There is a lot of strum und dang in #BernieWorld right now because the Sanders campaign is suffering a protracted death (Bernie suspends-but-does-not-drop-out, Bernie loses Alaska to Joe). Also because, well, there is concern in the Bernie camps that . . . Joe might just win.
Whether they credit COVID with creating a possible aperture for the victory of Biden or the lameness of the general voting public--or whatever--the real reason is that Joe Biden winning in 2020 would inflict a narcissistic wound on the Bernie-Crowd and that CANNOT be allowed to happen.
A LOT of these guys are going to vote for Trump in November.
Polling showed that 15% of Bernie supporters would vote for Trump if Bernie wasn't the nominee. The conventional wisdom says these are Trump->Bernie cross-over voters: conservatives who were swayed to the side of Bernieness by the populist Bern of his Berniegenda.
This is bullshit. That 15%? Those are the hard-core Bernie voters--most of the people you interact with online.
How come?
The isn't that if Joe wins in November millions of people will get improved health care--or that tons of migrant families will be reunited or that a woman will land the VP slot for the first time in history. No.
The Berners aren't upset that the damage to our courts can be repaired or that the corruption that has taken over our government could be rooted out. That stuff is annoying to them--but it's not why they'd literally vote for Trump in any great numbers.
No--the reason why many of them are going to do that (despite saying they'll write in Bernie) is because if Joe wins and the make-things-better-for-people cause is advanced? They are irrelevant. That is what's called a "Narcissistic Wound."
The appeal of Sanders to these people isn't fundamentally his policy (if that was the case, it'd be negotiable as a primacy of harm-reduction)--no, it's the Not Me--Us vibe of his revolution. He is placing them in the place of primary importance in his attack on The Real Enemy--The Ones Who Ignored Them--The Democrats.
This, again, is why they were never going to turn their ire on Trump. If Bernie had won the nomination the campaigns enemies would still be The DNC, the Democratic Power Structure (governors, and congress and so on), and The Press. The wound wasn't inflicted by the GOP which alternately praised Bernie (in an attempt to divide the Democrats) or, at least, saw them as a legitimate enemy.
The Chance Of Liberal Success Wounds Them
If Biden can succeed and win the election then their worst-case scenario has come to pass. If Trump wins, they get to occupy the center of attention (or, at least, will try to) claiming they could have saved America if everyone else had just acknowledged them. But if Biden wins? Then they were nothing but a bunch of angry kids all along.
And if families get reunited and people without health care get access to it and the government gets repaired?
That's rubbing salt in that terrible, terrible wound.
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