The Path After Bernie
Part 1 of a 2020 Campaign Post-Mortem — A Loss Four Years in the Making
In the week following Bernie Sanders dropping out of the 2020 presidential race, there have been numerous articles seeking to explain why the Sanders campaign lost after their strong initial 3 week run from Iowa to Nevada. All of these lay the blame or focus their discussion around niche campaign messaging and strategy concerns, as many of these post-mortem articles tend to do. While some of these critiques might be valid, tunnel visioning on these issues leads to an incomplete analysis and does a disservice to left wing politics for the future. As I’ll get into, no election is completely the same as the last, and the narrow messaging conversations of this election almost certainly will not apply to another election with different candidates. This election was being shaped since the very end of the 2016 cycle, where we must start to fully encompass how political and media institutions were the deciding factor in the 2020 election.
Obama Makes His First Move, Sanders Works Within
The most significant development in the Democratic Party since their crushing loss in 2016 was the selection of their new DNC chair. Keith Ellison, then congressional representative from Minnesota who famously told media pundits not to underestimate Trump when he had declared to run, was running as the progressive changing of the guard candidate. Not only did he have wide support from the Sanders wing of the party, but even received public endorsement of Chuck Schumer, suggesting that at least some establishment elements realized that some amount of change would be suitable to the party’s success.
As it looked like Ellison would walk into being chair, former President Obama made what would be his most significant move of the Trump presidency(until the 2020 race itself) in calling his former Labor Secretary Tom Perez to enter the race for DNC chair. With one of his senior advisers Valerie Jarrett whipping votes for Perez, giving him a narrow win and firmly keeping the establishment’s power intact within the party. While the DNC itself is not an ultra-powerful organization capable of swinging races by itself, this would lead to a unified strategy and priorities for the 2018 midterms, and little changes to the archaic and anti-democratic aspects of the party.
Before the conclusion of this race, Sanders was tapped to be the Outreach Chair for the Senate Democrats. This was in line with his approach of working within the party. While it was likely never a choice that he actually considered, it is notable that Sanders chose from this moment on to essentially play by the rules of the Democratic Party, rather than double down on his Independent status and take a much more critical line going forward. Not that Sanders was not critical of the Democratic Party after their defeat in 2016, but this was always from the angle of constructive criticism.
Trump Anxiety and Russiagate Take Hold
While the Trump Presidency did seemingly bring about a wave of new political participation in the massive Women’s Marches that took place all over the country after his inauguration, ultimately much of it would be centered solely around Trump, summed up well with several signs from the first March reading “If Hillary had won, we’d be at brunch.” This narrow anti-Trump sentiment would go onto be amplified tenfold by the media and subsequent Russiagate scandal. While Trump’s Presidency has led to many heinous and reactionary actions like the Muslim ban and his use of ICE and concentration camps, we need to recognize how the media, especially MSNBC, covered the Trump administration. Rachel Maddow saw massive ratings boost from Russiagate, the premiere storyline of the administration and of the network as a whole. In the aftermath of 2016, there was very little blame placed on the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton for their defeat. Instead, it was Russian influence on the election, aiding Donald Trump.
Alongside this coverage came the boosted prominence of Never Trump conservatives like Nicole Wallace, Jennifer Rubin, Steve Schmidt, and David Frum, as well as a host of former prosecutors and national security officials. Without delving too much into the odious history of them all, the unified message was that Trump was a unique threat an aberration to American government and the Republican Party. When they weren’t talking about Trump and his scandals, it was about the importance of the Democratic Party to appeal to people like them in order to succeed in the future.
Democratic voters have a high trust in the media, and it must be noted that the people watching MSNBC and CNN where they found similar messages are older voters, and the type of suburban moderates that Chuck Schumer bragged they would win in 2016. These voters are constantly consuming messages that not only heightens their fear and anxiety about Trump, but also about the type of politics needed to defeat him.
Midterms Act as Trial Run
The strategy of the Democratic Party and specifically the DCCC led by Pelosi was abundantly clear for the 2018 midterms: Run on anti-Trump sentiment, especially his attempt to repeal Obamacare, put forward former troops, prosecutors, national security officials and other moderate to conservative candidates in Republican districts that had voted for Hillary Clinton that previously went for Mitt Romney in 2012. The conservative pundits of MSNBC and CNN got what they asked for, the synergy between party and media electing a big Democratic majority with a large freshman group of donor class approved representatives.
While AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib stole a lot of media coverage and headlines through their victories, making some think that the party had actually moved to the left, it was clear through this massive influx of suburban moderate voters and conservative Democrat representatives, the opposite was occurring. Left wing challengers simply were not winning in large enough numbers, whether it was losing chair races in California, or a variety of congressional and Senate primaries, the weight of the Democratic Party mattered. While the 2018 voters may have ended up voting for whoever the Democrat was because of the anti-Trump mood of the electorate in 2018, the media and the Democratic Party played in actively courting and appealing to these voters. This strong 2018 win by Democrats also left them vindicated about their political approach, further distancing themselves and their voters from the idea the Democratic Party had something to learn from their loss in 2016.
This is how the stage was set for 2020. A Democratic Party with the establishment and donor class firmly in hold of power, a largely conservative media priming an electorate now with an influx of suburban moderate voters, and some proven results in the 2018 midterms, you have a party that is solely set on defeating Donald Trump no matter what and returning to normalcy. None of this ties into Sanders’ politics of trying to appeal to voters the Democratic Party has spurned, about the need for a political revolution, and the insufficiency of a previous status quo. This message and attitude doesn’t ever make it to a broad set of Democratic Party voters, and many are hostile to it.
2020: The Electability Election
As we’ve seen through tons of polls throughout the race, the vast majority of voters were concerned about who can beat Donald Trump more than their view on the issues. The media’s coverage of this also likely reinforced this attitude among voters. Electability is impossible to define though, there is no real way to measure it at all. So it then comes from our predisposed biases and perceptions. And when we factor in what the media has been saying since Trump got elected, electability ultimately meant a moderate candidate that could appeal to white Obama to Trump voters as well as the suburban voters that came out in 2018. Voters had pundit brain.
Sanders was at a fundamental disadvantage on his question. Sanders talked a lot about beating Trump, transforming the country, heralding his polling, talking about inspiring nonvoters to create a wave election and form a political revolution. But for years, media and Democratic politicians like Pelosi had been conditioning Democratic voters into thinking that any sort of left politics was radical, dangerous, and likely to alienate those “essential” voters needed to beat Donald Trump.
Through a combination of nearly zero critical media coverage, his status as a conservative white male former VP of Obama, Joe Biden was seen as the most electable throughout the entire race. The only thing that momentarily left voters shaky was his poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire alongside the entrance of Bloomberg into the race.
A Hostile Media Dampers Momentum
For anyone that has been a close follower of Sanders, it’s no surprise he experienced the most hostile media coverage of any candidate. When he wasn’t being ignored and left out of headlines showing him in first or second in polls, he was constantly being attacked by an array of pundits in print, digital, and TV outlets. No candidate ever came close to this much negative coverage and scrutiny. His signature policy proposal, Medicare for All, came under attack by basically every nominee and TV anchor. Everything was framed from a right-wing perspective and naturally took the sides of the Biden/Klobuchar/Buttigieg moderate section of the primary.
The peak of this hostile coverage came after his decisive crushing victory in Nevada, where Chris Matthews, James Carville and a host of other personalities lost their minds over Sanders, heralding him as an apocalyptic force that would destroy the Democratic Party and lose to Trump. If he managed to win, he might have even beheaded Matthews in Times Square. It’s important to recognize that usually candidates get lots of glowing positive coverage after their win. Mayor Pete’s “win” in Iowa wasn’t as clear as Bernie’s but he still got better coverage.
Instead there was so much talk of candidates needing to drop out of the race right away to consolidate behind a moderate candidate that could beat Sanders, forming a centrist Voltron that would stop any left-wing revolution from taking hold. This isn’t just a freakout of rich TV personalities, it was signaling to a large swathe of voters about how they should perceive Sanders. In the 24 hours after Nevada many on the left, myself included, thought this was the last dying gasp of these ghouls and in 10 days Sanders would solidify his position as the Democratic frontrunner on Super Tuesday. It was in those 10 days that a perfect storm would combine with these structural biases against Sanders.
Perfect Storm Wipes Out A Campaign
At this point in the race, Sanders is the clear frontrunner, with Bloomberg being the next closest in national polls, even after he got whacked by Warren in the last debate, who is clinging on from that very performance alongside the aid of a 14 million dollar Super PAC. Pete and Amy have faded from their strong finishes and Biden is practically forgotten about even as he was still polling in first in South Carolina. Each of these candidates opened up with a broadside on Sanders in the following debate about his electability, following the previous news cycle of attacking Sanders over old comments he made about Cuba. Full attention on Sanders, Biden continues to go untouched as Bloomberg was seen as the most prominent centrist wing candidate on stage and Biden got to submarine.
The next institutional factor against Sanders comes into play, as Clyburn endorses Biden after the debate. Endorsements matter in the Democratic Party, where its voters are very unlike Republicans in their behavior towards the established figures in their party. Half of South Carolina voters described Clyburn’s endorsement as important. Biden was likely going to win South Carolina no matter what, but that endorsement gave him a big win, and the positive media coverage he got from it was absolutely glowing.
While this was going on, Obama was working behind the scenes to get Pete and Amy to drop out provided Biden had a strong win in South Carolina. These endorsements that came just 24 hours after Biden won South Carolina along with a host of endorsements from other prominent Democrats in the 72 hours from South Carolina to Super Tuesday fueled a media wave worth over 100 billion dollars. In exit polling, a significant chunk of voters were making their decision in the previous week and even last few days. By an almost 2–1 margin, they ended up voting for Biden.
Finally, as part of this perfect set of conditions against Sanders, Warren never dropped out and endorsed Sanders. While an endorsement seemed unlikely after it was clear her campaign tried to shiv Bernie Sanders a weak before Iowa with a sexism smear, Warren took significant chunks of voters in states that Biden won by relatively narrow margins like Texas, Minnesota and Massachusetts. Had she dropped out after Nevada or South Carolina and endorsed Sanders, that could have been just enough to prevent the total reverse fortunes for his campaign. But considering how unlikely that was after she had gone after Sanders so hard, she might as well be considered part of the same Democratic apparatus whether she intended to or not.
A Voter Breakdown and Conclusion
In every single state, there has been an incredible age gap in the results, with Bernie winning overwhelmingly with voters under 45, and Biden winning overwhelmingly with voters over 45. This has lead to many stating Bernie failed to turn out young voters and non voters at a high enough rate to counter the traditional higher turnout of older voters. This is only half correct. In many places, Sanders was able to increase the amount of young voters coming out, but as we acknowledged earlier, there was a surge in older suburban voters into the Democratic Primary.
Essentially Sanders’ strong ground campaign and fundraising operation that brought about a decent boost in youth turnout was simply swamped by the suburban insurgence. One also must consider that there are many structural barriers to young people voting, and there was only one campaign that actively sought them out as their main demographic. These barriers don’t exist for older suburban voters, who had been catered to by the entire Democratic Party along with the half a billion dollar campaign of Michael Bloomberg.
In summary, Bernie’s loss can be attributed to structural and institutional factors that go back to the moment 2016 ended. The following had large impacts on the race:
- Democratic Party and donor class retains full control of their organization, admits no wrongdoing in 2016
- Trump fear and anxiety fuels narrow minded and conservative view in Democratic Party.
- Democratic Voters have high trust in both the media and Democratic party establishment, with their media sources being dominated by Never Trump Republican conservatives
- Democratic Party and Media fuel a moderate/conservative class of Dems into the House majority alongside a wave of suburban moderate voters.
- Voters ultra-focused on electability, which was determined for them by conservative media narratives.
- An incredibly hostile media apparatus uniquely arrayed against Sanders
- A perfect storm at the last minute orchestrated by establishment figures like Obama to cause a Biden comeback on Super Tuesday.
- Structural barriers to youth voting, and lack of them for older suburban voters
When we recognize the party asymmetry and different circumstances, we can see how Trump can win the Republican primary as an anti-establishment renegade, and Bernie fail to break a third of voters in the Democratic Party. It is my belief, that these factors were the main reasons that Sanders lost in 2020. The Democratic Party got more conservative, not less, since Trump won and this was reinforced by party structure and media. In Part 2, I’ll go over if Sanders could have changed his campaign messaging or strategy in order to better mitigate these institutional factors, and what should come next for left wing politics after.
