Chris Matthews is correct when he says the current crop of 2020 Democratic primary candidates does not have what it takes to defeat President Trump.
But the longtime MSNBC anchor is wrong to dismiss Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as a nonstarter for the general election.
“I’m not happy,” Matthews said Monday. “I’m not happy with this field. I think they have to find a candidate for president that can beat Trump. I’m still looking.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was “riding high,” the MSNBC host continued, adding that he thought she “was going to sweep” until she “got a lot of scrutiny.”
“Does this stuff add up?” Matthews asked. “Guess who’s going to get it now? Bernie’s going to get it now. … They all have problems, obvious problems. Bernie Sanders is not going to be president of the United States.”
Matthews went on to compare Sanders’s candidacy to the disastrous 1972 campaign of Democratic nominee George McGovern, who won only 35% of the popular vote while also losing the Electoral College to President Richard Nixon, who won 520-17.
All that said, Matthews concluded, Sanders will most likely win the 2020 Iowa caucuses.
“I think he’s going to win big tonight, real big,” said the host.
The MSNBC anchor is both right and wrong. The 2020 Democratic field is not ready to take on Trump. If the election were held today, the president would win another four years. But of the current candidates running in the Democratic primary, Sanders probably stands the best chance against Trump precisely because he shares with Trump many of the same features that put the Republican commander in chief in the White House in the first place.
Sanders and Trump are authentic. They are the same in public as they are in private: blunt, loud, and unapologetic. That sort of brutal authenticity, which goes a long way with voters, is nowhere to be seen with Democratic candidates such as Warren, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, or even former Vice President Joe Biden.
Trump and Sanders also have in common that they enjoy fanatically loyal followings. Anyone who remembers the Obama 2008 campaign remembers what can be accomplished by harnessing the collective power of thousands of eager, diehard supporters. The president has his team MAGA, and the senator has his Bernie Bros. No one else comes close to matching the enthusiasm and eagerness that Sanders and Trump inspire.
The senator and the president also share a common focus on jobs. Trump’s emphasis during the 2016 election on protecting the U.S. economy helped flip Rust Belt states in his favor. Of the 2020 candidates, Sanders comes the closest to sounding like a Trumpian populist on protecting workers. The senator just does it from a left-wing perspective. By selling himself as the real deal on protecting workers, and labor unions certainly seem to think he is, Sanders has already made himself a dangerous opponent for Trump.
Lastly, Sanders and Trump share a trait that makes the Vermont lawmaker a stronger primary candidate than even Biden with all his “aw-shucks” lip service for blue-collar jobs: Both Trump and Sanders market themselves as chaos agents promising to break Washington from the inside. Voters want that. That promise to turn the nation’s capital inside-out is an attractive one to an overwhelming number of voters.
If Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, the 2020 election will pit an authentically angry right-wing demagogue who promises to protect jobs and wreak havoc on the establishment against an authentically angry left-wing demagogue who promises to protect jobs and wreak havoc on the establishment. At that point, it will probably come down to a coin toss for most voters.
