That very well may be, but considering all his policies do[0], the question must be asked, why?
Maybe we should ask ourselves why, when the american majority supported his entire policy agenda, did they not support him?
Could it be perhaps the billionaire owned media misrepresenting him and his positions? His own party conspiring to take him out of the primary running? Or just average voter ignorance? No one has ever contended that americans always vote in their best interest, after all.
They don't support him because he identifies as pro-socialism and anti-capitalism, while in 2019 socialism polled at -13 and capitalism at +32. Sanders is well aware of this, but as he's explained in the past, his goal is to spark a political revolution and he doesn't care if that leads to opposition from wealthy or corporate interests.
Sure, all of that can be true, but it doesn't change my point that Americans by and large support his policy, even if he isn't the best salesman in the country, or scares the boomers and the uneducated by mentioning socialism and triggering the McCarthy region of the brain, and it merits exploration as to why people support his policies but not him.
I agree, part of it may be his extreme language off-putting those who don't really know what socialism even means, ie the average american. Keep in mind the average american has reading comprehension at or below that of an average sixth grader. Try selling any complex idea or radical change (even for the better) to a sixth grader, it's going to be tough.
Why doesn't opposing capitalism count as a policy? It seems entirely reasonable for one of the people in that +32 to say "well, I like a lot of Bernie's proposals, but he thinks we should put fetters on capitalism and I think we shouldn't do that". (Multiple people I know have told me something along those lines, although I should acknowledge it's true they were all boomers.)
>Why doesn't opposing capitalism count as a policy?
Yeah, fair point, I hadn't really thought about it that way. You're absolutely right, that is obviously a policy, and one that people don't agree with, woe unto them...
I guess it's like that author said: "It's easier to envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism." I fell in to that trap of assumption, taking that not as a policy prescription, but as a far off amorphous aspiration.
I guess because it's obvious to me that even if he had had a super-majority that "ending capitalism" would still be a decades long reconstruction of the economy, not something one could put in to a bill put to congress. Plus I always saw him more as opposed to unrestrained capitalism in segments of our life that were basic needs, rather than opposition to capitalism as an idea. I must admit I do still hold some rose colored glasses, I guess.
>I should acknowledge, they were all boomers.
haha. unsurprising. I know first hand the type you describe, as someone who campaigned for him twice and is involved in local politics.
It's not that complicated. In 2016 America though Bernie was a crazy leftist, and didn't vote for him. He did pick up more votes than expected as a protest against Hillary, and he was just starting to get buy-in on his policies.
Then he went out and sold America on some social democrat ideas. He did ok in 2020, but lost, partially because Democratic voters were afraid that Republicans would see him as a crazy leftist, and partially because Biden had more support from some demographics.
Yeah, there's some billionaire pushback, but Bernie chaired the budget committee. It's not like he was whacked by some billionaire hit squad, he just wasn't quite popular enough to win the presidential primaries.
Looking all the way downstream, to the end result (voting numbers) is much less valuable vein to mine for insight than how he was portrayed in media, online and in legacy media, before votes were cast. That provides much more insight in to how his campaign failed, in my eyes at least.
I don't have all the historical polling data to say this with certainty, but his policies were pretty much always supported by a majority of the american public from a cursory perplexity search (grain of salt and all that, but seriously, can you think of one policy of his that wasn't popular?)
The more important question, to me at least, than "in 2016 did america think bernie was a crazy leftist?" is, "why, when his policies all had majority voter support, did the candidate himself carry the McCarthy era veil of 'crazy leftist' and 'communist'"?
And I think the answer is the same as in my original comment, a concerted effort from the billionaire class (who own all our media) to do anything BUT accurately portray the guy who vocally wanted to cost them money in favor of those who wanted to enrich them. I think the billionaire class almost always plays a bigger role than we think, but that might just be all the books I read about the machinations of the rich and powerful to manufacture consent. I'm no expert.
Consider how Obama got piled on for a minor tweak to healthcare laws, and gets called a socialist for ever mentioning that maybe the rich aren't helping out enough.
I've gotta be skeptical that Bernie's policies were majority supported at the time, and any investigation would have to look at the evidence, and especially the polling questions, really carefully.
>I've gotta be skeptical that Bernie's policies were majority supported at the time, and any investigation would have to look at the evidence, and especially the polling questions, really carefully.
Wholly agreed, and I'm unfortunately way too lazy to do that. But I did look at and cite one snapshot in time where all his policy positions had a majority support (except 15$ min wage because it was framed with "risk of job losses")
>consider how Obama...helping out enough
Yeah, agreed, which I think is more evidence that reality, unfortunately, holds less water than whatever the tv/ipad/iphone tells you to believe about the world. That plus the average american reading comprehension being at or below sixth grade level makes for a tough sell of anything but very simple language, very simple policy. And just in general, an uneducated populace tends to be more susceptible to voting against their own interests.
Hardly surprising to us, those paying attention. But that's an ever shrinking percentage, and the percentage that can parse complex realities is also unfortunately shrinking. If you wanna get real pessimistic google literacy statistics for adults in the US.
It's an issue we're seeing all around the West - previously centre-left parties unfortunately were cowed into supporting 'soft-neoliberalism' over the last 30-40 years, and now that's shown to not improve the living standards of the many (but works amazingly for the wealthy), voters are looking for anything that looks different than the status-quo. Unfortunately that plus a bit of culture war drives them into the populist right.
Obviously that's a worse choice (at best it's just corrupt crony-capitalism under a veneer of caring about the little guy, at worst outright fascism) but we all have to admit that parties like the Democrats (and Labor in the UK and Australia, etc.) haven't had policy platforms to make changes that really and substantially help the struggling working-class for decades.
It's hard for us to see, because most people commenting on hacker news are in the professional class and the status-quo works quite well for us.
> now that's shown to not improve the living standards of the many
Inflation-adjusted median real income is up 20% since 1990 in the US. Unemployment is lower. Life expectancy is higher. Air pollution is lower. Crime is lower. Gay marriage is now legal.
The living standards of the many in the US have demonstrably improved dramatically over the last 30-40 years.
Housing affordability is worse, but that is largely due to local rather than national politics, and the policies that have lead to unaffordable housing are largely non-partisan (in that homeowners across the political spectrum are for restrictive zoning and against development).
It's true that many people feel that living standards have not improved. I don't have an answer for that beyond speculation.
There are many things this statistic masks. How many households were dual income vs single income over that same time span? This also doesn't take in to account cost of living changes, which I'm confident have risen more than 20%. Sorry in advance if I'm wrong. Inflation erosion, how CPI is calculated to make things look better than they are (too much to get in to), but my point is that statistic is not the holy grail of progress.
>unemployment is lower
Won't argue that one
>life expectancy is higher
As would be expected with 35 years of progress in medicine? Plus, that statistic hides we've actually plateaued and even declined compared to other OECD nations.
>Air pollution... gay marriage is legal
Won't argue with those, though I wonder how much longer the air will be cleaner when the current admin has severely weakened the EPA and clean air/water regulations.
>The living standards...30-40 years.
Are you deriving that from the median real income? Even assuming it's true, why are a growing percentage of american's living paycheck to paycheck?
>Housing affordability is worse...local
That's... a pretty big one... I'd argue it could be greatly helped by federal policy against oh idk, stopping private equity from buying up homes and apartments, severe taxes on 2nd or 3rd properties, unoccupied property, etc.
All I'm saying is, there's a reason average americans aren't pickin up what you are puttin down. I don't think it's just a feeling.
How the Democrats went from having an excited and involved Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard in 2016, to pushing to re-elect a cognitively-impaired 80 year old in 2024 would make for an interesting expose, that's for sure.
Kamala Harris is a progressive, who by certain objective measures, was the most left senator, even further left than Sanders. Of course in the general election she moved to the center, as did Trump. Kamala lost all seven swing states.
The democrats should move to 90's style triangulation, it works.
