Four years ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders pulled off an upset in Michigan that gave life to his insurgent challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton. On March 10, Sanders suffered a crushing defeat in the state, and whether he’s ready or not to acknowledge it, he is now without a realistic path to the Democratic nomination.
It’s incredible to think that just over two weeks ago, Sanders was the heavy favorite to be the Democratic nominee. With a massive win in Nevada coming off of a victory in New Hampshire and arguable win in Iowa, he was heading into Super Tuesday with a full head of steam. Money, organization, and enthusiasm typically wins elections, and he had all of those going for him.
But what Sanders did not have was the support of a broad coalition of the party, particularly black voters, who are central to the nomination process and tend to be more traditionally liberal and pragmatic rather than wild-eyed and revolutionary. As Democrats stared at the prospect of going into the general election with a socialist at the top of the ticket, they panicked. Prominent party members, including most of his formal rivals for the 2020 nomination, rallied around Joe Biden.
In an incredibly swift example of party consolidation, Biden now has amassed an insurmountable lead in delegates, with most of Sanders’s best states already behind him. The race now moves to four states that Sanders lost in 2016 — Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Arizona.
The 2020 nomination essentially came down to a basic choice. Did Democrats want to build on the liberal legacy of Barack Obama, or did they want to smash the system?
Sanders has been the most forthright representative of the “smash the system” wing of the party. Instead of merely figuring out ways to muscle incremental policy gains through the Senate, Sanders has promised sweeping change. This has been typified by his plan to replace all private insurance with a single government plan that offers free medical, dental, vision, and long-term care coverage without premiums, co-payments, or deductibles. At the cost of a whopping $34 trillion, the Sanders plan is more generous than most socialist systems.
In the end, Democrats did not want to take a risk or respond to the Trump era by electing another disruptive politician. Instead, they decided to “play it safe” by choosing Biden. We put “play it safe” in quotes because Biden, who slept through much of the campaign, faces his own share of liabilities. The new voters whom Sanders promised to turn out, who were central to his electability claim, ultimately never showed up. Meanwhile, he lost ground among working-class, rural, and suburban voters.
The fact that Sanders lost in Michigan is also indicative of the fact that this time around, Democratic voters are not looking for a protracted primary battle, nor do they want to leave any doubt about the rightful nominee heading into the July convention. They want to shut this thing down soon, without any convention chaos or lingering doubts about a “rigged” primary.
Given that Sanders is 78 years old and coming off a heart attack, we assume that this is the end of the road for him as the leader of the revolution. However, those celebrating the defeat of American socialism tonight shouldn’t get cocky.
As in other states, younger voters in Michigan overwhelmingly voted for Sanders. And it wasn’t because of his youthful charisma, but because of his message. Those voters, who were too young to remember the collapse of failed statist experiments during the end of the Cold War and who had a different set of economic experiences, are much more amenable to socialist ideology than their older counterparts.
Just as Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964 laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan’s landslide 16 years later, it’s possible that as the younger generation dominates the electorate and those with a memory of history age out, some future candidate could succeed where Sanders failed. So, as we get ready to bid farewell to the Sanders candidacy, we do so knowing that the fight against American socialism will go on.
