The plot thickens with regards to the Sanders campaign's plan to clinch the Democratic nomination. Last month I posted some of a Josh Marshall post which noted that the campaign's plan to reach the required majority relied not on getting a majority of pledged delegates, or even raw votes (where Sanders' lags even further behind), but on denying Clinton a majority and then convincing superdelegates to support Sanders at the convention. This would be an appeal to one of the most blatantly undemocratic and establishment elements of the Democratic primary.
Since then, Sanders has made no significant progress to close the delegate gap but Trump has become the presumptive Republican nominee. This strengthens Sanders' claim to the nomination on the grounds of electability, since in some polls he fares better than Clinton against Trump and obviously denying Trump the presidency is crucial for Democrats.
Although, Trump's victory becoming explicit doesn't really change anything fundamental. Yet, it seems the Sanders' campaign has become more aggressive in pushing this strategy, with Sanders' himself now making it explicit.
"... It is more than a little ironic, then, that Sanders is now urging those same insiders to ignore the intention of the primary electorate—which has given Clinton an edge in both pledged delegates and raw votes—and bequeath the nomination to him instead. In a Washington press conference on Sunday, Sanders, who has no discernible path to a delegate majority, outlined a plan to force a contested convention, where he apparently believes some superdelegates will flip to his side on the basis of electability. “The evidence is extremely clear that I would be the stronger candidate to defeat Trump or any other Republican,” he said. Sanders reiterated this on Monday at a rally in Evansville, Indiana, saying, “We appeal to virtually all the Democrats, but we do a lot better with independents than Secretary Clinton. And I hope the Democrats at the national convention understand that while independents may not be able to vote in certain Democratic primaries, they do vote in the general election.”..."
The dubiously principled superdelegate strategizing speaks for itself, but one also has to ask how clear the evidence on Sander's superior electability really is. Turns out, "extremely clear" is perhaps not the best phrase. Again from the piece above:
"... It is true, as Sanders pointed out, that polls show him doing better than Clinton against Republicans in November. But it is also true that Clinton has not hit Sanders with a single negative ad. Not one. Initially, her campaign didn’t take him seriously. Later, it couldn’t figure out a way to go after him where he’s weakest—on the flakier parts of his far-left past—without alienating his supporters....
"... It is true, as Sanders pointed out, that polls show him doing better than Clinton against Republicans in November. But it is also true that Clinton has not hit Sanders with a single negative ad. Not one. Initially, her campaign didn’t take him seriously. Later, it couldn’t figure out a way to go after him where he’s weakest—on the flakier parts of his far-left past—without alienating his supporters....
The right, meanwhile, had no incentive to rough up Sanders, a candidate who, by all accounts, Republicans would love to run against in the fall. And the mainstream media often failed to treat Sanders as a plausible contender, which would have entailed a much greater degree of scrutiny than he received. As a result, issues that, fairly or not, would be obsessively scrutinized in a general election have gone almost entirely unexamined...."
Beyond that, the polls themselves, potentially inflated by the lack of negatives as they are, don't conclusively show superiority for a Sanders ticket as is so often put forth. Recently, some swing state polls generated a lot of press, and Facebook posts, because they showed Clinton in a dead heat with, or losing to, Trump. However, these were just one set of pools, with one sample, taken six months before the election, in a few states, with over 10% of those polled undecided.
Harry Enten wrote about how we should contextualize and view the new polling results:
"... From the first presidential debate last year in early October to Election Day, there were 126 polls taken in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania combined. According to HuffPost Pollster, only 96 national general-election polls were taken over the same period. In all of 2016 so far, we’ve had only 21 polls in these three states combined. That’s equal to the number of Clinton vs. Trump polls that have been conducted nationally in the last month.
The lack of state polling also potentially means individual polls receive more attention at a time when it’s hard to tell which surveys are outliers and which are real. You could get all worked up about the recent Quinnipiac poll that showed Trump within 1 percentage point of Clinton in Pennsylvania. But you’d be ignoring a recent Marist poll that had Clinton up 15 percentage points. With limited statewide polling data, we don’t know which is closer to the truth or whether whatever the truth is means anything for the national race at large...."
"... From the first presidential debate last year in early October to Election Day, there were 126 polls taken in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania combined. According to HuffPost Pollster, only 96 national general-election polls were taken over the same period. In all of 2016 so far, we’ve had only 21 polls in these three states combined. That’s equal to the number of Clinton vs. Trump polls that have been conducted nationally in the last month.
The lack of state polling also potentially means individual polls receive more attention at a time when it’s hard to tell which surveys are outliers and which are real. You could get all worked up about the recent Quinnipiac poll that showed Trump within 1 percentage point of Clinton in Pennsylvania. But you’d be ignoring a recent Marist poll that had Clinton up 15 percentage points. With limited statewide polling data, we don’t know which is closer to the truth or whether whatever the truth is means anything for the national race at large...."
Basically, we don't really know who has better electability. As a final note on this, political scientists give Clinton better odds in the general election. She closer to the median and average voter and at a simple psychological level people feel they are harmed more by losses than by equal gains, a problem for candidates running to expand state benefits on the basis of increased taxation.
Given all of the above, I was interested to read that some Sanders' supporters inside the campaign had published a draft detailing what they thought Sanders should do after conceding defeat now that he is all but certain to lose the primary. They think he should build an independent organization aimed at defeating Donald Trump, which is good. He absolutely should work to help defeat Trump. I was also excited to here this realism from his supporters. Except then I read about the details and became disheartened.
"... The draft says Mr. Sanders can help bring together “young, newly political Sanders supporters” who see “rejection of Hillary and the Democratic Party establishment as core to their identity.” They suggest that his supporters should work to influence the party’s platform at the Democratic National Convention this July in Philadelphia, and that Mr. Sanders should host his own “convention” on transforming American politics, separate from the party’s gathering...."
This sounds like a Tea Party movement for the Democratic Party. Parallel organizations and institutions aimed at exerting external pressure on a major party.
But these "newly political" young people may not even members, or at least active members, of the Democratic party. They exert little influence at the local or state level where major party shifts are usually built from. Why not push them to join and be active within the party, diluting its moderate (should I say establishment?) base with their left leaning views, so that the next Sanders' can win the primary?
In a way, I'm happy the Sanders' campaigns immediately rejected the draft and its ideas despite my initial excitement (they stuck to their guns on claiming a path to the nomination exists). I also think people should recognize the energy Sanders has generated is not all that different from what Obama drove in 2008. Finally, I think the left needs coalitions not activist conflict.
On that, Astra Taylor wrote a really good Salvo for The Baffler earlier this year. The Baffler is an awesome publication. I've never read it in print but I'm sure its something I'll want lying on my future coffee table. Anyway, it's relevant to questions about the direction of the movement Sanders has actualized and I really liked the conclusion:
"... So there we have it. A century ago, the idea of activism was born of a philosopher—Eucken—who preferred the mystical to the material, and that preference still lingers on today, for many still believe that action, even when disconnected from any coherent strategy, can magically lead to a kind of societal awakening. Social justice warfare, in turn, emerged from some of the Internet’s more unsavory recesses as an insult concocted to belittle those who take issue with bigotry. But vitriol aside, the term betrays a faith that unites social justice warriors and their critics (a faith, to be clear, that is all too common today): that arguing with and attacking strangers online is a form of political engagement as significant as planning a picket or a boycott once was.
Fortunately, at least for now, social justice warriors have not totally eclipsed activists, and activists have not completely eradicated organizers. There are still plenty of arenas in which real organizing—what Rudd described in his talk as “education, base-building, and coalition,” and what I would describe as creating collective identity and shared economic power—is being done, but these slow-moving efforts are often overshadowed by the latest spectacle or viral outrage.
Almost a decade after I sat listening to Mark Rudd speak in a dingy room, tens of thousands of people are flocking to auditoriums across America to hear Bernie Sanders condemn the “billionaire class.” With polls showing that a growing number of young people and the majority of Democratic primary voters have a positive view of socialism, we need good, smart organizing to back up this astonishing uptick in leftist sentiment and to productively channel people’s enthusiasm and energy beyond the limited frame of the presidential race and electoral politics. Semantics alone will not determine history’s course, for it matters less what we call ourselves and more what we do, but often the language we use doesn’t help the cause. It has always been easy for elites to dismiss those who challenge them as losers and malcontents, but it takes even less effort to ignore a meme. Successful organizers, by contrast, are more difficult to shrug off, because they have built a base that acts strategically. The goal of any would-be world-changer should be to be part of something so organized, so formidable, and so shrewd that the powerful don’t scoff: they quake."
On that, Astra Taylor wrote a really good Salvo for The Baffler earlier this year. The Baffler is an awesome publication. I've never read it in print but I'm sure its something I'll want lying on my future coffee table. Anyway, it's relevant to questions about the direction of the movement Sanders has actualized and I really liked the conclusion:
"... So there we have it. A century ago, the idea of activism was born of a philosopher—Eucken—who preferred the mystical to the material, and that preference still lingers on today, for many still believe that action, even when disconnected from any coherent strategy, can magically lead to a kind of societal awakening. Social justice warfare, in turn, emerged from some of the Internet’s more unsavory recesses as an insult concocted to belittle those who take issue with bigotry. But vitriol aside, the term betrays a faith that unites social justice warriors and their critics (a faith, to be clear, that is all too common today): that arguing with and attacking strangers online is a form of political engagement as significant as planning a picket or a boycott once was.
Fortunately, at least for now, social justice warriors have not totally eclipsed activists, and activists have not completely eradicated organizers. There are still plenty of arenas in which real organizing—what Rudd described in his talk as “education, base-building, and coalition,” and what I would describe as creating collective identity and shared economic power—is being done, but these slow-moving efforts are often overshadowed by the latest spectacle or viral outrage.
Almost a decade after I sat listening to Mark Rudd speak in a dingy room, tens of thousands of people are flocking to auditoriums across America to hear Bernie Sanders condemn the “billionaire class.” With polls showing that a growing number of young people and the majority of Democratic primary voters have a positive view of socialism, we need good, smart organizing to back up this astonishing uptick in leftist sentiment and to productively channel people’s enthusiasm and energy beyond the limited frame of the presidential race and electoral politics. Semantics alone will not determine history’s course, for it matters less what we call ourselves and more what we do, but often the language we use doesn’t help the cause. It has always been easy for elites to dismiss those who challenge them as losers and malcontents, but it takes even less effort to ignore a meme. Successful organizers, by contrast, are more difficult to shrug off, because they have built a base that acts strategically. The goal of any would-be world-changer should be to be part of something so organized, so formidable, and so shrewd that the powerful don’t scoff: they quake."
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