If Democrats Aren't Terrified of Bernie, They're Not Paying Attention

[George II]

By Jonathan Chait

Watching the Brexit debacle from afar, it seemed impossible to understand how the Labour Party could know full well it needed to win a national election in order to prevent an irreversible setback, yet harness itself to Jeremy Corbyn, whose toxic leadership made victory nearly impossible. The rise of Bernie Sanders, at a moment when Donald Trump is accelerating his war on the rule of law, is retroactively illuminating. A liberal party drifting helplessly along as a small radical cabal steers it toward likely catastrophe? I didn’t think it could happen here.

At the heart of Sanders’s campaign is a hard-core socialist vanguard which is indifferent to the Democratic Party except as a potential vessel for the Bernie revolution. Their calculation is perfectly rational. Even if Sanders is likely to lose, the small chance of success is worth the risk to a party they don’t care for to begin with. What is odd is watching rationalizations take hold among a much larger group of progressives who very much do care about denying Trump a second term, and who have explained away the risks of a Sanders nomination with a series of fallacies.

The first of those is a confusion over what it means to predict an outcome. “The truth is we are all clueless about what voters want or will accept,” argues conventional-wisdom-monger Jim VandeHei, in a signal of how deeply the anti-probabilistic fallacy has spread. It is true that there is uncertainty attached to every outcome. The talking heads who guarantee Sanders will lose are wrong — any nominee might win, and in a polarized electorate, both parties have a floor of support that gives even the most toxic candidate a fighting chance. In 2016, Trump was the most unpopular candidate in the history of polling, but he squeaked into office because everything broke just right for him. It could happen for Bernie, too.

But to concede that we cannot be certain about the future does not mean we know nothing. An imperfect comparison might be to predicting the outcome of sporting events. You don’t know the outcome in advance, but it is usually possible to make probabilistic predictions. Those predictions are wrong all the time. But it would be silly to conclude that, just because upsets happen, every game should be treated as a coin flip. A huge amount of pro-Sanders commentary is based on simplistically conflating the correct claim that we lack perfect clarity with the incorrect claim that we have no clarity at all.

(much more)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/bernie-sanders-nomination-electable-democrats-socialist-unpopular.html

Media Bias Fact Check, New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait:

?w=600&ssl=1

[BlueCaliDem]

1. I am, George. Believe you me, I am.

n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Chait is a liberal and a consistent one.

[thesquanderer]

20. But also consistently anti-Sanders, so I can't take him seriously.

As I said in another thread...

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.

[guillaumeb]

3. A nice graphic.

The GOP has been pushing "the center" to the right for 40 years.

Sanders would be seen as a democratic socialist in many countries.

[Moderateguy]

5. America is not many countries....

and it is not going to become one overnight. She still leans center-right

[guillaumeb]

6. Bloomberg might think that.

Polling regularly shows actual voters to the left of most politicians.

[Moderateguy]

7. Polling also showed Hillary winning on election day 2016

So please forgive me if I trust my own instincts over polls

[guillaumeb]

8. Research suggests that the GOP cheated to win.

[LanternWaste]

17. Right. Your feels are more valid than data...

Regardless of whether one needs to be forgiven or not for such an absurd sentiment.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. The graphic is of New York magazine's position on the political spectrum.

[Cosmocat]

15. Well said

"the far right was once that way 50 year ago. the difference is they worked like hell to take over everything from PTA boards and school boards to local assembly jobs and churches to win the hearts and minds. They didn't just lash out at the center right and expect anything to change."

Bernie people REALLY like to go at fellow dems ... We are going to end up voting for Bernie if it comes down to it, so outside of pissing us off even more at the coming dumpster fire, they might want to consider going out and knocking heads with the righties and using the powers of persuasion to try to influence the "middle" types who are going to not be in love with where this is headed.

[katmondoo]

16. I have been paying attention, lots.

[Celerity]

29. this makes no sense on 2 main levels

1. Bernie falsely self labels as a democratic socialist (although some in his top campaign surrogate organisations such as the DSA and his intellectual support sphere are indeed actual socialists (Jacobin magazine is a perfect example) or even, in the case in some of the DSA, Trotskyist or other types of communists.) Sanders has repeatedly stated he does not support the expropriation of the means of production (which many of the previous mentioned supporters and campaign surrogates do.) Sanders is nothing more than a bog standard social democrat if we are to take him at his word.

2. In large swathes (in fact almost all) of the EU (I live in Sweden), the actual socialists here would laugh at both Sanders as a socialist and also the characterisation of our nation states as socialist (in regards to this characterisation of our nations states as socialist would be laughed at by most people, not just actual socialists.) Both Bernie (unless he is being dishonest about his actual agenda) and most all of nation states incorrectly labelled (often by the American RW, but also, far too often by the far left as well) are simply social democratic-based in regards to our form of governance. We have significant, vibrant (and highly regulated, which is where the US has a massive FAIL) capitalist sectors, without which our expansive social democratic welfare states would not exist.

[guillaumeb]

30. Thank you for the response.

The key, in my view, is that capitalists, and capitalism, must be highly regulated. Otherwise, capitalism becomes monopoly capitalism, and wealth accumulates and concentrates at the very top. And that perfectly describes the present US economic system.

My view is that many public services should be socialized, meaning that no private, for profit company would be allowed to perform them.

Examples are the postal service, fire and police services, health services, public utilities, libraries, and schools, to list few.

[Celerity]

31. I take no issues with this

cheers

[guillaumeb]

32. To you also, and thank you again for the response.

What I find truly bizarre, is that even conservatives in Canada, and other single payer countries, recognize the obvious superiority of the single payer model. And the reason is quite simple. If a for profit enterprise bids on anything, a certain level of profit is built into the bid. And that profit raises the cost to taxpayers of the service provided.

[Celerity]

33. I have lived most of my life under universal government run healthcare schemes (I was born in

Los Angeles, but moved as a toddler to London, where I was raised, and now I live in Sweden, with a couple years before spent back in the US). They are FAR better than the rapacious, for-profit schema that is the USA healthcare system. My main issue, when speaking of US politics (which i still actively participate in) and MFA or some other universal system, is electoral in nature only.

The US has been so spun up (at all levels, including gerrymandering and voter suppression schemes, plus the very nature of the Senate, which combine to give the RW an extraordinarily overstated power stance) both politically and philosophically that it makes enacting a MFA-style system all but impossible, other than through an incremental chipping away. Even the public option is going to be next to impossible to get assed, even if we retain the House and retake the POTUS AND the Senate.

I fear it will take a systemic collapse in order to push through truly comprehensive change. At current rates of growth, under the present structure, the US will spend well over 125 TRILLION USD over the next 20 years on total healthcare outlays, at all levels, public, private, personal. That is an unsustainable glidepath. At current rates of increase, by 2028 or 2029 or so, the US will be spending 6 trillion per annum. Something will surely have to give down the road.


here is a link (massively detailed and documented) to why I say even the public option will be so so utterly hard to pass

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287285755#post18


I get stick from pretty much every side, whether it is MFA NOW purists who refuse to admit the current political composition, or people who disingenuously try to defend the current state of the system and say that only minor tinkering is needed

I even had some gaslighter (now banned) try and tell me that there were no major profits being made in the US healthcare system.



The US healthcare system is one giant wealth extraction scheme. At current rates of increase we are going to be spending close to 6 trillion USD per year by 2028, 2029. That is madness.

In the past 10 years, we have spent around 33 trillion dollars. ONE health insurance firm alone (UnitedHealth Group) has made over 66 billion dollars in net profits over that time span, 12 billion USD in 2018 alone, 22.5 billion in the last 2 years, and are on track to make 150-160 (or more as they continue to expand, so scales of economy will act as multipliers) billion USD combined net PROFIT between 2019 and 2028. That is RAPACIOUS, and it is mostly skimmed off of the middleman role of for-profit INSURANCE.

Look at the massive difference between what the US spends per capita versus the rest of the nations, and the gap is only going to get larger.



The only way this system gets fixed, given the current political/structural landscape is more than likely via partial systemic collapse, as there is simply no way this rate of cost/profit increase can continue decade after decade. The ACA cost increases where back-loaded to kick in starting around 2017 or so and forward. That year is when, for example, United Health's profits exploded. Citizens United and other endemic factors have opened the spigot to the raw buying and regulatory capture of our entire political/governmental superstructure by Big Healthcare, Big Pharma, and Big Insurance. That is only being exacerbated under the odious Trump administration's deregulatory schemes, which if they get their big 'win' at SCOTUS level and the entire ACA is trashed, will expedite this entire situation even more timeframe-wise towards a catastrophic outcome.

[guillaumeb]

34. This deserves to be a stand alone post.

And I have made the point her many times that it is the US system is unaffordable, not MFA.

I have read arguments that the Canadian system could not work here, as if the US and Canada existed in different universes.

Part of it, in my view, is that people who have only lived here cannot imagine a different way. Combine that with the "US exceptionalism" philosophy, where anything the US does must be the best system, and we see a reluctance to admit that the problem is inherent in a for-profit healthcare system.

Witness the fact that MFA was polling very well, until the right started running attack ads that are pure propaganda about the supposed unaffordability of MFA.

[Celerity]

35. I have to so laugh when people say Sweden is terrible model for anything as we are

'a homogenous nation composed of 95% blonde whites.'

Beside the fact I am myself a hyper-mixed race half Swede, half Bajan (Barbados) lesbian cis-gendered female, the nation itself has had such a massive influx of immigrants over the past 25 or so years (the majority being refugees from US/UK/NATO generated wars) that we are now actually more diverse (in terms of the percentage of first or 2nd generation, non european ethnic origin residents) than the US itself is. We are somewhere around 28% and climbing. Malmö is the largest northern/western/southern EU city that is majority non northern/western/southern European in terms of demographics.

I have done so many posts like that one above (that you replied to) since I have joined DU. A few were OP's. Some were far more detailed than what I just put out. I did try and do one around the holidays, and it was removed for being in the wrong forum (I put it in GD as I named ZERO candidates and did not dal at all with the primaries)

Atm, I do not want a giant OP like I would make to get turned into a primary fight clusterfuck shitstorm, as that is so not my intent. Once the general election is over, I will go back to working on this. I hate that large parts of what I say is spun into some partisan angle whenever I posit something that gores someone's particular ox.

We also all have to wait and see what happens if the SCOTUS invalidates most or all of the ACA this summer. If that happens, then we will once again have to expend tremendous political capital and energy just clawing back to that woefully inadequate level. Any talk of the public option (let alone a fast leap into MFA-style programmes) will be the stuff of fantasy, I truly fear. We will be DAMN lucky just to get pre-existing conditions (the single best part of the ACA IMHO) back to being covered.

Trump is the ultimate con man when he says that ANY plan he does will also have the same pre-existing coverage that the ACA has. His 100 million plus (counting all the MAGAt families and non-voters) thuggish rubes will believe ANYTHING that fucker says. All they care about is hurting the 'right' people, the people they have been scientifically programmed to scapegoat and hate reflexively. They even will except being crushed themselves, as long as the 'other ones' are hurt and damaged to a higher degree. They would allow one of their own little fingers to be chopped off as long as they were guaranteed a black woman would then have her entire arm removed via axe right afterwards.

[guillaumeb]

36. I have read, and heard, the same arguemnt about Canada.

When, in fact, Canada, like the US, is a nation of immigrants, where many speak multiple languages.

And I do understand your reluctance to post specifically about this topic. At this point in particular, certain fora here are a bit chaotic.

And yes, Trump is a liar, but he does speak for the 1%, and what they want. And as you noted, a certain segment of Trump's supporters seem to like it when others suffer. As long as those others are browner, or different in some way, from them.

[Celerity]

37. I do not want to post a large OP atm, as it will be forced into the primary forums, and I simply

do not need the grief from certain quarters. Like I said, I shall return to this post-election, or at least post-SCOTUS ACA ruling.

Whilst I was looking for material to place into my reply above, I ran into some truly horrid exchanges I had with multiple posters, more than a few of them relentless disinfo agents (and all or most of those are now banned.) I just do not want the hassle atm.

Sorry.

[guillaumeb]

38. Understood. Have a great day, and keep posting here. eom

[Celerity]

39. wonderful chatting! hugzz

[David__77]

4. Sounds like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons.

...

[beerandjesus]

9. Hard to know if Jonathan Chait is stupid or lying.

I've seen him and his entertaining hairline do both.

[jalan48]

11. Just look at Chris Mathews of MSNBC. I thought the poor man was going to be-piss himself on

national television when it became obvious Sanders was going to win Nevada big a huge margin.

[Mike 03]

12. Sentences worth emphasizing:

Even if Sanders is likely to lose, the small chance of success is worth the risk to a party they don’t care for to begin with. What is odd is watching rationalizations take hold among a much larger group of progressives who very much do care about denying Trump a second term, and who have explained away the risks of a Sanders nomination with a series of fallacies.

[highplainsdem]

18. A hardcore socialist vanguard indifferent to the Democratic Party except as a vessel for the Bernie

revolution.

Chait nailed it.

[BootinUp]

19. Nicely explained. Nt

[melman]

21. Chait

lol

[George II]

24. "lol"

He's a liberal progressive writing for a very publication between left and extremely left.

Not far enough left for you?

[melman]

25. Who said anything about left?

Not me. I'm talking about this specific guy Jonathan Chait. The guy is ridiculous.

For example...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/02/why-liberals-should-support-a-trump-nomination.html

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/11/donald-trump-is-not-going-to-win-michigan.html

[progressoid]

28. Oops.

Those suggestions didn't work out too well did they, Jonathon?

[Blue_Tires]

22. God, when Chait gets it I start to get very very scared...

[uponit7771]

23. ✨✨✨✨SANDERS 3 MONTH SWING STATE NUMBERS AGAINST TRUMP SUCK !!!✨✨✨✨

[Frustratedlady]

27. Two things scare me about Sanders being the nominee.

1) He's putting too much faith in his new base of young people. Are they sincere and plan to definitely show up to vote in the general election?

2) If he is elected and wins POTUS, but is unable to enact any of his biggest promises...Medicare for All, free education and student debt relief...will they leave the Democratic Party? With the senate we presently have, they'll shoot down any of his programs, just like they did with Obama. If this young base leaves because the Democrats didn't produce, it will take forever to gain their support in future elections.