2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Today proves Hillary has done a terrible job of wrapping this up! [View all]Garrett78
(10,721 posts)...it was never realistic to expect Sanders to win the nomination. Here's something I wrote back in August of last year:
"...lefties (notice that I don't refer to "The Left" have to take responsibility. As Bernard Chazelle wrote years ago, "America has lefties but no left." Lefties haven't laid the groundwork for someone like Sanders (or Kucinich before him) to become POTUS. Every 4 (or 8) years lefties (at least those who don't just vote Green) get excited about the most leftish Democrat in the race. However, it's clear that not nearly enough work has gone into establishing a climate that is ripe for such a candidate to be viable. You attend a rally, you post on a message board how great you think the candidate is, you get yourself so worked up that you actually think the (relatively) radical candidate can win...newsflash, the groundwork hasn't been laid. You can't just will the environment into being; you have to create it. And accept that it will likely take a long time. This lack of a persistent effort to create an organized Left, combined with impatience (expecting monumental and instantaneous change without the hard work and necessary disruptions of the social order), means Dems must settle for establishment neoliberals when it comes to the federal level."
In other words, systems don't change overnight or as a result of a single election. An ongoing daily struggle to change the culture is what's needed. Clinton, Obama, Kerry, Gore et al. are not causes, but symptoms. Systems thinking is far more helpful than getting caught up in the Cult of Personality.
As for the 2016 primary, Clinton will win the nomination with ease, but I don't think the Sanders campaign was truly about winning so much as starting the process of altering the direction of US politics.