As Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders took the stage for what is likely to be the final Democratic presidential debate of 2020, the growing coronavirus pandemic ultimately overshadowed everything else.
Even before the debate had started, concerns about the spread of the coronavirus led the Democratic National Committee to ditch the live audience. Instead, Biden and Sanders debated in CNN’s studios with lecterns six feet apart. To punctuate the unique moment in political history, the two rivals greeted each other with an awkward elbow bump before taking to their positions.
The coronavirus response naturally dominated the first portion of the debate and highlighted the differences between the two of them that have been a constant throughout the campaign.
Biden tapped his long experience in office to talk about government response to the crisis, which he argued needed to be treated as the nation would treat a war. But Sanders used the coronavirus to beat the drum on his ideological hobby horses — income inequality and the need for “Medicare for all.”
Given the moment, the former vice president’s comment that in a crisis such as this, “people want results, not a revolution” neatly encapsulated why Sanders is not getting anywhere near the Democratic nomination. The Sanders attack on drugmakers as “crooks” at the very moment that they are working around the clock to develop medicines that could help treat this awful new disease was especially ill-timed.
The debate moved on to other issues that have been litigated at various points in the campaign — Social Security, climate change, super PAC financing, and free college.
But it was ultimately difficult for Sanders to gain much traction on any of those issues given the gravity of the moment — as the United States approaches 4,000 cases, testing capacity remains inadequate, schools are closing, offices are moving to remote work, and individuals are asked to keep their distance from each other as part of a last-ditch effort to prevent the medical system from collapsing within a few weeks.
Just before Sanders and Biden took the stage, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new guidelines recommending the cancellation or postponement of any gatherings of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks. That suggests a much more significant long-term disruption to the American way of life than a lot of people are prepared for.
And it isn’t clear to what extent this nomination contest will continue. Both candidates have already canceled rallies in favor of virtual town hall appearances, and phone calls have replaced door knocking.
Sanders is expected to lose the four primaries on Tuesday in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Arizona. And in an interview following the debate, he told CNN he wasn’t sure if it made sense to even hold them while the coronavirus is still raging. “I would hope that governors listen to the public health experts, and what they are saying is, you just indicated, we don’t want gatherings of more than 50 people,” he explained. “I’m thinking about some of the elderly people sitting behind the desks, registering people, doing all that stuff. Does that make a lot of sense? I’m not sure that it does.”
Even if it doesn’t happen ahead of Tuesday, it seems like we could be moving toward a situation in which upcoming primaries beyond that are either delayed or converted to a mail-in only system, which allowed Washington state to hold a primary despite being hit by one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in the nation.
But at some point there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Sanders to throw in the towel. Before the coronavirus spread reached current levels, it was clear that Sanders had no path to the nomination. He’s now had his chance to articulate his differences with Biden in a one-on-one debate. Should he get swept again Tuesday, if the primaries go on at all, it isn’t clear why he’d be staying in a race. It’s one thing to continue an ideological crusade during normal times. But when campaign activities risk exacerbating a national emergency, at some point, by staying in, Sanders begins to look like a sociopath.
