David Frum: Bernie Could Cost Democrats the House

[brooklynite]

The Atlantic

Altogether, 31 of the congressional districts won by Trump in 2016 are now held by Democrats, 21 of them freshman. Only three Hillary-won House districts are represented by Republicans.

Democrats succeeded in Trump country because the Democratic Party attracted a broad coalition of moderates and liberals. The Sanders campaign aims first and foremost to reinvent the Democratic coalition as a narrower ideological movement, in much the same way that the once-broad Republican coalition has been transformed. But the difference between the two is that many fewer Americans identify as “progressive” than as “conservative.” Worse for Democrats: Not only does Sanders propose to break the cookie in such a way as to leave his party with the smaller piece, but he also does so in a political context that already disfavors them.

Democrats hold virtually every one of the urban and academic districts that will rally to progressive politics. But thanks to enterprising candidates who keep in touch with their districts, they also hold Minnesota’s Seventh, a 90 percent white district running north-south adjacent to the two Dakotas. It’s represented in Congress by Collin Peterson, a pro-life Democrat who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. In 2018, a Democrat won the country’s richest congressional district, the Virginia Tenth, which has a median household income of more than $127,000. Democrats now represent all of the country’s 10 richest districts.

Sanders supporters take as an article of faith that Sanders will win votes from working-class voters who swung to Trump in 2016. This idea is based on a single data-point: Some 10 to 12 percent of those who voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary then voted for Trump in the general election. If Sanders could have held all those primary voters in a general election, and also if he had won everybody who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, then he would have defeated Trump. But once you state the two ifs, you see the problem.

The political scientist Brian Schaffner, who closely studied these Sanders-Trump switchers, finds that they were older white voters with conservative racial views. As compared with other Sanders voters, the Sanders-Trump switchers were much more likely to deny that white people enjoy special advantages in American society. They were also much less positive about President Obama than were Sanders voters who did not switch to Trump.

[DanTex]

1. David Frum is a Republican.

[brooklynite]

2. David Frum is an anti-trumper and a smart political analyst.

[DanTex]

4. He's a right-winger who has been wrong about most things.

He opposes Bernie’s agenda because he doesn’t want things like universal healthcare and free college. He was stupid enough to think lying the nation into the Iraq War was a good idea when he worked for Bush.

I have no idea why any Dems think it’s a good idea to listen to people like Frum, right wingers who have a track record of being wrong. But if you’re wondering why Bernie is doing so well, that might be a clue.

[brooklynite]

6. Feel free to challenge the actual analysis...

[DanTex]

7. It's the opinion of a right-winger who wants to stop Bernie's agenda.

People should know that is all. If they want to believe the “analysis” of a GOPer who has been wrong about everything, it’s up to them.

[brooklynite]

8. So you have no actual criticism of the analysis. Thanks.

[DanTex]

13. There's no "analysis", it's the opinion of a right-winger with an obvious interest in

persuading people not to vote for a guy who's policies he disagrees with.

And I find it very weird that right-wing opinions keep getting posted here in DU.

[thesquanderer]

31. I generally don't read analysis from people where you know their position before you read it.

Like in 2016... there were certain columnists who NEVER had a kind word to say about Bernie. So I knew their analysis would be skewed. Similarly there were certain columnists who NEVER had a kind word to say about Hillary. Ditto. Any "analyst" who thinks one candidate is always on the right side and the other is always on the wrong is not worth serious consideration, IMO. Even if s/he may make some good points. It's like the boy who cried wolf. When the stuff is slanted so often, you'll be skeptical even if they're right.

[myohmy2]

10. "...opinion of a right-winger..."

...I think you're right...

...Frum keeps talking like he does, he may cost us the House...

[Celerity]

14. and many of Bernie's projections are based upon actual radical left REAL socialists and Democratic

Party-hating ultra left people and magazines and sites like the DSA (which has a significant actual Trotskyist communist element inside it) and Jacobin magazine, etc etc.

These are real socialists and outright communists, not the semantic false-labelling attempts by Sanders to re-define democratic socialism (which is a real thing, and entails expropriation of the means of production by state or social forces or both) as some FDR-style social democracy.

Bernie is giving the true radicals cover by his game-playing label-wise.

[DanTex]

16. DSA and Jacobin are on the left. Frum is on the right.

Big difference. Jacobin didn’t he’ll lie the nation into Iraq, or cut taxes for rich people, or appoint anti-choice judges, or any of the other things that David Frum helped Bush do.

[Celerity]

22. DSA and Jacobin are massively farther to the Left than Frum is to the Right

It is gaslighting to claim otherwise.

I am NOT a Frum fangirl AT ALL, but his analysis is sound. The US has a massive reactionary (who will be energised by the billion plus USD worth of red-baiting adverts dropped on our heads, all buttressed by Bernie's own words) voting component and a shedload of 'I got mine so FUCK YOU' types who vote in droves. Nominating Sanders in 2020 America is madness, and will likely cost us the House as well. Almost ALL of the 2018 R to D flips were in pink/Purple/red districts where a rad dem soc would get crushed and will be in massive danger with Bernie at the top of the ticket. The Berniecrats overall racked up a HORRID electoral record in the 2018 federal office election.

You seem to think that just becuase many of us make these positings that we are anti-Bernie in terms of his programmes at an a priori level. Many of us are not. I live in Sweden now and know that a social democratic (NOT DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST) regime is far better as a form of governance. BUT, the US is NOT Sweden or Norway or Finland or Denmark even Canada or the Netherlands or Germany.

It is a massively manipulated hyper-capitalist, deregulated, dog-eat-dog socio-economic and political tableau that must be taken into account as of 2020. Good intentions you may well have, but the cold whip-hand of reality will slap those down with a brutal force and then Trump will proceed with all due deliberate speed to destroy what is left of our constitutional republic at a multiplicity of levels.

[pnwmom]

36. I'm not any of those things and I'm also worried he could cost us the House.

Many of our representatives come from swing districts with people who are NOT going to be helped by having to run on a ticket headed by a self proclaimed socialist.

He would have made it much easier to win nationally if he didn't insist on that label. But he does, so we're faced with the possibility of losing both the Presidency and the House.

[OnDoutside]

29. And Sanders is an Independent, so what's your point ?

[empedocles]

3. This very clear lesson of 2018 needs to sink in among Dem primary voters, and

here at DU, for BS supporters.

[oasis]

5. If nominated, Bernie's got a ton of work to do on his coattails. nt

[Autumn]

9. If David Frum has decided that who are we to disagree? David Frum the

republican. Fuck him and his opinion too.

[brooklynite]

11. Still waiting for someone to challenge the underlying analysis...

[NurseJackie]

12. Yep... I think you'll be waiting for awhile.

[Celerity]

15. you will be waiting a LONG time nt

[Autumn]

17. I really don't bother reading any analysis from any republican. If a republican told me the sky was

blue I would look out, see a blue sky, and grab an umbrella and a coat. Here's what I think about Republicans, if you use them to knock down a man who thinks the poor and all Americans deserve an even playing field as the middle class and wealthy it show me who is running scared and why. I'm seeing a lot of republican talking points and opinions... all about that horrible Bernie . Maybe republican Frum should analyze his Orange Anus and start pointing out a few of his fucking problems.

[NurseJackie]

18. Soooo... that's a long drawn-out way to let us know that you got nothing.

I figured as much.

[Autumn]

20. That a long drawn out way of saying I don't give a fuck about any fucking republicans advice.

People can hang on every word that drips out of a republicans ass if they desire to but I'll fucking pass YMOV

[NurseJackie]

21. Yeah... thanks for the extra emphasis that you got nothing. We get it.

[Autumn]

23. Yeah Jackie, we do get it.

[NurseJackie]

24. Yep, you got nothing.

[Autumn]

26. Now there's a burn.

[NurseJackie]

28. I know.

[Kurt V.]

19. frum has cherry picked a few districts to make his point. what he missing is the big

picture, which is the blue wave. There was a story here yesterday about dem house members approval by their constitutes bc of the impeachment. the blue wave is still ongoing and according to Rachel Bitecofer, the actual real analysis who predicted the blue wave, turnout will approach 70% in November

[Celerity]

25. the Blue Wave was almost entirely composed of moderates flipping red/pink/purple districts R to D

The very type of candidates that Bernie and his disparate backing forces HATE. Berniecrats got CRUSHED overall in the 2018 federal office elections. The same paradigm will be played out in 2020, which the disastrous added effect that Bernie will be the millstone around all those R to D flip moderates' necks. We will be damn lucky to hold the House, let alone win back the POTUS from the monster Rump. Bernie cannot win FL in the general, and that means if he loses ANY of 18 possible states or pairs (let alone more than one), he loses the general. It is simple maths.

[Progressive dog]

27. Bernie is not doing as well with Democrats like me

as he did in 2016. It's worse than Frum thinks.

[uponit7771]

30. Sanders has no historical swing state appeal outside of MOE, Biden has the most (link)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/nbc-news-wsj-poll-sanders-opens-double-digit-national-lead-n1138191

[melman]

32. What happened to the OP?

Say it isn't so!

[ChubbyStar]

33. Reminds me of this

Insepector Clouseau: What is the price of one piano compared to the terrible crime that's been committed here? Mrs. Leverlilly: But that's a priceless Steinway! Clouseau: Not anymore!

[melman]

35. lol

I don't know what I'm going to do without the lunch updates. I suppose I'll learn to cope.

[Nanjeanne]

34. I'm always amazed that Democrats are so quick to listen to Republicans like Frum, Rubin, Schmidt

et al on who THEY think Democrats should vote and not vote for.

[Cha]

37. David Frum isn't the only one saying it

[highplainsdem]

38. K&R