Why Bernie Sanders Lost
fivethirtyeight.com
fivethirtyeight.com
1. Sanders didn’t run a smart enough campaign
2. Democrats were wary of a very liberal nominee
3. Trump aside, Sanders was always a weird fit as the Democratic nominee
There's another possibility. Democratic primary voters are actually participating in a Keynesian Beauty Contest:
> ... entrants are asked to choose the six most attractive faces from a hundred photographs. Those who picked the most popular faces are then eligible for a prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
The president has broadly and deeply invaded the psyche of democrats. Instead of choosing the candidate they want, party members are choosing the candidate they think everyone else, even those outside the party, wants.
It's similar to the calculation made during 2016. But this time around, there have been 3+ years of unrelenting psyche assault.
Speaking at the level of gut voter reaction and leaving policies aside, the two probable candidates in the probable 2020 presidential election are by a long shot more similar than any other possible matchup.
Along with that, the fund-raising rules or lack thereof make it a playing field only for Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin who generally contribute AKA invest the same amount for each party; plus SuperPACs... It's an absolute joke.
Won't a centrist Biden have a much better chance of winning against Trump compared to a super-leftist (even compared to Swedish mainstream politics) Sanders?
Isn't the whole point of your upcoming presidential election (I mean for the 80-90% or so non-republicans here on HN) to get rid of Trump and to get back to some kind of normalcy?
But in reality, it's more complicated. There is no clear political spectrum on which everyone falls. Not everyone has the same enthusiasm about politics. Not all candidates are equally competent/likeable/trustworthy. People get disillusioned with their own party or excited about a new party or platform.
It's kinda different here. People vote. Maybe you should consider making it illegal not to vote, like in Australia. (Yeah, I know, it's an eh.. stretch goal.)
It's really a lot more complicated than that. People don't like coronations. If you take someone's vote for granted and act like they have no choice, things will not go well for you. You have to make the case every damn election. To your most loyal supporters and the swing voters and every other constituency.
For approximately half of the country, yes. For approximately the other half, no. It's that tiny slice of true independents in the middle that have been deciding the results for a few cycles by now. The DNC does not like Sanders because he's too far to the left.
We have to just wait for a politician who can connect and build trust with that base. And hope the size of that base doesn't grow as all kinds of frustrations mount.
They didn't think that open borders were a good idea. Trump has pushed fairly hard to close them.
They didn't think that shipping jobs to China was a good idea. Trump not only paid lip service to stopping it, he put tariffs on China.
And so on.
Now, if you want to get rid of Trump, you almost certainly have to appeal to those people. You aren't going to do it by telling them how stupid they are, or how racist they are. You aren't even going to do it by telling them how much of a liar Trump is.
You have to do it like this: "You're worried about jobs going to China? Yeah, we understand. That's a real concern. And you don't just want a welfare check when the factory closed, you want another job. Here's what we're going to do about that, and here's why it's better than what Trump is doing." And you need to be right - your approach has to be beter than Trump's, and they have to see yours as better.
You can't get rid of Trump by looking at half the country as backward hicks who just need to be stomped into political oblivion. You have to care about their problems, and you have to help with their problems. Then you can make a dent in Trump's base.
What if they want the mines reopened, and coal and oil workers back to work, the factories churning out American goods made on American soil, and lifetime employment with a pension and health insurance, a turkey in every pot and two cars in every garage like their fathers or grandfathers had, but the world has moved on, and the jobs and stability they want simply cannot, and will never, exist in the modern world?
What if "socialist" initiatives like nationalized healthcare, UBI and free college are better options?
[Edit: I'm not knocking facts. By all means, use them. We absolutely need more reality in our political discourse. But you have to present the facts within their frame of reference, not yours.
You need to be able to make a blue-collar midwesterner understand why Trump has let them down without expecting them to adopt the mindset of a coastal liberal.]
Facts aren't always clear cut, they aren't always simple and the world is complex. Knowing that your intended target is unable to understand a certain piece of evidence does not mean that there is a credible path to you being able to 'package' it and them understanding it anyway, especially if understanding it would lead to conclusions about their way of life that are incompatible with the way they would like things to pan out.
A conman has a much easier job there. That's asymmetrical and I do not see any solution here. That you hope this can be done speaks to your credit, I am not so sure.
Most of people will lean towards trump in case of confusion because he already run it as president.
I am an outsider and might be completely wrong but seems like Democrats does not learn the lesson from the past. They played again the people and voters.