Hoping this will not be a political eulogy for Bernie Sanders in The Amalgamated Aggromulator

The glum title is chosen because tomorrow is “Super Tuesday”, when a large clump of states have their primaries for both major U.S. parties . . . and, on the Democratic side, Sanders is not favored to win in these particular states. It wouldn’t yet settle the matter either way, either Clinton or Sanders could still win regardless, but . . . I want to be sure to write something about Bernie Sanders while he is still a contender.

(Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Donald Trump looks like he will get every state in the clump except possibly Texas. )

This has been a hard month for me. It was added to by something I may never know the why of: one of my oldest and best (formerly? I guess) friends, whom I had not talked to in a while - and a group of her friends as well, simultaneously - blocked me in Facebook. Just, she and they disappeared from view. When I finally put together that something weird had happened, and tried to get through with a straightening-out of a possible, totally bizarre misunderstanding that was the only explanation I could think of (and that, with the one bit of info I got, turned out to be not it at all), I got back a short email from my friend: please do not contact her again, now or ever, do not reply or ask for an explanation, do not contact her friends or family, they will not help me contact her.

. . . Yes. I was a bit rocked. My feelings are still like a splash of ice water.

I will of course respect her wishes - I don’t know - formerly she was someone who could have told me anything and knew it - good friends are people you trust not to throw you in the garbage without a word - damn it . . . and I have to leave it there.

And the Trump phenomenon has been ravaging my sanity as well. I have been talking a lot with one high-school friend in New Mexico, conservative and Republican, which has been driven about as mad as I have been by his continued rise. (I have written about Trump already in here.)

And the other side of the election, among the Democrats with whom I vote, has been engaging me as well - and, as the vitriol rose, I began to think that the two topics might converge in an extremely nasty way. Because the mutual rejection and offense and enmity was becoming amazingly absolute - and some people were voicing certain absolute vows . . .

(The Democrats, as people under their big tent, have not been used to heavy internal primary situations for a long time. They’ve mostly been just busy opposing the Right across the river and letting that define them, agreeing - vaguely - about a lot of things, and they are not used to family squabbles about their own turf. The differences are there, and there has been mutual sneering, in a pattern much more obvious now, but it’s usually muted and almost sublimated to sleep. Democrat-dom has reminded me of Sartre recalling his religious upbringing in The Words: “An atheist was a ‘character,’ a wildman whom one did not invite to dinner lest he ‘lash out,’ a fanatic encumbered with taboos . . . a God-obsessed crank who saw His absence everywhere and who could not open his mouth without uttering His name; in short, a gentleman who had religious convictions. The believer had none.”)

I wrote the following about this problem in a long comment in Facebook:

I don't think Trump could take the general election unless a whole lot of Democrats refuse to vote for The Other Democratic Candidate if that candidate becomes their nominee. Trump ought to be naturally weaker than bland Romney in the general; notably more Republicans will actually *refuse to vote for the nominee Trump* than - I don't even know the historical comparison. Most will not actually make themselves grit their teeth and vote for the Democrat, which would most effectively help Trump lose, but they'll vote third party or just leave the president section unmarked. And God bless them.

But the schism among the Democrats could make President Trump possible.

Democrats . . . you have in prospect either a centrist establishment-status-quo moderate nominee or a nominee whose outright radical positions, to the extent they are impossible to do, therefore won't matter and will just amount to a strong opening standpoint in negotiations. You've managed to be mortally insulted by fellow Dems for not preferring the other candidate (partly their language, partly your tender feelings) - and thinking *from* that is silly. Trump would be unquestionably worse than either of them. You can agree on that.

Nobody goes to a special heaven (or whatever) for the uncompromising purity of their votes. If there's virtue in vote choices, it's in steering for the best thing to actually happen next *under the circumstances, given the choice that presents itself* - and *sacrificing* that *for* your uncompromising purity ("I kept my ideals!") is solipsistic vanity.

Democrats, do not muck this up because of an unaccustomed spat at the breakfast table! This might be the one time that (thinking) *Republicans* need Democrats, *as Democrats,* to keep their shit together. If *they* can make hard gritted-teeth choices, *so can you.* Vote for the freaking nominee.

(And for God's sake after this BOTH sides take an interest in changing the voting system, in primaries or in general, to one where people put down their ranked choices, first choice, second choice, third choice. The peculiarities of elections with more than two choices under the plurality system should now be vivid enough for everyone to be willing to look at it. **But that's later.**)

Not every Democrat who read this was convinced by it. One person said that he would not vote if Sanders was the nominee and that if that meant that Trump was elected, tough. “Harsh, but that’s my truth.”
When I asked him how this could be the right decision - when he clearly did not think that Sanders and Trump were equally bad - or what could possibly be on the scales to outweigh the result, he told me that he simply couldn’t and wouldn’t vote for a candidate who he didn’t think was suitable for the office. He said, “I won’t settle.”
I didn’t press harder or further; it wasn’t going to work. But my answer to his “I won’t settle” would have been, “You are not the consumer of your vote.”
You are doing the job of contributing your judgment to the nation as to which of a couple of given options will happen to it next. It’s not as if you are ordering your own favored pick of spouse and if you can’t get that person then you’re not going to order a person you don’t like.
No… wouldn’t have worked. Different channel.

But, meanwhile, I had written that bit of concerned advice fairly even-handedly . . . when I did have my own views both on the Democratic choice and on the tone of the intra-party controversy. And . . .

Well. Here I will post the answer - or more like a response venting - that I gave to a dear Australian friend who had, a week ago, been bemoaning Trump right along with me, and who asked me midway through about Bernie Sanders.

As follows:

On the whole, an answer is shaping up to your question:

And then there’s Bernie Sanders. Why is he not king of the world? :-(

(What with Trump already eating half my brain, this is a non-needed worm in the other.)

I understand why the Bernies don’t like the Hillaries and the Hillaries don’t like the Bernies. Both ends are somewhat overblown, especially out of the mouths of some of them.
My problem is that to me the Hillaries’ end particularly doesn’t make much sense.

“Sanders’ big plans don’t matter - the Republicans will never let any of them pass!” This is likely to be true. But:
1. In that case, if that’s true, his big plans don’t matter in the other way too. In that case it just amounts to a President with a higher beginning standpoint in any bargaining.
2. The shadow implication is that Hillary, being more “moderate” and “businesslike”, will be able to pass things with the Republicans - but THE REPUBLICANS ARE NOT GOING TO WORK WITH HER EITHER! They think Hillary is Satan! They think she’s absolutely “socialist”, never mind that only Sanders refers to himself by the word! (This also applies to the election itself.)

So how is this a Sanders non-viability?

Those loose numbers I mentioned before in Bernie’s plans - well, I’ll say “oops.” I spoke too soon. Since then a bunch of other economists swooped in to look, and the projections appear really not as unlikely. The matter is at minimum in question. But the Hillaries are not interested. They’re sure Sander’s big plans are totally goofed up.

I think most of all . . . there is an attitude that actually winning with a serious Democratic agenda is impossible and a route to defeat - and the Hillaries feel very insulted at the Bernies disagreeing; in fact, they talk of little but how insulting the Bernies are. There’s a pattern or conceit of the Democratic Party being more “realistic” than the Republicans, “the party of better arithmetic”, and - while they’re always happy to nod among themselves at talk of how single-payer would of course be better, how the bigwigs should be gone after more, etc., yes, yes - they are always at “the reality is that the country is not ready for that and won’t be for the foreseeable future.”

So how is it that the country ever BECOMES ready for these things if the Democrats do not seriously propose them?

No answer. And, underneath - I am showing my inner Bernie here - perhaps a lack of actual urgency that it ever should become ready. There is an odd danger I have thought of in this connection: call it the danger of Believing In The Lack Of Your Own Bullshit.

So there is a complacent, knowledgeable “hold the line” Democratic mentality . . . with a few one-way ratchets. Like when the Republicans pass a big tax cut and then the Democrats come in and say the new current level of tax for the middle class will not be raised, “we like the middle class”! - this happening repeatedly . . . while, er, meanwhile aren’t those taxes needed to pay for the government (and there aren’t enough rich people)? And the Dems get used to being, decade after decade, the more responsible administrators of a smaller - “realistic” - pool.

And I think about Hillaries, or non-Bernie Democrats: there is a defensive rage at all these people who are saying these stances are so morally imperative when the non-Bernies haven’t been into it all along.
“Who is Bernie Sanders to say I’m not a progressive?!” “Those Bernies say we’re all corrupt!!!”

So the Hillaries bring up the most amazing things about how strong progressive candidates always lose. One very smart man I read disappointed me by saying, “Yeah, how did Ralph Nader work out for you?” Ralph Nader was a tiny THIRD-party candidate who got 5% and made the difference in an ultra-tight race between the other big two . . . that is not the same situation! Others have said, “Think of how the Occupy movement just futilely pooped out.” The Occupy movement pooped out because it never did get to actually connecting with the political process or having any candidates. That is not the same thing!

There are cases of it not working - McGovern was a legendary idealistic loss, Mondale plainly said that he would raise taxes and he lost huge (you don’t have to know who they are) - but you would think from the Hillaries that those cases make a law of nature.
. . . Which means that FDR and Lyndon Johnson never happened!

And now - if Bernie goes down in the primary - he will be one more big piece of “PROOF” that “Serious Democrats” recognize that ANY Democratic candidate with big progressive plans is non-viable and silly and suicidal.
And the Hillaries will anoint themselves as still the Wise Old Owls. While not sorting things nearly as rationally/in adult fashion as they think.

Weird thing is . . . if I understand right, anyway (I’m not totally sure) . . . the states where Hillary is much more popular among Dems tend to be states that the Republicans will probably win in the general election - so at that stage they will not count for the Dems. The states that are big for Bernie are states that the Democrats will probably win, so Bernie enthusiasts would drive the results and help to get a even bigger share of split electors . . . I don’t know.

But Bernie seems at minimum viable to me. At least much more so than the Hillaries say.
(Or, no, that’s not quite it, rephrase: Bernie does not seem distinctly LESS viable than The Hillary. Which is no super-glowing forecast, for the general election.)

But he won’t get a chance to test this if he doesn’t make it through the primaries.

Here ends the extended answer to your question that you never actually asked for. :-) :-/
But . . . yeah. This has been the worm in the other half of my brain.

(The danger that the Dem voters for whoever doesn’t win the primary will stay home and let Trump in being a third one. Yeah, rough year.)

Last updated March 02, 2016