Why I am Rooting for Bernie Sanders in 2020

[It’s so Joever]

A spiritual sequel of sorts to this thread.

As many of you have probably noticed, I've come down quite decisively on the pro-Sanders side of this primary in recent weeks, especially after the New Hampshire win. I have made no secret of my derision toward the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, which I think ought to have been discredited in 2016. I also grew up as a Democrat and even voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary, which makes me a little more positively predisposed to him. However, my political beliefs do not align with his whatsoever. Recently, someone PM'd me to ask why I, a libertarian, would defend Sanders. Here are my reasons.

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1) I actually agree with Sanders on a lot of the issues. I want to see an end to for-profit prisons and I think police officers should wear body cameras at all times. Marijuana should be legal, and it should go without saying that I am pro-choice, support gay marriage, and want religion out of politics (Sanders would likely be the closest thing to an atheist president we've had in our lifetimes). I agree 100% with his initiatives on election reform, especially when it comes to PACs, and I view any candidate who waffles on this issue with suspicion. While I don't like his coziness with public-sector unions, I am hoping that his proposed campaign finance regulations would get rid of donations from those organizations as well. I could go on. The point is that, of the issues that Sanders is most likely to enact change on, I see that change as generally positive. In fact, I would argue that because of the positions I outlined above, he ought to be the candidate-of-choice for most principled libertarians. As for the stuff I disagree with him on... well...

2) Sanders isn't likely to enact change in the areas I disagree with him on. Bernie Sanders is a rent control-loving, free market-hating, union-hugging, debt-cancelling tax-and-spend socialist whose life goal is to nationalize the health industry. And he will accomplish none of it. Just as Trump has fascistic tendencies but is unable to act on them due to the constraints of his office, so too will Sanders be unable to act upon his worst economic impulses. The moderate Democrats in the House will rein him in, and the Republicans will never go for student debt cancellation, Medicare for All, or the unbelievably misguided jobs guarantee. I believe that these are three of the most dangerous policies being proposed this cycle, but Washington gridlock has become so extreme that it almost doesn't make sense to vote based on a candidate's policy proposals anymore. I am confident that Sanders will not get most of his economic agenda passed, and his successes will mostly lie in the areas where we have common ground.

3) Sanders doesn't embolden the identitarian wings of the Democratic Party. I made it no secret early in this cycle that my least-favorite candidates in the race were Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Beto O'Rourke. I didn't just pick these three because they were annoying-- I believed that they were the most divisive of all the major Democratic candidates. They used rhetoric that alienated blue-collar Democrats, gun owners, men, women, whites, Latinos, and other identity groups in almost every possible way. Sanders, to his credit, is not an "intersectional" candidate (ironically, the "intersectional" candidates were divisive precisely because their appeal is so narrow). His coalition is broad and diverse, and his rhetoric does not divide Americans based on race, religion, ethnic group, or gender. He may be economically divisive, but wealth inequality has become such a problem in this country that I think that's a conversation worth having. Because he doesn't embrace identity politics, I think Sanders is much better-positioned to win the Rust Belt and working-class voters than Harris or O'Rourke ever were.

4) Sanders is the most anti-gun control Democrat. He famously fought against holding gun manufacturers liable for mass shootings-- a moronic proposal that I agree with Sanders on 100%. Additionally, he referred to open borders as a "Koch Brothers scheme" designed to drive down domestic wages, and I couldn't agree more. He will likely succeed in DACA reform, but other than that I think I can sleep easy on these two issues.

5) The Democratic elite-- and the global political elite in general-- needs a wake-up call, and apparently Trump wasn't enough. Hillary Clinton tried to grift her way to the presidency by strong-arming potential primary opponents, raising ridiculous sums of money from her corrupt Wall Street dealings, and trying to monopolize the DNC machine before a single vote had been cast. The way she ran her 2016 campaign is objectively undemocratic, and Bernie Sanders will have my lifelong gratitude for being the only person with the balls to stand up to her. If he succeeds in 2020, it will be a major blow to the hubris of the Clintons, Bloombergs, and Bidens of the world who think they are "owed" the presidency or think they can buy an election. They deserve to keep losing until they learn to listen to the people.

6) I genuinely hate the ever-living f*ck out of Donald Trump. Sanders is the best candidate to beat him. He draws an unmistakable contrast to Trump in almost every possible way, which is precisely the way Democrats will win this election-- not by adopting Trump's style of politics by nominating Bloomberg. As Anderson Cooper said last night, Sanders (whether you like him or not) is the only candidate who can say that he has a movement behind him, and that means a lot. Even if he loses in November, that will not convince me that he wasn't the best-positioned candidate to beat Trump. The other candidates-- a loathsome billionaire, a mentally deteriorating geriatric, and a gay neoliberal mayor with zero experience-- will all lose handily. I don't care what the general election polls say at this point; they mean nothing this far before the election, as 2016 proves. Sanders is the only candidate who I am remotely confident in for the GE (and even then I'd give Trump a 55% chance of re-election).

7) I like Sanders as a person. He's a nice guy. He clearly cares about America and is genuinely angry at the corporate lobbying machine that has its tentacles enmeshed in our system. I do not see this passion from any other candidate aside from Warren and Yang, one of whom would be incapable of beating Trump, while the other has already dropped out. As for the other candidates, the fact that they ignore the very obvious corruption in our system tells me that they either haven't noticed it (meaning that they're stupid) or they don't care (meaning that they will enact no meaningful change whatsoever).

8) A Sanders failure is still a win for me. If Sanders loses the election, socialist economic policies will go the way of the dodo for several years in this country. Trump will then have to survive a likely recession, as well as a 2022 bloodbath in congress. And if Sanders wins, his presidency will likely mirror the Carter administration-- it will end in frustration, disillusion, and depression among the far left in this country, as they are forced to watch Sanders fail to enact any of his policies. This will also discredit socialist economics and halt its growth in popularity among the youth of America. So as a libertarian, I see all of this as an absolute win. Better to let the BernieBros blow their wad and fail to enact meaningful change once they have power-- the alternative is a Biden or Bloomberg presidency, which will just make the far-left in this country more disgruntled, radical, and convinced that the system is rigged against them.

9) Perhaps most importantly, I want to see MacArthur cry.

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Remember, this is not an endorsement. I still voted for Yang in the primary, but I will either vote for Sanders in the GE if he is the nominee (or just write someone in). There is no circumstance under which I would vote for Trump. So Berners, just know: I'm rooting for you from the sidelines. Part of me genuinely hopes you succeed, because if you shift the Overton window in your direction, we libertarians might be able to shift it in ours someday. This country has been monopolized by neoliberal politics for too long. Time for some new blood.

If/when Biden's campaign officially implodes, I will probably write a third essay on why I'm glad he lost.

MacArthur is a god, you will pay for your sins.

[It’s so Joever]

MacArthur is a god, you will pay for your sins.

"Hillary, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

You do realize that if Sanders loses it will also likely be a bloodbath in Congress for the 2020 Dems, right?  The Dems might not even retake the House in 2022 because the Republicans will score another victory right before redistricting.  And even if they do, just imagine what another 2 years of unified Republican government will do to this country.  The top motivation for the Democrats this year needed to be win-at-all-costs, because the potential negative impact of continued Republican control far exceeds any difference in potential positive impact between Sanders and someone else.

Overall based on points 2 and 8 it seems like you mostly want Sanders to get elected to just to see him fail, so we can get through this cancerous phase and return to rational liberalism (point 1 entails policies that virtually every candidate agrees on).  Yet you also relentlessly harass me on this forum (including point 9) for vocalizing the same sentiment.  We both agree that a Sanders presidency is going to end in "frustration, disillusion, and depression" for the left, whom you also apparently oppose (and oppose them by supporting their candidate).  Maybe you hate Biden and Buttigieg so much that this is the best you can hope for.  Me, I want a little more from my president than just pissing off people I don't like.

You've also missed, in point 3, that Sanders' economic rhetoric isn't just divisive, it's leading to the creation of a new factional wing.  Before Sanders, socialism in America was basically just Kshama Sawant (whom he had open his rally here in Seattle a week ago).  Now, directly because of him, you have all these socialists building a movement and running for office and acquiring power; he is driving young people in their direction.  Obviously the message of this wing is extremely divisive and hostile.  But this is yet another faction gaining power in the party in addition to the ones you listed.  Just look at that 2024 thread with AOC at #1.

Giving him the presidency is just going to exacerbate things even though he will inevitably fail.  Trump has been able to hoist Trumpism on the GOP and run anti-Trumpists out of the party in spite of the failure of his ideology in practice.  In both cases this is going to be the most long-term impact.  The GOP will have to spend the next decade or more contending with Trumpist candidates and trying to cleanse itself of the toxic ideology of Trumpism.  Similarly the Democratic Party will have to spend a decade or more contending with socialist insurgent candidates inspired by Sanders and contending with the ideology of the socialist faction and things like rent control, wealth tax, state control of industries, farmers on the fed, anti-business policies, etc.

I know you think that I "harass" you (i.e. respond to your posts) because I disagree with you, but I have said numerous times that that isn't it. I agree that far-left politics are dangerous for this country. I just cannot stand your attitude on this site and the way you treat other users. For example: I am sick to my stomach of your constant attempts to compare Trump with Sanders, as you did in this very post. Trump supporters are uneducated and their goals in getting Trump elected are limited to their vague sense of "taking the country back" and "making America great again." Sanders supporters have actual policy preferences and if they fail to get those policies passed, their coalition will begin to disintegrate.

Honestly, if you hate Sanders and socialism so much, the best way to win is to let him have the presidency for four years. Democrats are well-known for cannibalizing themselves. If his time in office is as disastrous as you expect, then congrats, you've turned a whole generation away from far-left policies. But if you go for a brokered convention and nominate Biden, you will just be playing into the young socialists' narrative of victimhood, corruption, and abandonment by the powers-that-be.

My denomination of Moderate-Centerleftism worships Tim Kaine, not Hillary, you infidel!