2nd February 2020, 9:36 PM
Bernie would lose in a McGovern-like landslide. He would win a lot more states than McGovern because things are more polarized now -- he'd win California, New York, etc -- but we'd get absolutely destroyed, and it'd be a drag on hour House and Senate candidates too. It doesn't matter that young people like him more, most young people don't vote! Old people vote, young people don't; that's how it is, and Bernie hasn't changed that. The young people who do vote like him, but that doesn't add up to much really compared to all of the younger nonvoters. If Bernie was actually able to energize the youth to that extent, he'd have won the primary in 2016 and would be about to win this time too, but he lost last time and probably is going to again.
Seriously, there are SO many good attack lines against Bernie that the Democrats are not using this time, and did not use in 2016, because they don't want to alienate liberals and because those attacks would work much better in a general election than in the primary. That he is a self-proclaimed socialist alone renders his victory totally impossible; you don't see Democratic candidates running anti-Bernie ads pushing his socialism -- this alone totally tanks him with most voters outside of the left. And then to hurt his margin with Democrats there are all kinds of things to mention! They could talk about his connections between Bernie and the Soviet Union (yes, they would happily do this while ignoring how now it is they who get most of Russia's support, I am sure), pointing out numerous questionable things he has said in the past about race and such in order to hurt his margins with minorities (some of these would stick!), attacks on his wife for her handling of that college she ran into bankruptcy (again, Trump doesn't care one bit that he's done much worse, he's the most impressive projection master perhaps ever), mention the many many times Bernie has attacked other Democrats in ways nobody in the party would in order to get Dems to not vote for him, and so so much more.
And that is why Republicans, Trump included, once again aren't touching Bernie in any way so far, and indeed offer occasional "poor Bernie, the DNC is treating him so wrong" kinds of comments -- they'd LOVE to run against him, because they know they could easily savage him in an actual general election. That the other Democrats are once again going extremely easy on Bernie doesn't say much other than that the Democratic primary electorate is very different from the general election electorate.
On another note, Bernie also likes yes-men, and seems to surround himself with people who agree with him. This is a dangerous trait for a potential president and is one of the very very many reasons why he'd be a failure as a president, certainly our least successful one since at least Carter in terms of getting anything done. This is where Warren really diverges from Bernie in a good way.
Of course there are good attack lines against any of our major candidates, from Biden (ie the whole Ukraine thing Trump is just being impeached over) to Warren ("Pocahontas") and such, but none of the others are open socialists and unfortunately that is a big deal in this country.
Seriously, there are SO many good attack lines against Bernie that the Democrats are not using this time, and did not use in 2016, because they don't want to alienate liberals and because those attacks would work much better in a general election than in the primary. That he is a self-proclaimed socialist alone renders his victory totally impossible; you don't see Democratic candidates running anti-Bernie ads pushing his socialism -- this alone totally tanks him with most voters outside of the left. And then to hurt his margin with Democrats there are all kinds of things to mention! They could talk about his connections between Bernie and the Soviet Union (yes, they would happily do this while ignoring how now it is they who get most of Russia's support, I am sure), pointing out numerous questionable things he has said in the past about race and such in order to hurt his margins with minorities (some of these would stick!), attacks on his wife for her handling of that college she ran into bankruptcy (again, Trump doesn't care one bit that he's done much worse, he's the most impressive projection master perhaps ever), mention the many many times Bernie has attacked other Democrats in ways nobody in the party would in order to get Dems to not vote for him, and so so much more.
And that is why Republicans, Trump included, once again aren't touching Bernie in any way so far, and indeed offer occasional "poor Bernie, the DNC is treating him so wrong" kinds of comments -- they'd LOVE to run against him, because they know they could easily savage him in an actual general election. That the other Democrats are once again going extremely easy on Bernie doesn't say much other than that the Democratic primary electorate is very different from the general election electorate.
On another note, Bernie also likes yes-men, and seems to surround himself with people who agree with him. This is a dangerous trait for a potential president and is one of the very very many reasons why he'd be a failure as a president, certainly our least successful one since at least Carter in terms of getting anything done. This is where Warren really diverges from Bernie in a good way.
Of course there are good attack lines against any of our major candidates, from Biden (ie the whole Ukraine thing Trump is just being impeached over) to Warren ("Pocahontas") and such, but none of the others are open socialists and unfortunately that is a big deal in this country.
Quote: Weltall and I didn't forget just how aggressively Hillary went after Bernie in the last cycle. Such hypocracy, such hubris...Bernie and his people said, and are still saying, far worse things about Hillary than she said about them. Hillary as far as I can tell has mostly just spoken the truth about Bernie. Maybe she shouldn't have brought the thing back up this year, since she isn't running (not that you'd remember this from the way the Bernie cronies still are still attacking her! It's horrible and makes them look incredibly bad!) but she hasn't said anything about him that wasn't true, I don't think...