Jamelle Bouie is one of our best progressive commentators and a persuasive Sanders supporter.
Today he makes a case for why progressives can unite behind Biden and push him to the left:
There’s every chance for the progressive left to make this happen on a national scale. It looks like Biden will secure the nomination, but Sanders won the policy argument. Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina support Medicare for All; Democrats in California, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia support free college. And the future of the Democratic Party — the youngest voters — are with Sanders.
If Biden goes on to win the White House, there’s real space for the pro-Sanders left to work its will on policy. It can use its influence to steer Biden toward its preferred outcomes. It can fulfill some of its goals under the cover of Biden’s moderation, from raising the minimum wage nationally to pushing the American health care system closer to single-payer.
Bouie, a Virginia voter, also points out that his state faced a similar choice in 2017. Nominate a progressive firebrand or a moderate and choose the moderate. He is now signing socialist bills into law.
Northam is still governor and most of the caucus is either moderate or conservative. But for the first time, progressives have a major say in policy, and they have used it to push an unabashedly liberal agenda through the Legislature, raising the minimum wage, legalizing collective bargaining for public employees and expanding the right to vote. Just last week, Virginia lawmakers — led by Lee Carter of Manassas, a member of Democratic Socialists of America — passed one of the nation’s lowest caps on the price of insulin.
The president is less important than the kind of legislation you can put on his or her desk. Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren, Rep. Pressley, and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez can put progressive legislation on President Joe Biden’s desk and pressure him to sign it. They will not be able to do that if President Trump and Senate Majority Leader McConnell are still in office. By all means, every upcoming primary voter should vote their heart and I hope Sanders stays in through the next debate, but I think this is a smart case for progressives to start preparing to help elect Biden and pressure him when after he wins.
I question Bernie’s claim that he won the ideological debate.
My 60 years of campaigning as a Democratic volunteer / activist / organizer / consultant at the presidential level tell me that the candidate who wins the most primaries wins the ideological debate AND gets to set the strategic policy agenda as the party standard bearer.
Call me crazy but that’s the difference between winning and losing.
I agree with tonight’s commentary on both CNN and MSNBC suggesting that Mr. Sanders is winding down his campaign in a way that will allow him to encourage his supporters to join the Joe Biden campaign. Those commentators suggest that his comment about the ideological debate is simply a rationale to participate in Sunday’s televised one-on-one debate. They point out that Mr. Sanders opened and closed today’s appearance with reminders that defeating Donald Trump and the Trumpists is our most important priority. The commentators view that as a clear message that Mr. Sanders is winding down his campaign.
The expectation is that after he loses big next Tuesday, he will end his campaign. He and Joe Biden have always been friendly, and insiders expect Mr. Sanders to endorse Mr. Biden sometime after next Tuesday.
People are voting out of fear this year. Defeating Trump is top of mind. That’s why Biden is winning. People do not care about his policies (because he doesn’t have many and that is not at all what his campaign is about).
They also want Medicare for All – around 60-40 average in states that have voted so far. In some states it is closer to 70-30.
And with the current public health situation, opposition to Medicare for All looks both immoral and foolish.
Some of us really do want him on the merits, as difficult as that might be for you to fathom.
I agree that opposition to M4A looks immoral and foolish. I think it’s incorrect to frame that as support for Mr. Sanders.
I agree with what I heard last night from Michael Moore — Americans, especially African-Americans, are suffering and scared because of what the current administration is doing. Removing this administration is therefore far and away the most important issue to them. Those voters are too tired and in too much pain to also sign up for the revolution demanded by Mr. Sanders.
I think we’re watching the entire US health care system collapse, in the same way that the US economy collapsed in 1929. I think there’s no time for ideology or morality — it looks to me as though we’re about to have several tens of millions of seriously ill or dying COVID-19 patients chasing a few hundred thousand staffed hospital beds.
I think we need elected officials, including a President, who will get out of the way and let experienced and competent professionals find the least painful way through this storm. It isn’t clear to me that Mr. Trump will survive the next few weeks, and I’m not sure Mr. Pence will last much longer.
I think we then need a top-to-bottom rebuild of the entire health care system, together with the economic system that produced it. So far as I’m concerned, Bernie Sanders is at the bottom of my list of people to guide that rebuild — so far as I can tell, he does far too much talking and not nearly enough listening.
I frankly think it’s all moot anyway. If Mr. Trump or Mr. Pence is still in office in January, then I really do think that the continued existence of the nation is at risk. If Mr. Biden is in office, I think we’ll somehow muddle through.
I think it will be immoral and foolish for Mr. Sanders to continue his campaign beyond the landslide losses he’s going to suffer next Tuesday.
It is right and good that Sanders continues campaigning and pushing the party to embrace Medicare for All, paid leave, true climate change policies that rise to the threat we face, and to give a voice to the millions of people, especially young people, desperate about the status quo that is killing any hope they have for the future.
And Joe Biden needs to listen and embrace these ideas and get rid of his piece of sh*t health care plan that would explicitly leave 10 million Americans without coverage.
If people are content to say “you lost, shut up, get in line,” then they can go fly a kite.
Nowhere did I write anything like your last paragraph.
That kind of holier-than-thou reaction is toxic. It drives away voters and ends constructive dialog.
Even after years of cajoling, those young people who are so desperate can’t be bothered to vote. Joe Biden joins every other effective public official in a representative democracy and listens to people who vote.
Perhaps if you released the “talk” button, you might be more able to hear that the COVID-19 crisis is waking people up to just how bad our current health care system is. Mr. Sanders is fast becoming approximately as constructive as Ralph Nader was in 2000.
The people who need to listen — including Mr. Sanders himself — ARE listening. You don’t seem to be paying attention.
These people are the ones working two and three jobs with no vacation and no paid leave. They’re the ones for whom we make it incredibly hard for them to vote where they are going to college for 2-6 years. They’re the ones more likely to face 2 and 3 hour waits for polling locations in college towns and urban areas. We have voter suppression here to.
It is easier for older people to vote. They tend to be wealthier. They often are retired. And we even put polling places in the basements of retirement homes.
You say my earlier comment was being toxic, but you are confirming the “you lost, shut up, get in line” attitude.
You’re telling this 25-30% of desperate people (and those are the ones who have cast votes) “well, you should have tried harder, sorry pal.”
I think we’ll need all hands on deck to beat Trump, so I hope Biden can be a more active presence in fighting voter suppression which will definitely hurt his candidacy in the fall whether or not it hurt Sanders in this primary. I think it hurt in the margins in college towns and in TX which shamefully cut hundreds of polling centers right after the Roberts Court ended preclearance. I think any Democrat should be for making voting easier. I think both campaigns can fight for that.
Amen. We most certainly do need all hands on deck.
I think it’s worth mentioning that voter turnout on Super Tuesday was record-setting — and those voters were there to cast their votes for Joe Biden.
For example, voter turnout in Virginia nearly doubled the 2016 primary. Joe Biden essentially doubled the vote count of Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders won exactly ONE county in Virginia.
Voters ARE turning out. AfAm voters, especially, are turning out.
That’s a good thing, and we should listen to them.
Today’s eighteen year olds have the right to vote because I and people like me faced billy clubs and police dogs to force the issue. I have scars on my body to remind me of the role I played in those years. I’ve paid my dues. I have voted in EVERY election since then. The polling places in my town are in schools. City hall in Somerville is on the same frigging campus as Somerville High School.
If you’re unwilling to show me basic respect and courtesy, then don’t demand the same from me — even though I make every effort to do so anyway, because that’s how I’m wired.
My younger children and their friends are not staying home because they’re working too hard, can’t get to the polls, or have to wait in long lines. They’re refusing to even register because they whine that “the system is corrupt”, or “the Democrats are no different than the Republicans.”
I characterized your earlier comment as toxic because you dismiss AfAm voters with contempt — calling them “the establishment” — even though they DO surmount all the obstacles you enumerate. I characterize it as toxic because you continue to more passionate about attacking those who differ with you than putting our differences aside to overcome the common adversaries.
I stand by that characterization of your commentary.