Wednesday 4 November 2020

On "Bernie Would Have Won"

Donald Trump is the worst president in US history, and yet here we are a day after an election debating whether Joe Biden will just manage to edge him out or not. This quick guest post from @catherinebuca points the finger at where the failure lies.

Seeing pushback against people saying Bernie would have won. Most of these people are misunderstanding what this response to the results is doing.

1) As a meme like “it’ll go higher” or “any other leader” - factual or not it’s a rallying point for solidarity.
2) It holds a mirror up to liberals' complicity in defeat, which is important to continually do even if they are unlikely to act on it.

Had Bernie won the Democratic nomination, establishment Democrats would likely still have tried to ratfuck him. Probably not on the scale of here in the UK (the context is different), but he would have faced obstacles from his own side, certainly.

Whether it would have been enough to have a measurable effect on the outcome will never be known. But Bernie would have won doesn’t need to take that into consideration because it’s an accusation, not a prediction.

Bernie would have won isn’t a naive blind faith belief that Sanders was the ultimate candidate, but rather a charge levelled at liberals that they are in large part responsible for the poor performance of the Democrats and of voters’ lack of enthusiasm about them.

And in levelling that charge people aren’t naively assuming the liberals are going to go ‘oh you’re right we won’t do that anymore’, but their willingness or not it’s important to keep pointing out where the blame lies, otherwise you might as well just give up.

9 comments:

Blissex said...

«Had Bernie won the Democratic nomination, establishment Democrats would likely still have tried to ratfuck him.»

Indeed B Sanders is a bit too much of a centrist for them, not neoliberal enough, to the point that this got written:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/bernie-sanders-campaign-isnt-over
“states that Sanders won last year, campaigning on a platform of economic populism — Medicare for all, tuition-free college, and a fifteen-dollar minimum wage”

Try to imagine the point of view under which most of Europe is "populist".

Anonymous said...

bernie would have won is like saying corbyn would have - bullshit.

trump has done so well for various tactical reasons (eg speaking up red peril to latinos in Florida), however broad elements inc.

1) race riots, BLM etc. Got the white vote out.
2) covid - people fearing for their jobs under Biden
3) protectionism/ race antagonism (see 1)

These days culture 'trumps' the economy, and Trump had them both on his side. Plus a somewhat weak competitor, but much more electable than Bernie. The rest is 'only bravado'.

Phil said...

The shortest post to have appeared on here for some time and you clearly didn't read it.

Braingrass said...

I love the fact that whoever anonymous is (no surprise that they would want to hide their stupidity) confirms the truth of this post even though they didn't read it.

Jim Denham said...

Phil: I am increasingly worried by your use of the word "liberal" - especially in the American context. I am a Marxist, not a liberal, but I am aware of Marx and Engels' attitude to liberals (not entirely hostile as against reactionaries) and of Third period Stalinism.

Alan Story said...

Phil:

That Twitter account has been shut down.

Alan

Blissex said...

«Bernie would have won isn’t a naive blind faith belief that Sanders was the ultimate candidate, but rather a charge levelled at liberals»

Ah a point of terminology here: "liberal" in the USA unfortunately often means "left-wing social-democrat" rather than "right-wing whig", unlike in the UK.

There is "neoliberal" for the current derivative of 19th century liberalism, but it is a bit narrower, and "libertarian" has minarchist flavour, so I have taken to use "liberist" instead of "liberal" to mean broadly "right-wing whig", because "whig" itself is not commonly used.

Do people here think that "liberist" conveys the "right-wing whig" meaning as "liberal" traditionally did in the UK?

Phil said...

It was a broken link, Alan. Now fixed!

Richard said...

Dear Blissex, no.

I know the term 'whig' is not commonly used, but almost everyone who bumps into that word now has the Internet in their pocket.