Talk Elections

If Bernie Sanders has a respectable showing in 2016 could the legacy of his candidacy involve a faction of "Sanders Democrats" or something like that, people with Socialist leanings who perhaps ended up motivated by his campaign entering Democratic politics and running for office?

Absolutely. I see Sanders also growing like Ron Paul did. They have very many similar characteristics (both old, have dedicated hardcore fans, get ignored or even disrespected by the establishment and the media, etc.). I can see the Sanders movement continuing on to another progressive.

While I think Clinton will brush off Sanders in the end he gets a unexpected 15-20% in the primary overall. 

It would be interesting if his candidacy left a residual "Sandersite" faction in the Democratic Party in the way that the Paulite bloc remains in the GOP.

Does Sanders have a son also? I wonder if he could have his own version of Rand Paul.

The correct term is "Sanderistas," obviously.

I kinda hope that Sanders goes for state delegates instead of the popular vote... with a little luck, he could easily win VT, NH, etc.

The difference between Sanders and Paul is that Sanders doubles down on core Democratic planks and extends them, whereas Paul openly challenges GOP foreign policy, so I'm not sure if the comparison is appropriate. 

A Sanders Democrat is just the same as a Warren Democrat or a de Blasio Dem.

Once Sanders wins NH it will be a close Primz. We all know Hillary has a couple skeletons in her UHAUL storage unit.

The Warren Democrats are the Sanders Democrats. There's already a faction for this section of the party. Though Warren Democrats are not socialist, they are fighting for the poor in the same way Bernie Sanders is.

I can't see it. The term "socialism" is so stigmatized in America that anyone identifying with that label would find it extremely difficult to be elected to national office.

Nobody is talking about being elected to national office here.

not so much among the young.  people who don't have living memories of the Cold War are far less socialist-phobic.  Rasmussen did a poll on this a while back, "socialism" was actually held in good stead among 18-29s.

Democratic-Socialist you Republicanist-Capitalist scum.

Sanders isn't running on a socialist platform or even making his campaign about socialism, so I don't see why anyone thinks that a self-described democratic socialist (and believe me, he's far from actually being one, given that he's not running on socializing even the commanding heights of the economy) running in the Democratic Party primary is automatically going to create space for a socialist wing of the party to emerge. The fact of the matter is that Sanders is running the usual left-liberal populist campaign, and his donors and supporters back that up. He'll get the backing of the AFL-CIO against NAFTA's First Lady and will probably attract some level of support from left-liberal interest groups, but at the end of the day, that's as far as his candidacy goes.

He's a warm up act for Clinton. The only 'legacy' he'll leave is yet another failed left-liberal attempt at capturing the Democratic Party, continuing in the footsteps of Estes Kefauver, Wayne Morse, Eugene McCarthy, Frank Church, Jesse Jackson, etc.

This is assuming, of course, that his goal is actually capturing the Democratic Party. I don't think that's really a safe assumption.

I don't know if it is, but his support base is clearly among those who want to 'take back' the Democratic Party from the Clintonistas. This is a silly and unachievable goal, as the Democratic Party has never been the party of the left-liberals and the labor movement, which have been the battered spouse of the party since they entered into an unholy alliance with finance capital in the 1930s and 1940s in opposition to the dominant Republican Party.

Really, the idea that the Democratic Party can be won over at all to left-liberal positions is what is entirely laughable, given the only time it did succeed to some extent (1972), the party quickly collapsed, losing most of its major donors and political support while also being painted as out of touch and unhinged by the media. You should expect the exact same to happen if Sanders or another left-liberal captures the nomination of the Democratic Party in the future.

TNF really crashed this thread's party and rightly so. The Democratic Party is a lost cause.

TNF is right. Sanders is just another in a long line of populist left-wingers. He's no more likely to create a lasting legacy than someone like Ted Cruz is for Republicans.

Just a note. Organized labor, embodied in the AFL, has consistently supported the Democratic nominee since 1908. According to Jack Ross (The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History, 107)


On the crisis within the AFL (Ross, 103):

While he was never officially a member, Sanders' success encouraged the creation of the Vermont Progressive Party. They might be the most successful 3rd party today, with State Senators, State Representatives, and the elected statewide Vermont Auditor of Accounts.