JAN 28, 20202:49 PM
William Saletan,
Slate
Bernie Sanders is on the rise. Less than a week before the first contest of the Democratic primary, polls give the Vermont senator, on average, a 3-point lead in Iowa and an 8-point lead in New Hampshire. Nationally, he has climbed to within 5 percentage points of former Vice President Joe Biden. If Sanders wins the first two states, he has a strong chance of winning the nomination.
That sounds like good news for progressives. But it isn’t. Sanders has major liabilities that haven’t been exploited in the primaries. If he’s the nominee, those liabilities could hand the election to President Donald Trump. David Frum made this case on Monday in the Atlantic, and Jonathan Chait, writing for New York magazine, has backed it up with evidence from recent elections. But polls suggest that Trump has already identified a theme that would destroy Sanders: his socialism.
Trump is running on the economy, but he knows many voters don’t like him. He needs to give those voters something to fear about the other party. That’s where socialism comes in. Trump uses that word at every rally, hoping to make Democrats look radical and scary. Sen. Elizabeth Warren agrees with many of Sanders’ ideas, but she doesn’t call them socialism. Sanders does. He plays right into Trump’s hands.
If you hang out with young progressives, you might be under the impression that socialism is popular. It is, but only on the left. In the latest Gallup poll, taken in September, liberals and Democrats viewed socialism favorably, but Americans as a whole rejected it, 57 percent to 39 percent. In the same poll, respondents viewed capitalism favorably, 60 percent to 35 percent. A Harvard/New York Times poll, taken in July and August, found similar results: Americans endorsed capitalism, 57 percent to 37 percent, while rejecting socialism, 59 percent to 34 percent. Polls taken in May by the Pew Research Center, in March for the libertarian Cato Institute, and in December for Fox News yielded similar results. In every survey, socialism scores well among progressives but gets trounced, among voters as a whole, in a showdown with capitalism.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/trump-bernie-sanders-socialism.htmlIf the electorate contained
only people under 40. I'd say that Sanders would have a really good chance of defeating Trump. But we all know such is not the case, and "socialism"
isn't a popular concept---or even word!---for a majority of elderly voters. (You know, the ones that
always turn out on Election Day.) But it is Saletan's final words that really bring it home
:
"If you think socialism is important enough to risk losing the election, vote for Sanders. But if all you want is a progressive government—one that offers a public health insurance option, makes college more affordable, and mobilizes the country against climate change—you’re a lot more likely to get it by nominating a pragmatist. It feels good to vote for the candidate you admire most. But if Sanders wins the nomination and Trump wins the election, you’ll have four more years to feel the burn."
