
Why Bernie Sanders Lost - samizdis
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-bernie-sanders-lost/
======
aazaa
According to the article, the (not mutually incompatible) reasons are:

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](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.

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kyuudou
Because running as 3rd-party or independent has been rendered nigh impossible
by lots of crap that is difficult to undo.

~~~
keshavit
He's a democrat

~~~
kyuudou
What jacquesm said and also he's traditionally been independent: "He is the
longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history..."(from his
Wikipedia page) but like Ron Paul, knew that he would go nowhere in a 3rd
party or as an independent because of the way the presidential election system
is setup i.e. the Commission on Presidential Debates (Ross Perot freaked them
the heck out and they were like, never again!).

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.

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tpmx
Forgive me for the political ignorance, I'm Swedish:

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?

~~~
op03
Biden wont make a dent in the Trump base if you have seen a Trump rally.
Normalcy is going to take a long time to restore.

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.

~~~
jacquesm
Nobody will make a dent in the Trump base. If Trumps misconduct to date
doesn't sway them then no outsider ever will. Very few of them will change
sides, there was actually an example on HN here a few days ago. But that's
definitely not representative of what is happening in Trumps base as a whole.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I think the Trump base knows all that (about Trump's, ah, questionable ethics
and, um, distance from the truth and so on), and they don't care, because
Trump's appeal was never that he was ethical, or that he was telling the
truth. His appeal was that he would do what they thought needed done. And he
has more or less done that.

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.

~~~
krapp
But what if they can't have what they want?

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?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
_Then tell them so._ Tell them in a way that they understand. Don't tell them
in a way that _you_ understand, and then look down on them because they don't
get it.

~~~
jacquesm
That's not how voting in America works. People will vote for whoever promises
them what they want to hear. You can stand there on the other side of the line
with your scientifically supported facts and you'll be an also ran. People
actually _want_ to be lied to.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I didn't say "give them scientifically supported facts". I meant that you tell
them that your approach is going to get them what they actually want, and that
you can deliver and the other guys can't. But to do that, you first have to
_understand_ both what they want and how they think. _Then_ you can talk to
them in terms they understand.

[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.]

~~~
jacquesm
I think the idea that everything can be understood by everybody, even by those
that don't want to expend any effort is a problematic one. Plenty of people
don't want to understand, they just want a strong man to lead them and Trump
gives them the _image_ of that. Fortunately he's not really a strong man
because then the USA would be in even more trouble than it is today. God
forbid that an Erdogan or Putin type gains direct control over the United
States.

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.

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rtx
He and Trump are both accelerationist candidates. Maybe the pandemic has
reduced our appetite for it.

