CNN Politics

1000

Do you think it will be more expensive than having troinp in office?

Why can we afford every thing in the world, and war, and govt employed vandals on the throat of the usa, and a horrific worst potus of all time, but bernie goddamned sanders is the real freaking emergency because he hasn’t line itemed his plan yet? Really?

People are so very very careful with a buck when the broader USA might benefit, but if it’s an evil lying right wing scumbag it’s like: “Ah what can you do? those guys always do that to us” And that’s democrats.