Bernie Sanders said something this week that really upset this yellow-dog Democrat, so I wrote about it at New York:
At a time when plenty of people have advice for unhappy progressive Democrats, one of their heroes, Bernie Sanders, had a succinct message: Don’t love the party, leave it. In an interview with the New York Times, he previewed a barnstorming tour he has undertaken with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but made it clear he wouldn’t be asking audiences to rally ’round the Democratic Party. “One of the aspects of this tour is to try to rally people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the Democratic Party,” Sanders said.
In one respect, that isn’t surprising. Though he has long aligned with the Democratic Party in Congress and has regularly backed its candidates, Sanders has always self-identified as an independent, even when he filed to run for president as a Democrat in 2020. Now, as before, he seems to regard the Democratic Party as inherently corrupted by its wealthy donor base, per the Times:
“During the interview on Wednesday, Mr. Sanders repeatedly criticized the influence of wealthy donors and Washington consultants on the party. He said that while Democrats had been a force for good on social issues like civil rights, women’s rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, they had failed on the economic concerns he has dedicated his political career to addressing.”
Still, when Democrats are now already perceived as losing adherents, and as many progressives believe their time to take over the party has arrived, Sanders’s counsel is both oddly timed and pernicious. Yes, those on the left who choose independent status may still work with Democrats on both legislative and electoral projects, much as Sanders does. And they may run in and win Democratic primaries on occasion without putting on the party yoke. But inevitably, refusing to stay formally within the Democratic tent will cede influence to centrists and alienate loyalist voters as well. And in 18 states, voters who don’t register as Democrats may be barred from voting in Democratic primaries, which proved a problem for Sanders during his two presidential runs.
More fundamentally, Democrats need both solidarity and stable membership at this moment with the MAGA wolf at the door and crucial off-year and midterm elections coming up. Staying in the Democratic ranks doesn’t mean giving up progressive principles or failing to challenge timid or ineffective leadership. To borrow an ancient cigarette-ad slogan, it’s a time when it’s better to “fight than switch.”
That said, there may be certain deep-red parts of the country where the Democratic brand is so toxic that an independent candidacy could make some sense for progressives. The example of 2024 independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn of Nebraska, who ran a shockingly competitive (if ultimately unsuccessful) race against Republican incumbent Deb Fischer, turned a lot of heads. But while Osborn might have been a “populist” by most standards, he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a progressive, and in fact, centrist and progressive Nebraska Democrats went along with Osborn as a very long shot. They didn’t abandon their party; they just got out of the way.
Someday the popularity of electoral systems without party primaries or with ranked-choice voting may spread to the point where candidates and voters alike will gradually shed or at least weaken party labels. Then self-identifying as an independent could be both principled and politically pragmatic.
But until then, it’s important to understand why American politics have regularly defaulted to a two-party system dating all the way back to those days when the Founders tried strenuously to avoid parties altogether. In a first-past-the-post system where winners take all, there’s just too much at stake to allow those with whom you are in agreement on the basics to splinter. That’s particularly true when the other party is rigidly united in subservience to an authoritarian leader. Sanders is one of a kind in his ability to keep his feet both within and outside the Democratic Party. His example isn’t replicable without making a bad situation for progressives a whole lot worse.
Anaylsis of state by state can be found at http://www.mydd.com and at the polling report. Too close to call.
To understand the political attitudes of College Students at any given time, it is useful to remember they have very little knowledge of political history beyond their own political awakening during their teen years. Like it or not, that is their frame of reference. For those in college today, the dominant images would be Clinton’s second term with the Impeachment mess, followed by the Florida Election mess and then 911. There is little in any of that likely to turn them toward fairly progressive political ideas, or even introduce them into the mix. For those of us who are older — and remember things like Vietnam or Civil Rights or even Watergate — we have to pinch ourselves and remember that the vast majority of today’s college students only know those events as part of political history through some films, perhaps a fes pages in a text book, or maybe listening to a few conversations with their parents generation. Most have no knowledge of these things at all, because they are not really represented in the popular culture in which they have lived their lives. They will poll accordingly until something brings them up short, and they make an effort to acquire a broader frame of reference that includes at least some history they did not personally experience. Aah yes, there are exceptions — but the vast majority of undergraduate students are profoundly a-historical, and always have been.
the polls probably are only polling about 20 people per average size state. you can find seperate state-wide polls though.
yes, i agree. does anyone know where such a national poll may be (w/ state-by-state info.).
Can somebody do a state-by-state analysis (with current polling data) to show how the electoral college will pan out if the election were held tomorrow?
The shift is unboubtadly thanks to Mr. Kerry. Kudos to him.
Have a look at the results–there’s a link at the end of Ruy’s essay. 78% of the respondents are White. 30% of those who say they’re Republicans cite their family upbringing as the main reason, and 65% of all respondents say their parents’ total household income in 2003 was over $50,000. Perhaps most significant of all, 33% of the respondents are freshmen, and 23% are sophomores, so the sample is skewed heavily toward students who are under 21. They are the people who haven’t seen this movie before–the big deficits, social reactionaryism, and militarism of Republican administrations.
My guess is this:
Financial aid at colleges has been getting shittier and shittier, and the proportion of working, and even lower middle, class, people who go to them has been decreasing, even at state universities. This means that the people at 4-year colleges are closer and closer to Bush’s ‘base’ among the wealthy.
Not to say that most college age people are right wing now, because they aren’t. But as someone who spent 4 years at college, and then two at grad school, all at the same university (I finished my Masters quite recently) I saw the student body change from majority left and left-of centre to majority apolitical, with the left and right having about equal visibility on campus. And I went to school in Massachusetts. I can only imagine what it’s like in the rest of the country
I had no idea Bush support among college students was previously so high. That’s just bizarre to me – very counterintuitive. Why do you think that was?