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Never-Bernie?
If Sanders rolls to the nomination, will there be a Never-Bernie movement? On the one hand, Bernie is an ideological nutball who could lead his party to disaster (or disaster to his country, if he wins) and a number of Democratic campaign pros and elected officials have said so. On the other hand, there are no “strange new respect” MSM prizes from dissident Democrats as there are for RINOs. And Democrats are much better at enforcing party loyalty.
Democrats have traditionally finessed their affinity for socialism, turning the ratchet slowly while giving lip service to the free market and property rights. But now, like Skynet becoming self-aware in The Terminator, the hard left under Bernie wants no more pretense or gradualism. The mask is off.
The great thing about being a socialist is that no matter how badly your programmatic ventures fail, it is never the fault of the ideology that spawned them. The ideology teaches you to double down. And once it becomes clear that a centrally-planned utopia is really a stagnant nightmare, the main task becomes a punishment for anyone who notices. Big Brother is a feature, not a bug. There was never going to be a NeverStalin movement.
So, when The Bern crashes and burns, it is not likely that his party can ever go back to gradual, surreptitious government expansion while feigning fealty to the Constitution and our freedoms. It is likely that, like their Corbynista or Chavista counterparts, Bernie Bros will always be incapable of requisite self-examination. It will be the fault of evil, ignorant opposition or that the great Marxist wheel of history is just turning a tad slower than expected. The last vestige or variant of the old, largely successful Democratic Party political coalition first forged in 1932 will be gone.
If there is a Never-Bernie movement it will likely have to be a third party to survive. United with the remaining many dozens of NeverTrump Republicans, they could resurrect the old John Anderson coalition or something like the Alliance-SDP of the UK. The party would stand for the proposition that they are smarter than you are, that the Reaganesque rubes on the right and Bernie commies on the left should just shut up and let clever deep state people run things without tiresome oversight or accountability from lesser types. Probably not a winning coalition even with Kristol and Rubin writing its manifestos.
But a major American political party is never down forever. The secret weapon of both Democrats and Republicans is that their opposition is invariably a bunch of idiots. Don’t get cocky, conservatives, as Glenn Reynolds is fond of saying.
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It seems odd to say so, but a Bernie candidacy may be the best thing that could happen. A Trump=Sanders contest would be the national referendum that Tom Steyer campaigns for and the question would be, “Shall we abandon the constitution and remake the US into a socialist state or not?” I would expect that the answer would be a resounding no, and if so, the question would be settled for a long time.
If, on the other hand, the answer is yes, then it is obvious the younger generation will get what they asked for and it will be on them to find their way back. I do not expect such an outcome, but the Trump side should keep in mind the old saw about counting chickens.
I was surprised last time around how many of my friends wanted Bernie. HRC crashing him is most likely why Trump won. Don’t get it wrong. Bernie is the heart of the Party and AOC is where it wants to be.
As I posted on another thread, while the idea of a debate between #NeverTrumpers Jen Rubin and Bill Kristol vs. #NeverBernieites Chis Matthews and James Carville this fall would be fun to contemplate, the more pervasive hive-mind attitude on the left combined with the control of the media and Silicon Valley social networking platforms would mean that the career paths of the #NeverBernie types would be far more constricted, if the collective decision by Democrats is to simply get behind the nominee and try to brazen it out to defeat Trump in November.
(You can say things like the collapse of The Weekly Standard has shown there’s been an economic price to pay for the #NeverTrump people, but they’re still hot talking head and writing commodities at places like CNN or the WaPo, and their online reorganization at The Bulwark has found liberal anti-Trump sugar daddies to make up for the loss of actual conservative subscribers. Hard to see where #NeverBernie people would find similar safe harbor — they can’t all be Fox News talking heads of the Juan Williams variety, and would more likely simply fade into media and pop culture non-personhood if the actively worked to keep Sanders from winning in November if he gets the nomination.)
Great opening sentence to a fantastic post.
I share the perspective of several others around here, in that a Sanders candidacy could likely be very beneficial, as it would expose the true motivations of the modern American Democrat party. The problem with that logic of course, is that he could possibly win. The Democratic candidate will win around half the vote, almost regardless of who it is. A Sanders candidacy could be entertaining, but a Sanders presidency would likely be absolutely disastrous. So hoping that one of the parties will nominate an absolutely disastrous candidate, seems extremely risky to me. But presuming he loses, his candidacy could be very helpful in many ways.
If Sanders is the nominee, I expect Big Media to flip 180 degrees, and go full Bernie bro. NeverTrump will be right there with them. TDS is quite a drug.
I view this as the most likely scenario, with in addition the federal government stabbing Trump every chance it gets.
The NeverTrump claim is that Trump is unfit for the office: he’s boorish, mentally unstable, racist, sexist, Putin’s puppet, etc.
Are Democrats saying these sorts of things about Bernie? Mainly I’m hearing concerns about his electability; they assume nominating him means 4 more years of Trump. If he actually beat Trump I think most so-called “Never Bernies” would be elated — astonished, to be sure, but thrilled.
I suspect Bernie is more analogous to 2016 Ted Cruz, a candidate most conservatives liked and agreed with but feared would guarantee a Clinton presidency.
Trump caused the Weakly Standard’s donor base to evaporate; that alone was so unforgivable that BillK had to console himself in the arms of Pierre Omidyar’s wallet, which has kept him going long enough to find new customers and other donors.
There’s always a market for inspirational/religious writing of the Sinner Who Has Seen the Light genre. I’m sure it wasn’t lost on Bill Kristol that when the NYT abandoned the pretense of objectivity it improved its subscriber base and share price. The Bulwark duly found new paymasters and a new audience.
The Mensheviks and Kerenskyites know that there are no enemies to the Left. Or else. On the other hand, any brave Never-Bernie Dems may find a congenial home at The National Review. Even The Bulwark unless the NBD in question was unwise enough to talk about voting for Trump
It’ll be interesting to see how this develops in the coming weeks. Around this time 4 years ago, it was beginning to dawn on conservatives that Donald Trump might actually win. Comment sections of every right-leaning site devolved into a donnybrook of rhetorical diarrhea – I suspect the “Never-Trumper” was born hereabouts.
The debate was hinged on the candidates themselves, but the urgency and bitterness was rooted in the belief that the party would be handing the election to Hillary. I suspect we’re in for a election that will be bigly entertaining and equally suspenseful.
I am enjoying the brilliance of this writing, especially this tidbit of insight: And once it becomes clear that a centrally-planned utopia is really a stagnant nightmare, the main task becomes punishment for anyone who notices.
Big Brother is a feature, not a bug. There was never going to be a NeverStalin movement.
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I will add that the more powerful inside the Bernie movement are not waiting for the day when it is proven that the centrally planned utopia is a nightmare. If you complain about any thing at all, no matter how teensie or nuanced your complaint, the Borg will be ordered to turn against you. This is on going. It occurred during the 2016 Primary,a nd it became ramped up after Trump’s inauguration: Jan 20th 2017.
When I was involved in promoting Bernie, February 2016 to July 2016, it was disturbing to find out that the “managers” that the Bernie organization called in from the East Coast to oversee Lake County Calif were the least warm and fuzzy types of people I had encountered in politics since I left Chicago, the home of the Daley machine in 1974.
Our local group organizers were forced to take any ideas about any task to the managers and we were shamed by them over minor matters. This did little to dispel the enthusiasm people felt by Bernie. But looking back on it, it makes me realize that Bernie is not the loving Santa Claus that his message suggests he is.
A hypothetical, since I can’t remember the battles where we were brought down: if we decided on stationary slightly different than the approved variety: “Why choose mid level beige over light beige stationary? Don’t you folks in Lake County understand the importance of being cohesive?” Except the word “folks” would be hissed as though we were village idiots.
The NeverTrumpers point to Trump’s non-conservstive heresy on trade to make the claim that it is they who are preserving True Conservatism, like outposts of Irish monks preserving the texts of western civilization. Overall, Trump is more conservative than GOP voters have been lead to believe possible in recent years so the false piety of RINOs laying claim to the mantle of Reaganism rings hollow.
But Democrats have much tougher ideological problems. They like to run on broad promises of free goodies and punishing the rich. But hope that Republican judges and/or a GOP Congress will have the good sense to prevent actually doing it on the promised scale ((and hurting rich campaign donors) so they can shed crocodile tears and keep getting elected for their compassion. Only a few loons like AOC and Bernie actually want to do this stuff. As bad as public education is in our country, enough Democrats can still do the requisite arithmetic to see the problem of implementing BernieCare or the Green New Deal.
Bernie is blowing up the whole “compassion” scam. And the Democratic Party has no coherent policy Plan B. The utterly phony Biden and Warren perfectly personify that absence of substance.
Last week, MSDNC contributor Jason Johnson said:
This is the New New Left against the New Old Left. Or Old New Left. Or something.
Bernie’s real heresy is calling the Democrat agenda by its correct name: socialism. He’s unraveling decades of painstaking effort to rebrand and repackage socialism as “liberalism” for the American audience.
The future of the DNC is Mayo Pete. He is slick and rehearsed and persuasive–he is also a secret commie.
Old-style workers-vs.-owners class warfare socialism vs. special interest group victimology. Both want severe government control over what everyone can do and how they can lead their lives — it’s more a matter of dividing up the spoils differently on who gets to tell everyone what to do.
I. am afraid that Bernie could win, and afraid of the consequences of that win. I do not wish those consequences on my child, my friends, or any of my family or friends, or on myself. I do not wish them on anyone, even the democrats.
“The great thing about being a socialist is that no matter how badly your programmatic ventures fail, it is never the fault of the ideology that spawned them.The ideology teaches you to double down.”
And there’s plenty of new blood at the ready to carry the torch. The OG Dems built their own trap, and now find themselves in its clutches as now they’re the power-mongering establishment they once protested. That is the legacy they leave and AOC, The Squad, and the woke progressive leftists are ready to wear Che’s beret. They’ll double-down in such a way to make these times look like the decades of compromise.
I keep thinking this n-coronavirus thing-ee will shut down the economy Trump has so carefully built up.
Then what? Italy already is putting itself under lock and key. If two thirds of the nations on earth shut down, lock down their economies and go on to get sick, will the UN military come rolling down US streets?
I think that it will be very difficult for the Dems to deny Sanders the nomination. We’ll know more after Super Tuesday, of course, but I expect him to effectively lock up the nomination at that time. I don’t think that he’ll get a majority of delegates, but my current prediction is that he’ll have such a large plurality that it will not be politically feasible for the Dems to deny him the nomination.
I don’t expect a big Never Bernie movement. I do expect a significant drop-off in enthusiasm among moderate Democrats. More importantly, though, I think that the socialist and communist label will hurt Sanders very badly among independents.
I think that Trump will win bigly over Sanders.
What UN military? Their “peacekeepers” are a farce.
While I don’t think we’re facing the zombie apocalypse just yet, I do think it’s entirely plausible that Covid-whatever-it’s-called-now triggers a worldwide recession as bad or worse than 2008. The problem there is, interest rates are already so low that it’s unlikely lowering them still further will stimulate much recovery this time around.
If the virus makes us stop outsourcing everything to China, Trump is better placed than globalist Rhinos or domestic Communists to claim that he is the best candidate to jumpstart the transition. Voters will opt for commies if the economy tanks completely or is If it so good they think we can afford Swedish welfare and socialized medicine. Anything in between, folks will resist extreme change.
There already is a NeverBernie segment of the Democratic Party. There was four years ago too. They stole the nomination from him. I wonder if they can steal it again. If they do a second time, I think his supporters will Bern down the house!
Well a couple of crack in their armor have developed: Carville, Chris Mathews, a couple lesser knowns. Mainly the well to do, Clinton faction that are corrupt but not stupid/insane – they know where the money from their graft comes from and in ain’t Bernie’s brand of Socialism.
I suspect the faction that will sit out this election on the Democrats side is larger than appears. There are generations of Boomers and Gen-Xers, that have amassed wealth, established careers before this latest Democrat flirtation with Socialism. They may want abortion and pot legal, but they want their money even more.
The #NeverBernie aspect was less out in front four years ago, because Team Hillary would have projected a ‘Kneel before Zod’ attitude and tried to crush any Democrat who ran against her. After losing the nomination to Obama and feeling handcuffed by having the race card thrown at them in South Carolina in 2008, they weren’t going to allow anyone to deny them the nomination in 2016.
This time around, the crony wing of the Democrats can’t hide their frantic hopes to stop Sanders, because there is no candidate opposing him that could be considered higher up in the party’s pecking order (they tried to give wacky-but-lovable Uncle Joe that sort of gravitas, but they had spent the past three decades trying to spin him as America’s beloved crazy uncle because they knew how much of a lightweight he was on his own. Now they’re trying to salvage things with Bloomberg, who has gravitas, but also is everything the Dems have taught their base to hate over the past 50-90 years, and to where achievement-wise as a politician, everything Bloomberg did as NYC mayor that actually made NYC more livable are the things the left hates most about him).
So basically the Dems want plague and economic collapse. What are they doing to make that happen by November?
They may have helpers at the CDC [CoC warning at link]:
Etc. The city went to court and got a restraining order. I know. Never attribute to malice, and so on.
If Bernie somehow ended up President, that doesn’t mean we all have to become communists now, does it? If we somehow elected a racist, that wouldn’t mean he could reinstitute slavery and we would all just take it with a shrug. We have a Congress, and more importantly a Constitution.
Almost everything about a communist platform should be forbidden by the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
I agree that some of the arguments might be less obvious, now that we passed things like the ACA. But we fought against it. On Constitutional grounds. Unsuccessfully, but we fought.
It’s a good thing we haven’t lost our fight for the 2nd amendment.
I think there will be a third party. And it will appear in California.
California is situated perfectly for a third party. The Democrats are so large that a split may be inevitable but more importantly, they set up a “jungle primary” system, in part so that many statewide races would end up D vs. D.
This is a system that is fertile ground for a third party. In fact, once California gets a Jesse Ventura-style politician, it’ll be hard to stop that third party from becoming entrenched.
Made a slight change . . .
One thing is certain. The Never-Trump “Republicans” have been exposed for what they’ve always been….the very worst of us. That brings one very disturbing reality to my mind. The last two Republican Presidential candidates before Trump were from their camp. We were very close to oblivion as a country and yet may be still.