The New Bern, Same as the Old Bern
Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons
One of the louder narratives going into Iowa was the recycled line from Bernie Sanders’ supporters that a massive wave of new voter turnout was going to be the vanguard of the revolution. The Sanders folks have long since pitched their tents in Iowa and spent the time between 2016 and now trying to improve on the Independent Senator from Vermont’s showing in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses. In doing so, they were not shy about their goal to start a revolution, and to start it with turning out more and new voters in Iowa. Sanders himself worked it into his closing arguments over the weekend before the Monday night Iowa Caucuses:
Sanders said Saturday that high caucus turnout will be critical to maintaining his momentum.
“If the voter turnout is low, we are going to lose,” Sanders said. “If people across this state are prepared to come out, not just to defeat Trump but to transform this country. If working people and young people and all people who believe in justice—if they come out in large numbers, we’re going to win this caucus.”
“Let us see on Monday night, in this consequential year in American history, let us see Iowa have the largest caucus turnout in the history of this great state,” Sanders said before wrapping up his speech.
The Iowa Democratic Party is gearing up for what they expect to be a record-breaking year, working diligently to mitigate any logistical issues at caucus locations. His staff and volunteers will have knocked 500,000 doors in Iowa by February 3, which Sanders says underpins the success of his campaign.
“I think we are the strongest campaign to defeat Trump because we are developing the strongest grass roots movement in this campaign,” Sanders said Saturday.
Except he didn’t, and isn’t, and his prospects of doing so are not as good as advertised.
Turnout for Monday’s Iowa caucuses was on pace to match 2016 levels based on early data, a state party official said, even as some sites reported long lines and a record number of people participating as Democrats began choosing a nominee to take on President Donald Trump.
It was too soon to tell what final turnout numbers will be, amid delays in reporting results. But Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Mandy McClure said early indications were turnout was on pace to match 2016, when about 170,000 people participated. The high-water mark for the contest was the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucuses, when nearly 240,000 participated and Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley.
Some party officials and campaigns were expecting far more people to participate than four years ago due to Democrats’ enthusiasm to replace Trump, and at least in some locations caucus-goers reported packed rooms and slow counts.
To be fair, matching Barack Obama-level turnout is probably never going to happen again in our lifetimes. But simply matching the 2016 level, in which Bernie effectively tied Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa before going on to a 23 point win in New Hampshire and losing the nomination, is not good, despite the spin and confusion of the disaster the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucuses turned into. In the absence of actual results — which we are still waiting on at this writing and frankly will be questioned whatever they are — the narratives coming out of Iowa only have today to get settled before being bigfooted out of the new cycle by the State of the Union and tomorrow’s impeachment acquittal. By Friday all the political media will be focused on the New Hampshire debate, a state Sanders should win easily and which he has spent considerable money and effort on. Once again, much like 2016, Bernie Sanders should have two great showings in the first two contests.
But then what?
The Nevada Caucus will have a white-hot spotlight on it, and not just because it is next on the calendar, but because of the meltdown of the caucus system — or more specifically the folks in charge of preparing and running it — in Iowa. It could potentially have the oddity of having a candidate, Michael Bloomberg, on the debate stage in that state, due to DNC rules modifications, but not actually on the ballot in the caucuses. Then it’s on to South Carolina, and a bunch of Super Tuesday states after that are a lot less Bernie friendly and where Clinton pulled away from Sanders in 2016. Unlike 2016, Sanders will not be the only alternative to the frontrunner for folks wanting to protest to coalesce around, since the debacle in the Hawkeye State means no one will be particularly inclined to bow out of the race.
If, after basically 5 straight years of campaigning in Iowa, Sanders couldn’t turn out anyone new for his political revolution, that does not speak well of states his campaign has spent far less time and resources in, and has precious little time left to do so. Sanders pitched his tent on the caucus system being very friendly to his enthusiastic followers getting to act out their support in a very public way. That’s over and washed away, and no amount of conspiracy theories or online whining will replace what a podium moment with “winner” on the bottom of the TV screen could do. It probably wouldn’t have mattered a lot, but it certainly isn’t helping to go without it, and the already prickly Sanders online army are not going to be more warm and fuzzy in trying to proselytize for their chosen one having felt cheated out of it.
Or maybe, after five years on the national stage as the standard bearer for the Democratic Socialist wing of the party, Bernie has just called in all the banners his cause is going to get. Maybe the message has reached as many Democrats as it is going to reach. Maybe the tent of the Progressive Revolution, or at least the version Bernie is pitching, is as big as it is going to get and with no new ideas and a candidate that is very much known by this point. Perhaps the wave of the Bernie revolution is going to crest with the first two contests like he did in 2016, and no matter all the effort put into it is going to change the result from before, and despite drawing a crowd and a media circus to the show under the tent, it just doesn’t translate into a nation-wide tour required for a major party nomination.
Or maybe the Bernie Sanders tent is more like the pop up varieties you see from time to time. Sometimes they mean a party, food, and fun. Sometimes they mean girl scout cookies for sale. Sometimes they are just marking the place in the cemetery where the freshest hole has been dug, waiting for the family to gather so it can be filled in. When you see that tent, you know what is about to happen.
The latter will draw a crowd, but it should never be confused with a revolution.
So it goes. I agree, Iowa fiasco or not, that if Uncle Bernie had actually conjured a vast new young cohort of voters in Iowa they would be obvious- screw up in the caucus machinery or not. And since the only argument Sanders ever has seriously hung his hat on is that he’d vanguard in a new political revolution to solve the various problems he had no concrete answers for the absence of those new voters is devastating for his argument.Report
Unfortunately, the paranoid style is pretty hefty among Sander’s most ardent supporters, at least online.
Sanders doesn’t fail, he is only robbed.
Which, to be honest, is literally my second biggest complaint about Sanders. Too many of his most vocal supporters appear to be conspiracy minded a**holes. Which really isn’t Sanders’ fault, but it’s hard to separate Candidate Sanders — whom I’ve never interacted with — and the hordes-of-shrill-Sanders-supporters clogging up every social media thread in America with variations of ‘We-was-robbed/We-is-being-robbed/Losing-is-impossible-only-conspiracy/Disagreement-is-elitist-shilling’ who I have, sadly, interacted with.
That being said, my primary problem with Sanders is his age.
In all honestly, I don’t even really care who wins the Democratic primary. It really doesn’t matter to me. My primary concern occupies the White House, and no one on the field — not even Bloomberg — could possibly be as damaging.
I suspect, judging by the jumps as voters shift around candidates, that ‘Can/Will beat Trump’ is a pretty hefty decision point amongst primary voters.Report
This has been my experience as well. That isn’t… directly… Bernie’s fault but he does periodically dip his toes into the “rigged” stuff and because of that I don’t think he gets to be absolved of this behavior. The wily old goat knows what his devotees lap up and he throws it to them from time to time.
Obligatory note: If Bernie somehow manages to get the nomination I will vote for the wily old goat.Report
Bernie’s running an aspirational campaign, but sometimes says things that let the cat outa the bag. In 2016 he said that as President he’d make college tuition free. Now, his followers hear that and think “yay, free school!”, and even more importantly, they hear it and think “yay, Bernie’s gonna stick it to the Capitalists”, but in reality Bernie knows, more than anyone else, that he’s not speaking aspirationally but flat out lying.
He does stuff like that. It makes me not like his aspirational message as much as I otherwise would.
I’ll vote for him too.Report
Yeah. I know what i prefer to hear; plans and details and discussions that admit the roadblocks. Bernie doesn’t do that. At this point i also know what i look for is not what most voters seem to want and Bernie gives people what they want. Simple solutions and no complexity. Good politics for this time. I’ll vote for him in the general even with his flaws.Report
Yeah, I don’t mind Bernie’s aspirational stuff. I mind the lying, and I mind the promise of achieving the impossible. Like, if instead of saying he’s going to institute Medicare for All on his first day in office he at least made noises that incremental progress is still better than none, I’d take his candidacy more seriously.
But I think he’s still stuck in 2016, where he very consciously adopted extreme lefty positions for the specific purpose of pulling HRC to the left. He became his own caricature.Report
Sanders’ whole ideology is a conspiracy theory. His shtick is that we’re being robbed—that (((bankers and billionaires))) have rigged the economy to benefit themselves at our expense. The conspiracy theories about the election that Sanders’ followers are espousing are isomorphic to his conspiracy theories about the economy. He attracts that kind of person because that’s the kind of campaign he runs.Report
I don’t disagree in the least.Report
gotta be real with ya here, I have seen far more people talking about how rotten and awful Bernie supporters are online than I’ve seen actual rotten and awful behavior by Bernie supporters online
as in
I haven’t seen any of the latter stuff
and if you show me some then I’d want to see an example of how it is specifically Bernie’s message or attitude that caused it, rather than them just being the sort of person who’s like that anyway and they happen to be pro-Bernie
oh and by the way
if your attitude is “Bernie supporters are jerks, that’s why I don’t support Bernie” then maybe think about that next time you tell me someone saying “Democrats are jerks and that’s why I voted Trump” is a lie and they’re actually racistsReport
Wait… turnout was *LOW*?
Jesus. That’s an important story that is being hella overshadowed here…Report
Low? I dunno about low but it appears to have clocked in at roughly normal at the most.Report
Maybe what it means is that people intend to vote for Any Democrat and don’t really care who that is.Report
This is how I would spin it. “The fact that more people didn’t show up despite population increase and Donald Trump is a sign of how engaged our voters are. They don’t care if it’s Sanders or Yang or Biden or Warren or Buttigeig!”
But before I’d put a paragraph explaining for how important it is for you to send them $20, I’d talk about how awful Republicans are for a paragraph or two.Report
I mean, when you read about the process of caucusing, it’s surprising that anyone turns up for those things at all. I wish they kept stats on how many people walked in, said ‘I’m here to vote in the primary!”, and immediately turned around and left once it was explained what was actually involved…Report
I imagine that that’s true for every other caucus state *EXCEPT* Iowa.
I have no doubt that caucusing is explained to kids in elementary school and the process is explained to them as one of the things that makes Iowa the best state to live in and, when you’re old enough, *YOU* will get to caucus *TOO*! I mean, Iowa is known for two things: having the first caucus and having ethanol subsidies.
After this debacle, they’re going to get rid of the former and soon thereafter the latter.Report
Carcetti – I mean O’Malley – ran in 16, not ‘08. Dang NYT.Report
Carcetti lolReport
And I say that with love for both of them.Report
In the UK we had Jeremy Corbyn, the not so young Labour leader, who energised the youth vote in the 2017 election. He tried the same trick in 2019 and his party got taken to the cleaners by Boris Johnson and the conservative party.Report
We noticed. The old folks, at least for now, still decide elections in the States. See how long that holds up.Report
The recent Aschcroft poll of Labour defectors gave the following reasons for not voting Labour this time:
Did not want Corbyn to be PM: 53%
Did not believe Labour would be able to deliver the promises it was making: 40%
Labour Party no longer represents people like me: 37%
Wanted to get Brexit done: 30%
Did not like the policies Labour was advocating: 26%
Given how low Brexit scored, it would be an open question if Sanders would pose similar views for moderate Democrats.Report
Also interesting to compare the above with the top five reasons Labour members gave for losing the election, in order:
Brexit
Media bias/
Conservative lies
Voters don’t understand what was at stake
Voters are racistReport
35% of caucus goers said this was their first caucus and youth turnout was higher than 2008 the reason turn out wasn’t higher overall is because old people didn’t show up which tells me that the people who are relying on the old people vote have an issue.
I mean you can say he didn’t turn out his youth face and bigger numbers but he turns them out and empirically bigger numbers I’m sorry old people didn’t vote like they normally do.
actually I’m not because I’m fairly certain that the more old people vote the worst Bernie does because I’ve got mine go fuc yourself is very prevalent among old peopleReport
Are you under the impression that your posting this reflects well on Bernie Sanders and his supporters?Report
Eh, there’s more economy in saying “Yikes! Not a good look, bro!”
If we’re going to police heresy, we have to do a better job of pointing out that good people have an emotional response to seeing someone saying something problematic and that only bad people will look at the statements and whether they have a relationship to reality and then, from there, whether they’re true or false.
Just go straight to the phrase that tells people that this is a moral argument.
Hey! Question! Not OK!Report