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Bernie Sanders for president

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I agree with almost every word of Erik’s post regarding Sanders. Leaving aside questions of electability, I too prefer Sanders to Clinton, because I prefer a New Deal Democrat to a classic Bill Clinton-era establishment triangulator, who has recently shifted her rhetoric a bit to the left for what are pretty obviously tactical reasons.

To be clear, I don’t care whether HRC’s campaign rhetoric is sincere or not. I do care that her basic orientation and instincts as a pol are essentially establishment-regarding. That’s why, at bottom, her taking millions of dollars from banks to give speeches is bothersome. It’s not because she’s going to be literally bought off. Rather, it’s what the decision symbolized. Clinton couldn’t even anticipate that letting financial institutions wire millions of dollars into her personal accounts in exchange for giving some speeches, on the eve of her run for the Democratic nomination for president, might not be a good look at this particular juncture of American history, i.e., the height — let’s hope — of the new gilded age.

And I agree wholeheartedly with Erik’s conclusion that Sanders calling himself a socialist when he’s really not one at all is an almost absurdly inept rhetorical position, from the perspective of someone trying to get elected to the American presidency. (I realize that Sanders was calling himself a socialist for many years before he considered running for president, but still) ETA: I also agree with commenters pointing out that Sanders doesn’t really have the choice to distance himself from his previous statements regarding this. It’s part of the package with him.

Where I differ from Erik is in regard to two related points:

(1) I wouldn’t say a word in support of Sanders if I thought nominating Sanders instead of HRC materially improved the odds that the GOP candidate winning the general, since the differences between the two of them, significant as they are, are nevertheless truly trivial in comparison to the consequences of any GOP candidate winning the presidency rather than Clinton or Sanders.

(2) I think, as Erik does, that there’s a high probability that the GOP candidate will be Trump, but I think Sanders is a better candidate in the general against Trump than HRC.

Electoral politics is all about specific matchups. I think HRC would be a better candidate than Sanders against any even vaguely establishment GOP candidate, and most particularly against Rubio, who at this point is really the only potential alternative to Trump. Again, I agree that the socialist self-labeling is a big problem in a general way, but I don’t think it would be nearly as a big a problem against Trump (Although American voters seem to have a quite negative attitude toward the concept of a socialist — or in this case a “socialist” — president, I’m still somewhat confident that they would be even less inclined to vote for a quasi-proto-whatever-fascist.)

More particularly, Trump winning the GOP nomination will be a powerful sign of just how deep the disgust actually is throughout the electorate toward establishment politics and politicians. In this regard, HRC’s relation to Democratic party politics is disturbingly similar to Jeb Bush’s relation to GOP party politics. Basically, the message is we’re going to party like it’s 1999 — which, it seems to me, is exactly the wrong message to be trying to sell against a Trump candidacy in particular, as evidenced by Trump’s total evisceration of the $130 million man.

HRC is probably going to win the nomination anyway. As Joe from Lowell says in the thread to Erik’s post, the whole idea of Bernie Sanders winning the Dem nomination from the ex ante perspective of all of three months ago was ridiculous. He wasn’t considered a serious challenger, and as Scott has pointed out, part of HRC’s evident strength as a candidate is that she discouraged what would have been more obviously serious challenges — Warren, Biden, Gillibrand — from materializing. But the fact that Sanders has turned out to be a very serious challenger for the nomination speaks volumes.

In short, HRC is a paradigmatic establishment insider figure, which is not at all a good thing to be in a presidential campaign against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. (Get used to that phrase, because it’s happening). I think she would win anyway, because the country has gone only partially as opposed to completely insane, but I also think Sanders would have a better shot against Trump specifically.

Which is why I’m giving the last full measure of devotion to the Sanders candidacy — by which of course I mean I’m blogging about it.

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