Apologies for the delay in response. Work and weekend got in the way.
Pseudonym said:
Tireseas said:
1) Sanders spending 5 years bashing a nebulous "establishment" while doing almost no reaching out to try and build the bridges with less-ideologically aligned power centers necessary to secure the nomination and unify the party. This essentially painted him in the eyes of the average center-left democrat as someone not interested in unifying the party in a way to secure a nomination, which makes him look less electable because Democrats need more unity to beat Republicans in presidential general election than visa-versa.
Well, that's one of his core beliefs. If he loses on that than his views just weren't that popular. Unfortunate but nothing to be done there. Should he rather have lied about his views or changed them out of convenience?
Is his core beliefs his policies or a message about railing against anyone who doesn't agree with him completely?
See, the problem is that he's constantly railing against the "establishment" of the Democratic party, which makes for good red meat for his base, but does nothing to win over center-left voters who agree with him generally on policy but have concerns about his tact and ability to unify the party. A lot of those voters
like Hilary Clinton, Pelosi, Obama, Biden, and other moderate to center-left (US scale) candidates and see their actions as "playing the hand their dealt." They see Sanders as bashing people they like and not being able to get someone they do like at least endorsing him to at least vouch for him. It makes them less open to his message when they could be very get-able voters and does nothing to address their top priority: Defeat Trump [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/suburbanites-are-backing-biden/607726/].
If he's refusing to to the bare minimum to unify the party [https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/21164091/sanders-biden-super-tuesday-endorsements-primary-2020], then why should they believe he can win? He needs to fix that and it may already be too late.
Tireseas said:
2) Taking a rigid ideological approach further alienates those who have serious concerns about his approach to politics, even if on brand for him. After years of GOP dogma, the last thing they want is something similar on the left side, especially when the electoral math still shifts the median point to the right. Things like praising Cuba and Nicaragua's communist regimes, deserved or otherwise, really fucking scares voters for whom "Florida 2000" remains a trauma point, as those stances are seen as serious liability for securing one of the largest swing states.[footnote]Recent polls in Flordia, which are over a week old so take them with a massive grain of salt, routinely have Sanders at around 15% in the Primary [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/fl/florida_democratic_presidential_primary-6847.html#polls].[/footnote]
Saying that Cuba increased literacy rates and that that is a good thing, is not a rigid ideological stance, it is simply true. Demanding that one doesn't mention this, even though it is true, because Cuba's regime is bad for other reasons is a rigid ideological stance. In fact, such a stance signals a complete rejection of nuance which is very dangerous and is probably part of the reason why the US has not been at peace for decades. If injecting any degree of nuance and sanity in American debates on foreign policy costs him the votes of insane jingoists and cold warriors, so be it. Not only that but there was little he could have done about this. He has already supported Nicaragua's revolutionaires decades ago. If that is dragged up he has no way to really win. He can apologize but this would be dishonest and would not convince those affected by this red scare nonsense. Those people are too far gone. Meanwhile Sanders has been at the forefront of trying to reduce US support for the murderous campaign of violence Saudi-Arabia is carrying out in Yemen. If you are more worried about a positive comment about the literacy rates of an irrelevant dictatorship, than you are about active support for murdering monarchs, you are too far gone.
You're missing the forest for the trees: electability is a top concern for choosing a candidate this cycle. Voters see him praising current/former antagonists to the US and not seeing someone who can actually change their mind on issues necessary to win votes.
And, unfortunately, Florida and its fairly large population of former Cubans who fled or whom their families fled the regime, is a swing state.
Sometimes you have to disavow your prior positions or say you made a mistake. It doesn't matter if Cuba's education system or healthcare improved under the Castro Regime: All unaligned voters hear is praise for a regime that a huge number of people fled from for its human rights abuses and nearly started a nuclear war.
If you want to win, it's about votes.
Nothing else matters if victory is the goal. And so far his strategy of a hidden cache of independent and young voters has not materialized. At a certain point, changing strategy means trying to ameliorate concerns about his biggest weaknesses, and his self-identification as a socialist is a big one [https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-political-liabilities.aspx].
Tireseas said:
3) An army of trolls (some of whom work for or are surrogates for the campaign) who tout his message that actively turn off potentially persuadable voters through insults and divisive statements. A regular drip of stories like this aren't just not helping, but likely actively hurting him moving forward [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/04/marianne-williamson-candidates-endorsement-biden-coup/4949415002/].
That's a story about a deleted tweet by a supporter of him. The tweet was apparently deleted so fast that it can't even be quoted. Worse things than what Williamson tweeted are said about Sanders on TV every day. Again, what would you like him to do here? If anyone cared to, we could go to pro-warren twitter (or pro-anything twitter), find some of the most unpleasant people there and have a steady drip of stories about how Warren supporters are dangerous trolls. You could perhaps blame Sanders for not having the stomach to organize a frontgroup to do that. You cannot expect him to prevent a million of his volunteers and surrogates to never say anything that people like you can throw a hissy fit about. Especially not since it is a foregone conclusion that you will do so.
it's [https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-has-an-emerging-surrogate-problem-after-one-of-them-boos-hillary-clinton] not [https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-24/bernie-sanders-and-his-sometimes-outrageous-surrogates] just [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-email-surrogates-respectfully-engage-bullying_n_5c72188fe4b03cfdaa55e866] her [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-apologizes-to-joe-biden-for-surrogates-op-ed-alleging-he-has-a-big-corruption-problem-today-2020-01-20/].
If you're engaged enough and aren't supporting Sanders (and if you a woman or queer in particular), you've been the target of harassment and nastiness by Sanders supporters. I have. Most of the people I engage with have. This is a known problem [https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-bros-are-loud-proud-and-toxic-to-bernie-sanders-campaign], one that even some supporters acknowledge [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-doubt-of-a-bernie-bro-a-hard-charging-sanders-supporter-questions-whether-his-tactics-help-or-hurt/2020/03/07/0e89cbea-57e6-11ea-8585-993ff9ec93f9_story.html].
And that's scaring away get-able voters who remember who were mean to them and who weren't, even if the majority of contacts with Sanders supporters are nice.
He needs to get surrogates, staffers, and himself on a unity message ASAP, and he needs to boot anyone not on board with that if he wants to change the narrative. Active disavowment of any prominent person who engages in unnecessary attacks on Biden or democratic figures is probably what its going to take, as pretty much all the prior messages of "we need to be positive" tend to get ruined when top staffers seem to be churning out the same toxic spew he just said was not part of his movement [https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-staffer-mocked-elizabeth-warrens-looks-pete-buttigiegs-sexuality-on-private-twitter-account]. Demote them, have them publicly apologize, list certain toxic platforms as persona non grata within the movement, and change. the. narrative.
Otherwise, you get your own supporters attacking your best and most on-message surrogate for complimenting a fucking meme [https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/1236664305766076416?s=20].
Tireseas said:
4) A general familiarity with the now-main moderate in the race. Biden, for his all his faults, maintained strong enough ties and reputation with essential voting blocks (notably black and older voters with a higher propensity to turn out) that he was considered a known quantity among a group of voters that tends to vote strategically for moderates to favor victory over hail-Mary candidates that could better represent them but have the perception of likely loosing in the general election. Sanders has not shed that reputation among voters who remember McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis who were painted and too liberal by the GOP and lost and his theory of the case for his candidacy has not borne fruit in the way necessary to proceed (Hell, Virginia, which was considered a toss-up favoring Sanders going in [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-what-our-forecast-says-about-every-super-tuesday-state/] nearly doubled the 2016 turnout and it broke heavily for Biden, not Sanders).
I agree with this.
Tireseas said:
5) Perceived hypocrisy for calling for more-aligned candidates to drop out of the race. A lot of people, particularly female supporters of Warren, feel insulted by Sanders' supporter's calls for Warren to drop out of the race after he actively ignored such calls in 2016 and did little to reign in his supporters ugly attacks against Clinton even when it was abundantly clear there was no means of securing the nomination. 2016 will likely haunt this election until the first Wednesday in November.
I recognize an ad hoc argument when I see it. It's unfortunate that whatever remains of Warren's support chooses to be this defensive over a fairly obvious point that she is splitting the left-wing vote. It's also unfortunate that some people are still bitter about him running against Clinton.
He chooses to ignore this at his peril. That is all I'm saying on the subject if you're unwilling to engage with the argument.
I'll reiterate the main problems here though. (1) At some point you have to rep the ideology you believe in. If voters disagree with your views or make their voting decisions on grotesquely irrational grounds, then though luck. I prefer Sanders losing over him pulling a Buttigieg and selling out any and all of his views and integrity just to try to get elected. The worst part is that it wouldn't even work. He would still be perceived as too far left, except by the left-wingers who previously supported him. (2) some of these problems with Sanders are manufactured by his enemies (this would include you). Best not to acknowledge smears about Bernie bro's or him being a commie dictator and if pushed on such issues, to stick to your guns.
I'm just going to let you sit with a few questions:
"Why do you think I'm an enemy of the Sanders campaign when I'm mainly pointing out weaknesses that the campaign needs to address in order to win votes?"
"Why do you think calling another democratic voter who, at the time that this message was posted, had not voted, was openly a Warren supporter, and was in the process of deciding which candidate she was choosing, an enemy of Sanders?"
"What do you think is the thought process of a voter who sides with Biden over Sanders when given that choice?"
I'm asking this because, whether you realize it or not,
I want Sanders to win. And this might come as a surprise: I VOTED FOR SANDERS [https://twitter.com/AGirlNamedMei/status/1236715934665994240].
I see Biden as particularly weak and not ideal to lead the current moment, along with an opinion of genial politics that seems 20 years out of date. I don't see Sanders as the leader for the moment either because his approach seems all about message and never about doing the necessary compromises and outreach to turn an idea into a statute in the US Code. Both have shown themselves to be moored to visions of their respective approach to politics, Biden's view of the Senate being completely out of step with reality, Sander's beliefs in how he conducts politics, that make them both particularly unsuited for the moment. And so I talked to a lot of people who supported either candidate.
Do you know who ultimately persuaded me? Someone who treated me with dignity and respect, who made my concerns felt heard and gave me the information I was looking for. Because priority one for me is combating authoritarianism and bringing back democratic norms, which means step one is defeating Trump. They made a case for Sander's electability based largely on polarization of the existing electorate likely minimizing get-able middle-ground swing voters that didn't turn out in 2016 that Biden would be reliant on while Sanders may be able to attract the grievance voters that supported Trump who are now somewhat disaffected.
Honestly, I still put them at even odds against Trump, but I see Sanders as the current path to the Warren administration I wanted more than Biden, largely because I see Warren as a senate majority leader if we are able to retake the chamber and Sanders is president. She'll be the ones bringing the bills to the floor that have her priorities on them and Sanders will likely sign them even if he doesn't get 100% of what he wanted in them, because when the chips are down, his voting record shows he's not going to stand in the way of real progress and I don't expect that to change in a Sanders administration. And, above all it'll demonstrate the weakness of his politics to get things done if he has a legislative priority that the rest of the democratic party isn't willing to sign onto. Allies are important to getting things done and appealing to them is especially important when they aren't 100% on board with your plan or approach. That's the lesson Sanders should have learned from this last week.
But to get Sanders to the presidency, he needs to win the General, and to get to the General he has to win the Primary and that requires more votes than the two from me and my husband, both Ex-Warren voters.
Make no mistake, no matter who wins the nomination, they have my vote, because I know who my real target is, and he's spraying himself down with Purell in the White House.
