[rad-green] Bernie Had a Rough Night, But Make No Mistake: He Can Still Win This Thing

https://inthesetimes.com/article/22344/democratic-establishment-bernie-sanders-joe-biden-super-tuesday-2020

<https://inthesetimes.com/article/22344/democratic-establishment-bernie-sanders-joe-biden-super-tuesday-2020>

*Sanders' political revolution took a hit—but there's a long road left to
the nomination. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)*
IN THESE TIMES           MARCH 4, 2020

Bernie Had a Rough Night, But Make No Mistake: He Can Still Win This Thing

*While the Democratic Party’s corporate wing helped Biden gain on Super
Tuesday, Sanders’ left-wing vision is still popular—and can still win.*

*By Miles Kampf-Lassin*

The race is now unmistakably one between Biden’s view of a world unchanged
and Sanders’ vision for a future where human dignity and economic rights
supplant corporate power.

It was never going to be easy. Transforming American politics to loosen the
grip of corporate power and curb the influence of the super-rich has always
represented a gargantuan task—one unlikely to be accomplished through a
single election cycle. Monday’s centrist endorsement extravaganza, which
saw the center of the Democratic Party throw its collective weight behind
the candidacy of Joe Biden, was a reminder of just how arduous the road
ahead endures for America’s nascent left-wing movement.

The results from Super Tuesday can’t be sugar-coated: Biden had a very good
night, and currently holds 45 more delegates than Bernie Sanders. After the
choreographed moderate consolidation, which saw Amy Klobuchar and Pete
Buttigieg drop out to back Biden, followed by Beto O’Rourke’s endorsement
of the last centrist standing, the dynamics of the race were upended.
Whereas Sanders had been expected to benefit from sticky support, with
other candidates splitting the centrist vote, Biden instead was able to
pull voters from these other camps to put together surprise wins in states
like Texas and Minnesota. Sanders’ performance wasn’t helped by lower than
expected youth turnout. And after Mike Bloomberg’s Wednesday decision to
drop out to endorse Biden, we should expect the middle lane to condense
even more.

Still, Biden’s success shouldn’t be overstated. While the media has rushed
to call him
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/03/joe-biden-super-tuesday-victory-democratic-primary>
the
“comeback kid,” the fact remains that the establishment’s choice was always
going to have an upper hand in these elections—Biden’s campaign simply
became the de facto vehicle for the party’s corporate wing after his
blowout win in South Carolina on Saturday.

Even with everything falling in place for Biden, Sanders was still able to
score a major victory in California, the most
<https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article240829511.html>
delegate-rich
state in the nation and the crown jewel of Super Tuesday. Sanders won
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/03/us/elections/results-super-tuesday-primary-election.html>
enough
delegates in states across the country to keep him competitive in a still
very close race, illustrating the strength of the democratic socialist’s
insurgent campaign. With votes from California still coming in, Sanders
could close
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/california-democratic-primary-live-results/>
the
delegate gap even more. And he’s done it without taking money from
billionaires while breaking fundraising records through grassroots
donations and turning out levels of volunteers that put Biden’s campaign to
shame.

At his Tuesday night speech, Sanders took on a positive tone. “Tonight I
tell you with absolute confidence: We are going to win the Democratic
nomination.” Sanders said
<https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2020/3/3/21164115/super-tuesday-results-bernie-sanders-vermont-colorado-results-primary>,
continuing, “We are going to defeat Trump because we are putting together
an unprecedented, grassroots, multi-generational, multiracial movement. It
is a movement which speaks to the working families of this country.”

In the face of the moderate consolidation, Sanders has positioned himself
the way he has throughout his time in politics, as an outsider taking on
the establishment. In response to the flood of Biden endorsements on
Monday, Sanders told
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/us/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-super-tuesday.html>
reporters,
“We are taking on the establishment. And I fully understand, no great
surprise to me, that establishment politicians are not going to endorse us.”

Still, the speed of the convergence behind Biden was enough to jolt some in
the Sanders camp, with campaign manager Faiz Shakir telling the *New York
Times*, “It’s one thing to know it’s going to happen, and it’s another
thing to watch it happen so very quickly.” As a result of the centrist love
fest, the Biden campaign benefitted from a stream of positive news coverage
on Tuesday morning, including front-page
<https://twitter.com/greta/status/1234800156580761600> spreads
<https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-dallas-morning-news/textview> in
the *Washington
Post*, *Los Angeles Times*  and *Dallas Morning News*. *Politico* even
hailed
<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/02/centrists-biden-super-tuesday-bloomberg-118853>
Biden’s
“astounding comeback.”

The media was never going to be a neutral arbiter in this race. We’ve seen
time and again that corporate outlets, including
<https://inthesetimes.com/features/msnbc-bernie-sanders-coverage-democratic-primary-media-analysis.html>
“liberal”
MSNBC, routinely ignore or criticize Sanders disproportionately to other
candidates. By focusing on shapeless questions of “electability,” pundits
have found a way to portray Sanders as a threat to Democratic victory in
2020, even as his platform remains incredibly  popular
<https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/majority-of-americans-support-progressive-policies-such-as-paid-maternity-leave-free-college.html>
and
he continues to rack up wins, buoyed by a fervent base of supporters.

But while commentators and Democratic operatives warn that Sanders’
democratic socialist label and redistributive agenda make him a uniquely
vulnerable candidate, voters just don’t seem to mind. In fact, he is the most
trusted
<https://www.newsweek.com/2020-democratic-primary-bernie-sanders-polls-policies-democratic-socialism-1469949>
on
issues most important to Democratic voters, from healthcare to the economy.
Not only is he the most broadly popular person in the race, as Peter
Beinart writes
<https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/regular-democrats-arent-least-bit-worried-about-bernie/606688/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share&fbclid=IwAR36mcmYi96N3f74Ga2lH_impxN9xZtSuc7bY-ZdXM1Rnfx2VGn2jJB8UkA>
at
the *Atlantic*, “Sanders may be the least polarizing candidate in the
presidential field.” And it’s not just progressive and liberal voters that
like Sanders—self-described moderate or conservative Democrats also give
him high marks.

But what about beating Trump? Even if Sanders and his program are popular,
the electability argument goes, he just can’t defeat the incumbent
Republican. On this issue too, the conventional wisdom of the anti-Bernie
partisans is just plan wrong. As the *New York Times *reports
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/opinion/bernie-sanders-polls.html?fbclid=IwAR2OS-advtV7rDe-VfHkzZkSbO41SRrkpNXDIMiDjj4l46WObQwTplX4Fwk>,
the evidence we have now shows that Sanders would win both the popular vote
and an Electoral College victory over Trump. And in the all-important
states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Sanders outperforms Trump.

So, if Sanders is popular and would likely beat Trump, the question remains
why the establishment would pull out all the stops to blunt his momentum.
It’s not just the Biden endorsements. Reports indicate
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html>
that
party officials who would vote as superdelegates on a second ballot at the
Democratic convention are openly floating the possibility of denying
Sanders the nomination even if he ends the race with the most votes and the
most delegates, a prospect that led former Obama campaign manager David
Plouffe to posit
<https://prospect.org/politics/democratic-field-betting-on-bernie-debate-superdelegates/>,
“I’m not sure the party recovers from that for decades.”

Abandoning all pretenses of representing the democratic will of the people
may appear a drastic move, but to fathom it we must understand what’s at
stake for the political establishment.

On Monday, after Buttigieg and Klobuchar announced their support for Biden,
stocks for top U.S. health insurers including Humana, UnitedHealth Group,
Centene Corp. and Anthem rose
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-02/managed-care-stocks-jump-as-klobuchar-bows-out-boosting-biden?sref=vuYGislZ>
to
their highest level in five months. And following Biden’s performance on
Tuesday, they shot up
<https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1235212084167790593> again, as did the
Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Previously, stocks for the healthcare industry had tumbled
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthinsurers-stocks/health-insurer-shares-pummeled-by-sanders-surge-virus-worries-idUSKCN20I2A1>
following
Sanders’ primary victories. Why? Because Medicare for All, the cornerstone
of his campaign, would decommodify healthcare in the United States,
removing the profit motive by providing care universally, and free of
charge. As the Super Tuesday results prove
<https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/4/21163930/super-tuesday-results-bernie-sanders-joe-biden-medicare-for-all>
yet
again, this plan is incredibly popular—except among insurance executives
who stand to lose their riches as a result of its implementation.

It’s not just healthcare. Fossil fuel companies would likely face massive
to hits their bottom line as a result of Sanders’ Green New Deal plan to
combat climate change. The private prison industry would almost certainly
lose out in Sanders’ plan to stem mass incarceration and reform the
criminal justice and immigration systems. Weapons manufacturers and other
military contractors would likely see sales decline as a result of pulling
out of forever wars, as Sanders promises. And of course, the super-rich,
who hold colossal power over our economy and our politics, would be
dispossessed of this authority. In short, the threat of a Sanders
presidency to both the political and economic establishment is very real.

Biden, on the other hand, has famously promised that under his presidency,
things will basically stay the same. At a Manhattan fundraiser in June
2019, Biden assured
<https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/>
the
wealthy donors in attendance that if he becomes president, “Nobody has to
be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would
fundamentally change.”

This is what a Biden presidency portends: nothing changing for the 162
billionaires who own
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/billionaires-inequality-oxfam-report-davos_n_5e20db1bc5b674e44b94eca5?fbclid=IwAR0OY1RjK_hsKIXOpYC8t9zTLtio0A3tMjhEDbHZwFkiM4Slo_1R3eiO2v0&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjZWJvb2suY29tLw&guce_referrer_s>
the
same amount of wealth as half of humanity. But the results from Tuesday
don’t change the fact that Biden remains a weak and vulnerable
candidate—just look at his dismal
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/04/joe-biden-flopped-badly-iowa>
showing
in Iowa. On the issues of Social Security
<https://theintercept.com/2020/01/13/biden-cuts-social-security/>, Medicare
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/01/joe-biden-social-security-medicaid-medicare-medicaid-cuts>
and
the Iraq War
<https://inthesetimes.com/features/joe-biden-iraq-war-vote-democratic-primary-2020.html>
especially,
Biden has consistently been out of step with the base of the Democratic
Party. And now, with the field winnowed, Sanders has the opportunity in the
upcoming debates and on the campaign trail to train his attention on making
the contrast between him and the former vice president as clear as day.

With Super Tuesday in the rearview, the race is now unmistakably one
between Biden’s view of a world unchanged and Sanders’ vision for a future
where human dignity and economic rights supplant corporate power. The
establishment has made clear which side it’s chosen. With over 30 states
still yet <https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-primary-elections/calendar> to
vote, Sanders has made certain he plans to fight as hard as ever. His
political revolution may have seen a setback, but it’s far from derailed.
It wasn’t ever going to be easy. Changing the world never is.

*Disclosure: The author of this piece has volunteered for Bernie Sanders’
2020 campaign. Views expressed are those of the writer. As a 501(c)3
nonprofit, *In These Times *does not support or oppose any candidate for
public office.*

Miles Kampf-Lassin, a graduate of New York University's Gallatin School in
Deliberative Democracy and Globalization, is a Web Editor at *In These
Times*. He is a Chicago based writer. [email protected] @MilesKLassin

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