He also said that the danger posed by another Trump term doesn’t excuse Biden from scrutiny but “actually makes him more subject to scrutiny.”
To leftists and progressives fed up with Biden, particularly his commitment to Israel as it continues to bomb civilians in Gaza, the assessment was not just fair — it was obvious. But more centrist Democrats, including those most likely to have appended “Blue Wave” and “Resistance” labels to their social media accounts in the Trump years, were appalled at what they saw as a betrayal by one of their own.
No, that’s exactly what I’m pushing against. I mean, not that the DNC was against Bernie - it obviously was. But that his failure was due to the DNC’s interference.
The simple fact of the matter is that Bernie was not known or popular enough at the time, and especially not compared to Clinton. We all despise Clinton now for a variety of legitimate reasons, but coming out of the Obama administration, she was pushing 65%+ approval ratings before she actually had to campaign and start talking to us hoi polloi, and had been setting the stage for a presidential run for a decade.
Bernie’s campaign was a mess at the start, because he pretty clearly was running to get his views more traction, and was surprised as anyone when he skyrocketed in popularity. He had to build a run from the ground-up, and that’s not really comparable to years of preparation. Clinton had more name recognition, more experience dealing with national political media, and appeal to a more moderate Democratic constituency in 2016 than that has developed since. Things in 2016 were not, and definitely did not feel as, fundamentally fucked that drove the normally right-wing American electorate to something vaguely resembling a center-left position. People forget, or gloss over, the changes in the political environment since.
It was not in the cards. We all want to believe it could have happened, but the fact is that the only ‘what-if’ scenarios where Bernie wins in 2016 are radical changes, and not just “The DNC steps back and lets things take their course”.
Thank you for pushing back against the highlighted narrative. I remember it well, and there was a lot of noise for Bernie online and crickets at the polls.
I was all-in for Bernie, but there’s often a difference between what we want and what is happening. It was honestly a miracle that Bernie ended as well as he did in 2016.
Now, 2020? 2020 we had a shot, but we were out-politiked. Not illegitimate, since politics inherently involves politiking, but I am salty about that still.