The EconomistAugust 17th 2019 United States 35T
he bernie barnstormheld in Fort Collins, home of Colorado
State University, started a few minutes late. “I know, ‘Bernie
time’ right?” joshed an organiser sent from Washington, dc, to the
crowd of 80 who had turned up to volunteer for Bernie Sanders’s
nascent campaign in the state. Some were signed up to host a
phone bank, which involves using a digital system known as “the
Bernie dialler”. Others pledged to canvass and to put the results
into a database called the bernapp. Meanwhile, the assembled
Sandernistas were invited to come to the mic and say why they
were “so excited about Bernie”, with a little steer from another
campaign staffer: “You have the same feeling in your heart that I
have and you are dedicated and loyal!”
The declarations this elicited said a lot about the senator from
Vermont’s effect on his followers. Several described Mr Sanders as
a sort of benevolent guru. “Bernie is a humanist and a visionary
and a radical,” said one; “I’m for Bernie because he’s for me,” said
another. All considered Mr Sanders to be more authentic than oth-
er politicians. “Donald Trump pretends to be a populist, Bernie’s
the real thing,” said a 22-year-old transgender Sanders fan. Many
stressed their suspicion of his rivals. “I’m doing my best not to dog
on other candidates—but that Kamala Harris health-care plan...”
said Joe Salazar, a failed (though Sanders-endorsed) candidate for
Colorado’s attorney-general. By contrast, “Bernie’s plan’s been re-
fined through fire,” he claimed. “He’s been working on it, getting
all the numbers down, for years.”
Not since Eugene McCarthy in 1968 have Democrats faced such
an anomaly. After the unexpected success of his 2016 presidential
run, Mr Sanders has developed an almost cult-like hold on a small
but meaningful minority of the Democratic electorate. By tapping
it for cash, he appears also to have a durable campaign; he is among
the first candidates on the ground in Colorado, a state he won easi-
ly in 2016, and last month had nearly $30m in hand. Even if he
looked unable to win the nomination, he would be able to stay in
the contest—and, having pointedly refused to commit to support-
ing the winning candidate, he might well do so. That could matter
a great deal, because the chances are Mr Sanders cannot win.
The 43% of the vote he won in 2016 (which makes that contest
seem closer than it was) is a distant memory. Having performed
stronglyinearlypollingthisyear, he has slid as Elizabeth Warren
has risen. The senator from Massachusetts is not as left-wing as Mr
Sanders; she presents herself as a disappointed capitalist, not a so-
cialist, which is a more digestible position on the Democratic left.
Contrary to what Mr Salazar thinks, she also has a much firmer grip
on policy. Above all, she is a Democrat—not an aggrieved indepen-
dent as Mr Sanders is—who would support any of her 23 rivals if
she lost. The two left-wingers are each polling at around 15% of the
vote—a strikingly poor result for Mr Sanders’s superior resources
and name recognition. Earlier in the campaign it seemed possible
that he could emulate Mr Trump, by sneaking through a crowded
contest with a loyal minority. His minority now looks too small.
This raises a fundamental question, about what Mr Sanders’s rise
and fall says about the left, and several tactical ones.
Starting with the first, Mr Sanders’s erstwhile success appears
to have owed less to his left-wing proposals than a vaguer appetite
for disruption. The fact that 12% of his supporters in 2016 voted for
Mr Trump illustrates that. Those who care mostly about health
care or education policy appear since to have shifted to Ms Warren.
The remaining diehards seem more energised by anti-establish-
ment grievance. An Iranian-American Sanders fan in Fort Collins
drew an approving cheer for hailing his hero as “the Mossadegh of
America”. Only at a Sanders rally could an Iranian nationalist over-
thrown by a cia-inspired plot count as a point of reference. Most of
the volunteers said they expected the Democratic Party to rig the
election against Mr Sanders. Many said they would not support
any other winning candidate.
Democratic politicians still believe Mr Sanders’s 2016 insurgen-
cy showed the party had moved in a big way to the left—hence the
alacrity with which many of his rivals have aped his free-college-
style proposals. But the burn-it-down iconoclasm of his base does
not seem so consistent or easily mollified as that would imply.
“Elizabeth Warren can kiss my ass,” said Rose, a socialist office
clerk. “Joe Biden is a moderate Republican—they’ve totally infil-
trated the Democrats,” said Remy, a democratic-socialist acupunc-
turist (who offered free treatments to any volunteer who showed
up to her phone bank).
In terms of tactics, Mr Sanders is most pressingly a problem for
Ms Warren. After flirting with more moderate positions, notably
on health care, she has essentially adopted a more informed and
nuanced version of Mr Sanders’s policies. In other words, she is go-
ing after his supporters. Yet if Mr Sanders stayed in the race come
what may, dividing the Democratic left, that could prove to be a fa-
tal mistake. It might well hand the ticket to a moderate—most
probably Mr Biden, still the front-runner.Disco inferno
Thereafter, an unreconciled Mr Sanders would become a general-
election problem for Democrats. His aggrieved minority is easily
sufficient to deny their candidate victory in close-fought states
such as Michigan or Wisconsin. Thus did McCarthy help ensure
Hubert Humphrey’s defeat by Richard Nixon in 1968—and Mr
Sanders help ensure Hillary Clinton’s to Donald Trump.
Almost all the Sandernistas in Fort Collins who admitted to
having voted for Mrs Clinton said they were embarrassed to have
done so. And, it must be said, the blithe status quo-ism of Mr Biden
could be even more off-putting to Mr Sanders’s supporters than
her wonkish pragmatism. Victory for Mr Biden, then for Mr
Trump—that would be a poor return on Mr Sanders’s promise of
political revolution. Yet it is far more imaginable. 7Lexington Bernie’s permanent revolution
Bernie Sanders probably cannot win the Democratic ticket. But he could hand it to a moderate