"Demographics- labor, women, people of color- that the Sanders campaign needed, and failed, to win" [View all]

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http://www.salon.com/2016/02/22/dolores_huerta_takes_on_bernies_base_nevada_caucus_flap_speaks_volumes_about_the_frustrations_of_sanders_supporters/

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Things are tense right now because the Nevada loss is starting to look like a devastating blow to the Sanders campaign. From the beginning, the biggest obstacle to the Sanders campaign was convincing voters that this was about serious change instead of a bunch of privileged people posturing about how radical they are.

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Unfortunately, Nevada showed that the inroads just weren’t enough. “He lost among women, blacks, nonwhites, and self-described Democrats,” Charles Blow of The New York Times writes. Early reports that Sanders had outperformed Clinton with Latino voters proved unlikely, as caucus results show that Clinton won the more Latino-heavy precincts. The Sanders message of economic populism is not resonating with people of color, women, or union workers— the very people you need to convince people your campaign is a serious one and not the electoral equivalent of the white guy in dreads wearing the Che shirt playing guitar in the quad.

Under the circumstances, it’s understandable why Sanders supporters would be a bit touchy about Dolores Huerta accusing them of disrespect. Huerta sits right at the intersection of three demographics — labor, women, people of color— that the Sanders campaign needed, and failed, to win over in order to convincingly argue that this is a real political revolution instead of a social signaling opportunity for people who want to be seen as radical.

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The problem is that dog-piling Huerta is exactly the wrong way to go about appealing to women, people of color, or labor organizers. The accusations of lying are a stark reminder of how women or people of color have long been treated as more mendacious than white men, and the lack of respect for an iconic labor organizer calls into question if these self-proclaimed socialists have even a basic understanding of what socialism is, or the centrality of labor concerns to the very concept of socialism. (This isn’t helped by the fact that the Sanders campaign is far more focused on middle-class benefits and Wall Street corruption than traditional socialist concerns like labor organizing or welfare for the poor.)

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