Democratic strategizing for 2020 may be well on its way, but the knives and grievances of 2016 are still out for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. As the rumor mill ramps up with buzz that Sanders is back in the running for the Democratic presidential nomination, the intersectional cult and Clinton cronies have already began their full-scale assault on the self-proclaimed socialist’s primary prospects.
If you’re an economic leftist, the absolute best argument against Sanders is that the senator would be 83 by the end of his first term if he won the presidency. He would be a whopping nine years older at the start of the presidency than the oldest person ever to become president for the first time: President Trump, who was 70.
Outside of Sanders’ age, he has a frightening amount of potential. He singlehandedly mainstreamed leftist policy measures such as the $15 minimum wage and “Medicare-for-all” into American political discourse. Every socialist entering Congress has Sanders to thank for making that failed ideology seem attractive and even exciting, and for paving the progressive pathway through the Democratic Party. Even more terrifying for conservatives still is Sanders’ peculiar brand of charisma — in reality it’s more lack of pretense and facade than the presence of charm, but it’s still quite effective. Furthermore, Sanders-style populism has crossover appeal with many of the same people who voted for Trump but may now be turned off by his presidency.
Luckily for the Right, the Democratic Party and its acolytes look eager to kneecap Sanders’ bid for the presidency — again.
Already, the much-maligned Bernie bros have been blamed by by the likes of Neera Tanden and the #Resisters at the America Blog for orchestrating a coordinated attack on failed senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, whose presidency they are very much trying to make happen.
Responding to a piece critical of Beto by Elizabeth Breunig, which didn’t even bring up Sanders at all, Talking Points Memo’s John Marshall incoherently wrote, “[A] lot of this is the standard cultic issue of Bernieity. No one else can have the pure Bernaic quality of Bernie. Ergo must be destroyed. Because Bernie.”
Now as it turns out, the far-left wing of the Democratic Party has also melted down at the prospects of another Sanders bid for the presidency.
In a piece subtly titled “BERNIE DON’T RUN” for Gawker reincarnate, Splinter News, Hamilton Nolan buries the lead, first citing Sanders’ age and then getting to the true point.
“Any solid top-tier true left wing candidate should, barring a serious fuck-up, be able to win the Democratic nomination if Bernie Sanders hands them all of his supporters on a platter,” Nolan writes. “As an added benefit, that candidate may not have some of the flaws Bernie himself has. That candidate may be decades younger than him, and possibly not a white man! Everybody wins.”
Despite his socialist pedigree, Sanders ultimately fails the intersectionality litmus test required to gain backing from the progressive base. And the wrath of the Clintonites will prevent him from ever receiving so much as a passing nod from the establishment. He’s white, he’s old, he’s a career politician without a sob story in his past, and he supposedly prevented Saint Hillary from shattering the glass ceiling.
The grand irony of the moment is that the candidates most capable of picking off Rust Belt and suburban voters increasingly disdainful of Trump — Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Sherrod Brown — all fail the intersectionality test. But expect none to inspire more fervent vitriol than Sanders.
Senator, there you have it from the two primary factions of the Democratic base. Thank you for your decades of groundbreaking service for the progressive agenda. Now cast yourself off as the Old Major of this narrative, and let the shiny, new intersectional pigs take over the farm.
