At least, that’s the notion which has been slowly emerging among Team Hillary and her supporters. But why? Just spin the wheel and pick your reason, there seem to be plenty of them (likely more added by the day!)
1 )If Bernie is the nominee, Republicans will win because he’s a liberal/socialist/too progressive
2) If Hillary is the nominee, the Bernie bros will stay home and hand the election to Republicans
The latest addition to the party is:
3) Bernie has caused too much damage (ha!) to Hillary in the primary and Republicans will win
The ironic thing is that the various evidence behind each of these ideas are often contradictory in nature. In addition, all three of these scenarios ignore the basic context of the 2016 race. First let’s explore the context, then we can explore the evidence behind these three scenarios.
2016 is, and always has been, a toss-up
I know we have the blue wall, demographics are on our side, the Republican Party has descended into chaos and insanity etc, etc. In short, 2016 “should be a Democratic shoe-in,” is the phrase I see repeated on this site every day. Reality tells a different story. When was the last time an incumbent Democratic party won the White House following a term-limited President? It’s okay, I’ll wait.
The answer is that it hasn’t happened since World War II. I will let that sink in for a moment so that all reading this can fully comprehend the amount of history we are attempting to overturn come November.
Statistical prognosticators like Nate Silver have written about this at length. It doesn’t matter that President Obama is popular among Democrats, he has mediocre at best popularity among the general electorate. Remember the historic backlash against Bush that was the 2006 and 2008 election? Now imagine the perspective the batshit Republicans are coming from after eight years of a black Muslim communist antichrist.
Now that, I hope, we’ve established a baseline for 2016, let’s explore each of the three points above in a little more detail.
Bernie is too far left
If you still are behind the curve, it’s time to finally accept that Bernie’s views are actually very mainstream. This drives Democratic elites insane. So insane in fact, they make asinine statements out of both sides of their mouths (or, perhaps, out of their ass cheeks?) Democratic elites simultaneously make the argument that Bernie is outside of the mainstream (see McCaskill’s red-baiting) and that Hillary is just as progressive as Bernie. Which is it, is he outside of the mainstream or is he a clone of Hillary? Do they not see how these two arguments are contradictory?
Also, he’s Nader. I mean he’s McGovern. I mean, he’s… Mondale? People who make these arguments are idiots. Why are they idiots?
First off, Nader ran as a third party. Aside form the spoiler argument, people seem to have a memory block when it comes to the fact that hundreds of thousands of African-Americans in Florida had their ballots thrown out or were simply not allowed to vote in the first place. Then there was the whole issue of the Supreme Court stepping in and stopping the recount. Ah, the memories. How quickly we forget them. Much easier to blame Nader and project historical revisionism into the present.
Secondly, Bernie is not (yet) George McGovern. What happened in 1972? An progressive Democrat from a rural, white state ran an insurgent campaign against Democratic elites. Sound familiar? What happened when McGovern won the nomination? PUMAs happened. Democratic leaders the country over formed Democrats for Nixon, vowed to deny the McGovern campaign of funds, and left him out to dry. If Bernie ends up being George McGovern redux, it won’t be because he’s too liberal, it will be because Democrats, once again, throw a child’s fit and decide they would rather have a Republican in the White House than seed one modicum of control to the grassroots and activist base of the party.
Thirdly… Mondale, seriously? Go home, you’re drunk.
The bros stay home
The Bernie bros stay home argument is equally as contradictory as the too liberal argument. On the one hand, folks argue that Sanders can’t win the Democratic primary because he’s not a real Democrat, he’s fueled by those young, libertarian-phased kids who wouldn’t know where to find a polling booth if someone Tweeted it to them. In short, his supporters aren’t Democrats. You know, they’re those icky independents. On the other hand, if those entitled young Democrats (they’re Democrats now, right?) don’t show up and swallow the Hill-pill come November, IT WILL BE ALL THEIR FAULT.
So which is it? Are Bernie supporters Democrats or not? You want them, you don’t want them. Disparage them in the primary, and shame them in the general. Classy.
Leave Hillary alone
This argument is actually quite hilarious coming from Team Hillary because, you know, 2008. When Obama was trucking along, do you think it ever occurred to his team that they should come out and say, “Hillary, you need to give up now because you might hurt our candidate for the November election?” No, no it didn’t. Why? Because it’s tantamount to admitting weakness.
Remember how President Obama crushed John McCain in 2008. Seriously, take a moment and remember it. Ahhh, wasn’t that nice? Those were good times. Why did so many people vote for a Democratic candidate in 2008? Part of the reason was that the 2008 primary was extremely competitive. People were paying attention to Democrats and the Democratic race almost right up until the convention. That did wonders for the party. It energized the base. It got people excited. It also battle-tested the eventual Democratic nominee. It aired all the laundry early in the campaign season and left nothing for surprise come November. Meanwhile, the Republicans were playing the “let’s rally around one candidate and look to the general” game. This is the same game Team Hillary wants us to play right now. That didn’t work so well for McCain.
Much to my dismay, even people who should know better, people who have wrote extensively on how beneficial the competitive 2008 primary was for the party, people like Kos, are now tooting the “rally round the wagons” horn right now. That is a foolish strategy, and it is a losing strategy.
Conclusion
2016 is not 2008. 2016 is not 2000. 2016 is not 1972, or 1984. 2016 is 2016. Context is important. 2016 is not an easy-win for Democrats, no matter what People Who Know Things try to tell you. Ensuring a Democrat is sworn-in come 2017 is going to be really hard, no matter who the nominee is.
Team Hillary and their supporters seem to have made up their mind that no matter the outcome of the November election, their scapegoat will be the Jewish socialist. These Republican-lite talking points are not only bad form, they’re idiotic strategically, and unfounded in reality.
I beg Hillary supporters to re-think these narratives. These kinds of narratives very much discourage individuals from involving themselves in politics at all. As we all know, when turnout is high, Democrats win. In the end, whoever is the nominee, we will have to come together in November, and more importantly, beyond November. These arguments are not helping that cause.
This is the part where Hillary supporters will say, but jbiddy, Bernie supporters are doing just as much damage to the prospects of coming together come November. That could very well be. The difference is, the Bernie supporters doing the damage are lone gunmen, out in the wild of this crazy place we call the Internets. The above discussed arguments are coming either directly from Team Hillary, close campaign surrogates, or affiliated political action committees. Arguably, sources that are more important, sources that carry more weight. With great power comes great responsibility. Wield it responsibly.