Look, we’re Bernie stans here. Uncle Grandpa has been a stalwart bellweather of good politics forever. His influence on the next generation of Progressives cannot be overstated. His example and critiques of the system while working within the electoral framework is both inspirational and instructive. And it is in this spirit that we offer the following analysis. So calm your nipples, friend.
Democrats knew minutes after Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012 that they had four years to find their next candidate. We worked with a variety of organizations to find the next generation of Democrat leaders at the grassroots level, to build up the farm team as it were. But, since the DNC is the world’s laziest machine, they left everything to the last minute, everyone looked at each other, shrugged, and said “Hillary?” and away we went.
It’s important to understand that Hillary, while not necessarily beloved, was wildly popular at the start – while metrics are hard to parse here, by many of them, she was the most popular non-incumbent at the start of a primary in US history. She was a fait accompli before the first debate field was even set. We were going to follow up the first Black President with the first woman. The Liberal Consensus was back, baby!
This is where the hidden history comes into play. One of Clinton’s superpowers is fundraising. And with the heir apparent seemingly in place, the DNC let loose the dogs of war. They could get an incumbents’ advantage in an open election, an unheard of advantage, by starting the Presidential fundraising early. This could be worth tens of millions in the coffers, in a race already shaping up to be the most expensive of all time.
By the time we get to actual primary elections, the DNC is all in on Clinton, and are beginning to work the donor class. The Obama administration brought the economy back from near annihilation, and Clinton’s NeoLiberal economics policy bona fides were strong. Big money pledges were through the roof, anticipating another business-friendly administration. The wheels were getting greased, the machine was in motion.
Bernie making strong showings in State primaries and even winning some of them certainly spooked the DNC, not just ideologically, but most importantly, when having to have to have that conversation with big ticket donors about staving off a Sanders run. At the same time, the impossible was happening on the other side of the aisle, with Trump beginning his dominance of a weak GOP field. Riding the country’s largest war chest to victory over Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio seemed a sure bet, but somehow, Trump was lapping the field.
Clinton still won the primary handily, by just under 4 million votes, 1000 more delegates, a 12% win. It was decisive. Trump did not beat the field total, posting a 44.9% vote share to Clinton’s 55.2%. This is important in its’ own right, as it challenges the narrative that Sanders was a real threat to Hillary but for DNC intervention. The DNC panicked, and made their preference clear, but the voters still voted.
Trump, a fascist cartoon character who was as unserious about governing as he was about raising his weird ass kids, was a tempting target, his bufoonery making him seem like an easy target. But even with a $242M funding advantage, Clinton couldn’t compete in the general with the army of 4Chan memesters, the breathless media providing billions in free media coverage, and the broiling misogyny and racism that lay at the heart of the American voters.
We want to point out that the fair critiques of Clinton from the Left seemed to have very little effect on the election. While post-primary vitriol from Sanders supporters was very visible online, it’s a fascinating side note that almost none of those arguments were used against Clinton by the Right. When comparative analysis of strategy and ad buys with Leftist criticisms pf Clinton is essayed, none of it lines up.
Trump’s strategy was pure, unadulterated crybaby narcissism. None of his supporters gave a single fuck about anything but Trump’s identity cult. This is evidenced in the weirdos who supported Ron Paul in 2012, Sanders in 2016, and Trump in 2020. Just identity vagabonds unconcerned with any real policy, a trend we’ve seen in the last decade of Trump support.
So blaming Sanders supporters for Clinton’s loss is absolutely without data. Clinton got suckered into playing Trump’s game of insult whackamole, and simply got out-identity-culted. You cannot out-bully a pathological bully. Biden, who faced the same task in 2020, and who had the same donor class appeal that Clinton did, over a much more Progressive field, was far more successful in staying on message, while avoiding the misogyny Clinton faced.
Kamala – policy mistakes and inability to distance herself from Biden’s genocide support aside – made a better on-message campaign than Clinton (not a high bar), but also failed to drive turnout enough to outperform Trump’s identity cult. Again, very little from the Right was about Gaza. It was all identity markers, vile racist and misogynist memes, and the demonization of immigrants and trans people. “They’re eating the dogs” had nothing to do, again, with any fair or honest critique of Harris from the Left. That was the narrative Trump won on, though, as evidenced by the support his administration has for their fascist disappearing of anyone they can get their hands on to various forms of American Auschwitz.
So would Sanders have won, seeing as he is the one candidate with both the policy cred and the personality cult to challenge Trump? Fuck no. Hilarious copium. And these elections show exactly why – 2024 more than any of them. Sanders’ populism extends to a wide swath of voters, it’s true. But there’s one constituency he is very unpopular with: the donor class.
Even with the largest war chest in history, Hillary lost to memes, free media, and voracious online identity building. She started fundraising as fundamentally an incumbent before the primary voting, which Sanders would not have been able to do. And it’s not just that Sanders wouldn’t have raised that money, it’s that that money would have gone to Trump. The donor class comfortable donating to Clinton to ensure the profitability of the enterprises that guaranteed them the wealth that enabled them to donate huge sums in the first place were absolutely not going to donate to the guy looking to break up their monopolies, tax their income, raise their labor costs, and de-privatize their industries. They would have pledged every dollar they could against that at all costs.
It’s a horrifying fact that we seem not ready to accept, that the donor class runs national politics, and a lot of State politics. Sanders wouldn’t have had a chance. All of Hillary’s corporate donors and her $206M in “outside money” would have swung to Trump. Small and individual donors would not have had the ability to fund a national campaign like that against a narcissistic sociopath’s Nazi war machine. There’s just no fucking way. The minute you think about this critically, it becomes painfully obvious.
This is not a critique of Sanders, or even of Clinton or Kamala. It is a call to action that we need to find and elect better candidates at ALL levels – like the Tea Party in 2008 – to ensure that we can change the laws regarding election finance. The takeaway here is simply this: until we have publicly funded elections with strong controls in place, and consequences with real teeth, any candidate that doesn’t win over the donor class and the monied capitalists is DOA.
If we want a Sanders to be viable – and we’ve seen that Progressive and Socialist policy is popular – we need to put elections back in the hands of good faith voters acting on the issues, not identitarian cultists being fed lies and delusions from huge media machines and dark web groypers.
So no, Sanders would not have won. But we can work to make sure that the next Sanders does.
Kelsoland.Institute 