Why Bernie Sanders' radicalism can take out Trump

[Donkees]

When it comes to beating Trump, the Vermont senator is the person for the job. Nobody else comes close

Tue 19 Feb 2019

Excerpts:

The reasons that people on the left should support Sanders are obvious. Since his earliest days getting arrested for protesting segregation, Sanders has shown a firm commitment to advancing a progressive agenda. He’s someone we can trust: he has been “on message” for four decades, sounding pretty much the same over decades of speeches. He’s not someone whose ideals seem to have emerged conveniently just in time for their presidential campaign.

Since 2016, polls consistently show him beating Trump. Initially, there were those who doubted these numbers, saying that as voters got to know Sanders they would turn away from his radicalism. This turned out to be false. As voters got to know him, they liked him. His signature policy proposals have achieved widespread popularity among both Democratic and Republican voters. And despite the myth that Sanders only appeals to white “Bernie Bros”, black voters overwhelmingly have positive feelings about Sanders, in part for the reasons voiced by the late Erica Garner in a powerful ad for his last campaign.

Sanders has an unusual advantage against Trump: he’s capable of effectively countering the type of nationalist populism that elevated Trump to office, by offering a more hopeful and heartfelt appeal to popular instincts. He is capable of going to working-class communities and speaking to people without seeming patronizing or insincere. He does particularly well in the midwest, the exact areas that were so critical to Trump’s victory. His message speaks not only to rural white people, but to the black residents of Milwaukee who saw little progress under years of centrist Democratic governance.

What’s more, this moment in history calls for radicalism – issues like climate change, runaway corporate power, racial inequity cannot be solved by someone with only a tepid commitment to political change. This is Bernie’s time, and both progressives and moderates alike should rally behind his candidacy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/19/bernie-sanders-perfect-weapon-trump