Bernie Sanders Hit His Ceiling

[Gothmog]

sanders has a ceiling of support which means that he will trouble winning the nomination https://politicalwire.com/2020/03/04/bernie-sanders-hit-his-ceiling/

“The surprisingly decisive result left Sanders, a candidate who prides himself on his pile-driver-like consistency, facing a new challenge: finding a second act that can appeal to voters beyond the fervid base he has established. The evening’s clearest message was that while the senator from Vermont has inspired a passionate depth of support, the breadth of his coalition remains too limited to win the nomination.”

“Sanders reached 33% or more of the vote in just five of the 14 states that voted (including his home state of Vermont) and did not exceed 36%, his share in Colorado. Biden had a higher ceiling: He won at least 39% in seven states and roughly a third of the vote in three others.”

Said pollster Stan Greenberg: “Sanders has made no effort to reach out beyond his voters, his movement, his revolution. It just has not grown. It is an utterly stable vote that is grounded in the very liberal portion of the Democratic Party, but he’s so disdainful of any outreach beyond that base. He seems content to just keep hitting that drum.”

[Gothmog]

1. From day 1, Bernie built a campaign to appeal to 30%

Link to tweet

So if, from day one, they didn’t think they needed more than 30%, why would they actually run a campaign and build a culture designed to win more than his 30% ceiling? As that article notes, even way back in early 2019, Sanders was picking fights and creating enemies out of potential allies.

We saw that in Sanders’ refusal to broaden his message to bring in more people. When I said exactly that on Meet the Press, that “the problem with Bernie Sanders is that he has the exact same message he had four years ago” when he lost to Hillary Clinton 60-40, the response from the Sanders campaign was, well, this:

Link to tweet

If your message wasn’t a majority message four years ago, and you want to win, wouldn’t you tweak it? They didn’t. Proudly and explicitly did not tweak it. They had zero intention of growing new support by broadening and expanding their message. (Sanders famously refused to even inject more biography into his stump speech to humanize him more.)

Sanders and his campaign saw that their ceiling was 30%, and they built an entire strategy around winning with 30%. That means that instead of seeing the other 70% of voters as allies, they saw them as THE ENEMY. Even when there was ideological alignment.

[Cha]

3. Kos is absolutely right.. so this shouldn't be a surprise

Thanks Goth

[True Blue American]

9. Morning Cha

MSNBC has been going over and over that Warren needs o drop out and support Bernie!

I do not see the reasoning behind that. She has the right to stay in as long as she wishes and the right to back the one she choose.

Axios and others act like they own the election.

Clyburn was offended with them calling Blacks The Establishment!

[Cha]

23. Aloha, TBA! TY for the update

from pundit land.

Why should EW support Sanders?

It's backfired calling POC "the establishment".

Link to tweet

[True Blue American]

24. Most of the black

People I know are very well educated and their teenagers are so polite, not to mention working hard on their own educations.

I admire Elizabeth Warren. You can bet we have not heard the last of that Lady! She will be at the top for any job she wants!

Isn’t it wonderful to have so many talented people on our side to choose from?

[Cha]

28. Yes it is most Wonderful to have so many

brilliant dedicated patriots for Democracy!

[LakeArenal]

26. POC are the foundation not the Establishment.

[Cha]

29. Yes.. and we're being told

the exact opposite what's happening .. on Everything.

LA

[dalton99a]

7. +1

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Not unlike Trump, who also never makes any attempt to expand his base

but just keeps hammering away at the supporters he already has.

[Gothmog]

61. Why did Bernie Sanders drop out? The progressive majority he needed doesn't exist

There was no magical voter revolution

Link to tweet

Biden’s vision has now won out: He is the apparent Democratic nominee after Sanders suspended his campaign Wednesday following a mid-pandemic Wisconsin primary marred by vast polling site closures and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively invalidated many absentee ballots. (Sanders said Monday, given the risks to voters, his campaign would not engage in traditional efforts to get them to the polls.)….

And in particular, his decisive win over Sanders in the primary — without even campaigning in many states — further highlights the limitations of progressive politics in America, at least in winning a national campaign.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, made a bad bet on the existence of a national progressive majority (as did Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who ran as a progressive populist but dropped out after Super Tuesday). It turns out there's nothing even close.

In fact, it’s not even clear that a progressive majority exists within the Democratic Party. What does exist is a moderately center-left party with a vocal progressive element.

Sanders frequently said on the campaign trail that he was leading a “multigenerational, multiracial movement,” pledging to mobilize an army of new, young voters. But it turns out older and moderate voters are the ones that grew as a share of the Democratic primary electorate since 2016 — and they favored Biden by a wide margin.

Take the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29, which Biden won, or the 10 of 14 states he captured on Super Tuesday: In all, he appealed to the same coalitions that boosted Democrats so strongly in the 2018 midterm elections, turning out large numbers of suburban voters, while maintaining support from longstanding elements of the Democratic coalition, particularly African American voters.....

Still, with the 2020 Democratic primary process essentially over, it’s clear that the hard-core Democratic left was deluded in their assertions that they were the new Democratic majority. They are going to need a better grip on reality if they are to be successful at the national level moving forward

[William769]

4. Kick & recommended.

[fleabiscuit]

5. I think I'm caught in a time loop. nt

[rusty quoin]

6. Bernie's outreach has always been to the regular person.

He has reached out to everyone, but if you are not willing to hear it, it’s up to you.

I hope you guys know what you are doing...I really do. So if Biden will do it, then I will back him. I hope you know what you are doing, because I have not known what I’m doing for years.

[True Blue American]

10. They are now going

Last edited Thu Mar 5, 2020, 04:23 PM - Edit history (1)

After Warren. How do you feel about them calling her a snake? I admire Warren, have from the time she created her agency. She is a fighter for the people!

[Gothmog]

16. Joe is winning the support of white voters without a college degree

Link to tweet

[Hortensis]

19. Quoin, telling "regular" Democrats, and the vast majority of us

are the liberal Democrats he despises, that we're like Republicans and do the same bad things is like reaching out with a sharp stick. We all know that's bizarrely untrue and of course back away instead of embracing the stick.

As for Sanders' consistency, there's not just four years of it, there's 40. He's a true believer in Democrats' moral bankruptcy and unsuitability for power and, of course, a true believer in himself and our desperate need for his leadership.

[subana]

8. before tuesday's vote,

I heard people say that Bernie was never going to be competitive in some states because of their higher black populations. Considering this, he would have needed an even higher average to make up for the losses in these other states.

“Sanders has made no effort to reach out beyond his voters, his movement, his revolution. It just has not grown. It is an utterly stable vote that is grounded in the very liberal portion of the Democratic Party, but he’s so disdainful of any outreach beyond that base. He seems content to just keep hitting that drum.”

This is another way he is similar to Trump. Trump has not tried to grow his base either since he was elected. What kind of politician is satisfied with a 30-ish% of support without having tried to increase that support in 4 years?

[NurseJackie]

11. "but he's so disdainful of any outreach beyond that base." -- Leadership FAIL

but he’s so disdainful of any outreach beyond that base. He seems content to just keep hitting that drum.”

Leadership FAIL. Lack of vision. Unwillingness to seek out compromise and find common ground and areas of mutual benefit with others. The "doesn't play well with others" criticism we recently heard on some special program on Hulu appears to be right on target.

[gademocrat7]

12. K&R

Same agenda four years later.

[brer cat]

13. K&R

[SidDithers]

14. DU rec...

Bernie was only able to get 51% in the VT primary.

He needs to win some states by 50% if he’s going to cut into Biden’s delegate lead.

Sid

[Gothmog]

15. Analysis: Young voters are turning out in lower numbers than Bernie Sanders expected

Link to tweet

But the exit polling from this year's contests so far shows a more challenging picture for Sanders. Youth turnout compared to 2016 is either flat or down in a majority of states that have voted, according to these polls, meaning young voters both form a smaller share of the overall Democratic primary vote and turned out in smaller net numbers. Sanders could end up seeing better data for him from the final results in Colorado and California, however.

The lack of enthusiasm among younger voters was especially pronounced with turnout up 33 percent from 2016 among every group across Super Tuesday states.

“For example, in North Carolina, overall turnout was up 17 percent — youth turnout was down 9 percent,” John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Institute of politics told Power Up. “There's not evidence to suggest that Sanders has expanded the electorate among young people in important ways.” ....

Della Volpe said data doesn't necessarily support the idea that all young voters want the kind of sweeping policy changes candidates like Sanders are calling for.

Problematic for Sanders?: “When looking at young Democratic primary voters, bold structural change is preferred, but not by as much as you might think,” Della Volpe told us at the time after an IOP study released in November

[squirecam]

17. This is going to be a close election.

We need to rely upon our base, AA voters, in states where they have large populations, and moderate white suburban women, which is how we won in 2018.

Bernie has problems appealing to both groups.

[Dem2]

18. I normally don't like getting into these A vs B posts

...but my millennial daughter was 'meh' on Bernie this cycle. Seems we both had reached a saturation point with his message and followers.

[Hortensis]

20. Age is a ceiling factor. Older people who grew up in the

New Deal era that the electorate ended in 1980 know that our systems work really well with proper, even adequate, leadership. We had it really good compared to young people now.

Liberal majorities then had put leashes on those too wealthy and powerful for the good of most and created a spreading-wide prosperity that was growing the middle class and shrinking poverty. Living wages with good benefits were normal, public colleges were affordable, and there were great opportunities for social mobility for those who wanted more, including to lesser degrees for minorities and women. That was the civil rights and second wave era.

Now, it's horribly different after the 40 years of devastating conservative domination of government that began in 1978-80.

So of course too many young adults who haven't experienced the wellbeing liberal government creates don't know what those who did do: that our current mess isn't due to structural or liberal ideological failure, as they're being told. The previous great advances occurred because of liberal domination of government. The disaster that's followed occurred because of conservative domination that is inimical to not just liberalism and progressivism, but to the very concept of economic and social equality. Strong conservatives believe in hierarchical societies where both wealth and poverty are natural and appropriate.

Sanders can't draw more older voters because we have the advantage of knowing what went wrong and that our systems are proven to work well when properly managed. And we know the answer is to begin a new era of liberal, progressive domination of what our parents bequeathed us, not begin yet another experiment in the socialism that has always failed disastrously in other nations.

Young people now facing lives of debt and doing without need to know that by putting liberals in charge they and we can turn that completely around for them within a decade of proper management. We know how. A great advantage, in spite of massive maldistribution of wealth, is that our nation is also actually far, far, FAR wealthier now than back then due to great advances in production. Thinking and experience, understanding of economics, have also all advanced since, and we can and actually must make it work much better still in future.

Btw, the Obama administration, as hamstrung by a congress determined to block all advances as it was, used its very limited power to begin the huge wealth redistribution that must be done. In 2016 we were all ready to leap forward on many tracks to restore opportunities for all to share in our nation's wellbeing. That's been delayed to 2020 now, but the plans readied to hit the ground running have only been updated.

Nancy Pelosi to the nation at the opening of the 116th congress: We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

[True Blue American]

27. Thank you, Hortensis

For posting what I have watched all during my adult life!

Every word is so true. And I think our young are smart enough to know the truth.

[Midnightwalk]

30. Very well said nt

[Happy Hoosier]

21. A lot of us have been thinking that.

Sanders has a strong core, but his style tends to alienate people outside his core. It's hard to build a winning coalition like that.

[Gothmog]

32. From the Hoarse Whisperer

Link to tweet

[NurseJackie]

22. And he's getting paddled by the ceiling fan.

This has GOT to be so humiliating for him. Did you see the numbers coming out of Florida?

[zackymilly]

25. Is that why his hair is always mussed up? n/t

[Gothmog]

31. Opinion: A better idea than Sanders's far-fetched electability argument

Where is sanders' magical voter revolution? How will sanders get his agenda adoptied without this magical voter revolution

Link to tweet

“Have we been as successful as I would hope in bringing young people in? And the answer is no,” Sanders said. “We’re making some progress. But historically everybody knows that younger people do not vote in the kind of numbers that older people vote in. I think that will change in the general election.”

So he has alienated moderates in his own party (including African Americans, whose massive support for former vice president Joe Biden he ignores, preferring to attribute Biden’s success to “corporate Democrats”), and has an even worse shot attracting — and is off-putting to — the sort of suburban women who helped deliver the House majority to Democrats in 2018. But don’t worry, young people will make up for all that! Democrats are supposed to take on faith that the people Sanders needs to make up for those he has given up on and those who have not yet appeared will save the party in November.

Democrats need not accept this preposterous bet, and on Super Tuesday did not. It surely makes more sense to bet on the voters who actually did show up in droves just as they did in 2018. (Consider what happened in Texas: “With unwavering support from black voters in the cities and a surge in the suburbs, Mr. Biden notched his most significant win of the primary calendar here … netting him a large and unexpected share of Texas’s 228 pledged delegates.”

The Sanders strategy — if you vote for me, they will come — is so ludicrous that Sanders is not trying to smooth over the rough edges he has spent a lifetime.

[Hortensis]

33. In his own way, Sanders' "strategy" is as vaguely formed and

dependent on rallying his passionate followers, in virtual and actual arenas, as Trump's. They've both swallowed the Kool-Aid effect of their own cheering crowds and don't see why everyone won't share it if exposed.

The conviction that the effects of growing cheering crowds could sweep millions more mindlessly along, causing abandonment of intellectual beliefs and moral objections, is ludicrous all right. Does this man even understand how wrong it would be for support to happen that way?

This article was from yesterday morning. The timing of the suggestion that the Sanders left needs to back a far more competent candidate is rather poignant and sad.

"Why not let Warren take a turn at the wheel?"

[Scurrilous]

34. That drum keeps him in clover and he'll hit it until he's dead.

[Gothmog]

35. The decline in sanders' election results is stunning

Link to tweet

[NCProgressive]

36. Part of the ceiling is "soft"

and may switch

The hard-core Bernie only vote is at most 20%

[Gothmog]

37. sanders is mad that the moderates vote has consolidated

sanders needed the vote by real Democrats to be split to have a chance

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

38. sanders was planning on winning the nomination with 30% of delegates

Last edited Sun Mar 8, 2020, 05:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

[Awsi Dooger]

39. No use trying to make sense of someone who is relying on youth turnout

You might as well claim you'll win a gold medal in the pole vault via great landing technique.

Bernie would be in great shape if the nation were 35% liberals and 26% conservatives. Instead it is the other way around, which is why Trump can get elected under certain conditions while Bernie can't get out of the primary.

[Gothmog]

41. It is Biden who is generating increased voter turnout

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

42. From day 1, Bernie built a campaign to appeal to 30%

Link to tweet

So if, from day one, they didn’t think they needed more than 30%, why would they actually run a campaign and build a culture designed to win more than his 30% ceiling? As that article notes, even way back in early 2019, Sanders was picking fights and creating enemies out of potential allies.

We saw that in Sanders’ refusal to broaden his message to bring in more people. When I said exactly that on Meet the Press, that “the problem with Bernie Sanders is that he has the exact same message he had four years ago” when he lost to Hillary Clinton 60-40, the response from the Sanders campaign was, well, this:

Link to tweet

If your message wasn’t a majority message four years ago, and you want to win, wouldn’t you tweak it? They didn’t. Proudly and explicitly did not tweak it. They had zero intention of growing new support by broadening and expanding their message. (Sanders famously refused to even inject more biography into his stump speech to humanize him more.)

Sanders and his campaign saw that their ceiling was 30%, and they built an entire strategy around winning with 30%. That means that instead of seeing the other 70% of voters as allies, they saw them as THE ENEMY. Even when there was ideological alignment.

[BidenBacker]

40. Sanders doesn't need more than 30%

That's plenty good enough for another book deal so he can pocket a few more million.

Then rest up for a coupla years and get ready to primary Biden in 2024 just like he wanted to do against Obama in 2012.

[NurseJackie]

44. Always a silver lining.

[Gothmog]

48. I wonder how Old Towne Media LLC has made so far??

[showblue22]

49. That is exactly what will happen.

[aikoaiko]

43. could be true.

Still I hope he stays until after the last primary.

[Gothmog]

52. How do you demand concessions when you're getting the brake beat off of you?

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

58. Sanders is still under 30% in this poll

Link to tweet

[aikoaiko]

59. I've bowed out of this Primary War.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287669622

I accept that Joe Biden will be our nominee.

[Happy Hoosier]

45. Sanders learned nothing from 2016.

He is running the same campaign that lost the nomination in 2016. He seems to think that the magical youth turnout fairy is bound to show up eventually!

[NYMinute]

46. Sanders has no second act, no second speech and no second string

He is using the same tired slogans and platitudes that are not resonating with anyone despite his twitter army working overtime to bring down any opposition.

[Gothmog]

47. sanders has one speech and is unable to adapt

[Gothmog]

50. Bernie's grievance politics consolidated the left to a 30% losing minority

sanders' cap is near 30% https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/5/1924709/-Bernie-s-grievance-politics-consolidated-the-left-to-a-30-losing-minority

Interesting thought, speaking of Elizabeth Warren and her inability to gain traction with the Bernie Sanders left:

Link to tweet

’ve wracked my brain wondering why so many on the progressive left, in this day and age of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, would align with an old white guy when there were clear alternatives (unlike in 2016), and this makes as much sense as anything. One commenter on my last piece, on why Bernie Sanders fizzled upon contact with actual voters, wrote that, “for Bernie to do some of the work kos is asking, he would have to change his message in a way a dependably left politician will never do.”
Interesting—what made Sanders a “dependably left politician,” but Warren not? Clearly, it wasn’t actual policy or ideology. Krugman’s “grievance” is as good as an explanation as any.

Remember, the Sanders campaign decided early on that his path to the nomination consisted of keeping his core 30% base intact, and nothing more: As The Atlantic noted, “And then, Sanders aides believe, he’ll easily win enough delegates to put him into contention at the convention. They say they don’t need him to get more than 30 percent to make that happen.”
That was important, as we’ve discussed, because it set the tone for the entirety of their campaign—from othering the supporters of other candidates as “neoliberal corporatist shills” (and worse) to sticking with a message that had failed Sanders already in 2016, when only two candidates had been in the race.
And it’s shocking how close to 30% his results have been:

Sanders share of the vote
Iowa 26.5%
New Hampshire 25.6%
Nevada 40.5%
South Carolina 19.8%
Alabama 16.5%
Arkansas 22.4%
California 33.8%
Colorado 36.1%
Maine 32.9%
Massachusetts 26.7%
Minnesota 29.9%
North Carolina 24.1%
Oklahoma 25.4%
Tennessee 25%
Texas 30%
Utah 34.6%
Vermont 50.8%
Virginia 23.1%
Take a guess what his overall percentage is so far.
28.9%

[Gothmog]

51. Sanders's secret is out: He has no movement - The Washington Post

Last edited Wed Mar 11, 2020, 07:28 PM - Edit history (1)

I have never taken sanders seriously as a candidate due to sanders complete and utter lack of legislative accomplishments. sanders has not been able to get his fellow Democratic members of Congress to back his agenda and that is not going to change. As I understand it, sanders is now relying on a magical voter revolution to convince republicans to be reasonable. sanders has no magical voter revolution or movement backing him up. sanders has a cap of around 30% of the Democratic voters and that does not constitute a movement or revolution

Link to tweet

For months — for years, really — the media have reported that the Democratic Party has gone far left. They have treated social media as a barometer of the party’s political attitudes and characterized center-left candidates as out of touch with their own party. They have done so despite the triumph of moderate Democratic House candidates in 2018; despite the failure of left-wing Democrats to flip a single House seat; despite the polls showing a substantial percentage of Democrats consider themselves moderate or somewhat liberal; and despite the failure of super-progressive presidential candidates to attract the most critical element in the Democratic Party (African Americans).

With this faulty premise, the media’s coverage has been at times wildly off-kilter. It was easy for anyone caring to look closely to see that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) did not “win” a single debate, because his ranting and raving merely reinforced the fervor of his own cult while turning off the rest of the party. The media have been obsessed with the “likability” of female candidates, never considering that Sanders’s angry and rude demeanor would turn off women, who make up more than half of the Democratic electorate. A simple question — “Who is he gaining by all this yelling?” — should have been front and center in the media’s coverage. His “movement” was assumed but never examined carefully.....

Sanders’s ceiling turned out to be real, because there are generally less than a third of voters in the Democratic Party willing to embrace wide-eyed socialism, venom-filled rhetoric and utter disregard for the demands of governing (e.g. compromise). Michael Moore does not speak for the Democratic Party any more than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks for House Democrats. (I have long maintained that the person who has the best read on the party as a whole is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; get to her left, and you are in no-man’s land.)

The Democratic Party does not live on social media nor does it favor bomb-throwers. If anything, it is desperate to play it safe and find an antidote to President Trump — not an imitation. Voters want the madness, the cruelty, the dysfunction and the stupidity to stop. They have found their safe, reliable and decent candidate in Biden. En masse — in every geographic region and Democratic group — they are telling us that they want the primary to end and the effort to rout Trump to begin. The media might have taken Sanders’s “revolution” seriously, but it turns out that Democratic voters as a whole did not.

[Cha]

53. Thank you!

[Hortensis]

54. :) And all everyone else's fault. "Sanders Spreads the Blame

for His Decline: As Bernie Sanders has seen his fortunes slide, he has cited a number of factors that portray him as an aggrieved outsider.
To Senator Bernie Sanders, there is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to his recent reversal of fortune. For everyone but him and his campaign. ... And the young voters he counted on to power his campaign didn’t come through for him. ...

So when Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race and endorsed Mr. Biden, to the Sanders camp it wasn’t because they’d won next to no support from black voters and run out of money, it was part of an establishment plot. And Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris were simply joining the effort to block Mr. Sanders when they backed Mr. Biden this week. ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/politics/bernie-sanders-michigan-2020.html

Well, at least he has his little niche market for grievance and victimization syndrome. I never developed a taste, much less became addicted and in thrall to the current purveyor.

[Gothmog]

55. Biden is leading sanders by 2 to 1

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Cha]

56. And, it went so well for Biden and America.. the Planet, too!

[Gothmog]

57. How 'Never Bernie' Voters Threw In With Biden and Changed the Primary

sanders was appealing only to 30% of the party and after South Carolina the rest of the party moved to Joe Biden to stop sanders.

Link to tweet

Rarely has political momentum flipped as quickly as it did in the first half of March, as Mr. Sanders lost serious ground to Mr. Biden before the coronavirus slowed their race. There are well-known reasons for the shift: Moderate candidates like Mr. Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota rallied around Mr. Biden. He enjoyed demographic advantages, particularly with black voters. And turnout among young voters and liberal nonvoters did not surge, failing to reshape the electorate as Mr. Sanders had hoped.

But beyond ideology, race and turnout, a chief reason for Mr. Biden’s success has little to do with his candidacy. He became a vehicle for Democrats like Ms. King who were supporting other candidates but found the prospect of Mr. Sanders and his calls for political revolution so distasteful that they put aside misgivings about Mr. Biden and backed him instead.

In phone interviews, dozens of Democrats, mostly aged 50 and over, who live in key March primary states like Massachusetts, Virginia, Michigan and Florida, said that Mr. Biden’s appeal went beyond his case for beating President Trump. It was his chances of overtaking Mr. Sanders, the only candidate in the vast Democratic field they found objectionable for reasons personal and political.....

These voters’ willingness to unite against Mr. Sanders helped Democratic Party leaders stave off his insurgent campaign and has made Mr. Biden the all-but-certain Democratic nominee. The convergence behind Mr. Biden also highlights a critical difference between this year’s primary and what happened to the Republican Party in 2016. Four years ago, establishment Republicans were openly skeptical of Mr. Trump after his victories in early primary states, but a fractured field and split primary vote allowed him to amass an insurmountable delegate lead, reshaping the party in the process.....

Ahead of Mr. Sanders’s presidential run in 2020, his campaign did not concern itself with smoothing tensions among voters who supported Mrs. Clinton in 2016. He did not seek the endorsements of many party leaders, who were always unlikely to back him, but could have been swayed from being openly antagonistic to ambivalent.

As a result, after a strong finish in Iowa and wins in New Hampshire and Nevada, Mr. Sanders did not benefit from an assumed truth of presidential campaigns: that early-state victories help bring in voters from other factions. Instead, people like Lori Boerner of McLean, Va., said Mr. Sanders’s performance sent them searching for a candidate who could stop his rise, and after the South Carolina primary, they landed on Mr. Biden.

The vast bulk of the party does not like sanders which is why Joe Biden is going to the nominee

[Gothmog]

60. Bernie Sanders is out. And the insincere praise begins.

Link to tweet

Democrats, aided by the mainstream media, are now putting out two rather disingenuous storylines. First, “No one ever changed the party as much as Sanders.” Second, “Now begins the struggle to win over the Bernie Bros.” It is understandable that some Democrats — eager to avoid a schism similar to that which occurred in 2016 — are falling over themselves to assuage Sanders’s ego, but let’s not get carried away.

The “Bernie changed the party” line suggests that the party did not overwhelmingly choose a center-left successor to President Barack Obama. But it did! And it has rallied around someone who rejected Medicare-for-all, a wealth tax, left-wing isolationism and the entire “capitalism is evil” stance. Sanders got beaten badly week after week, never changing his message. That message simply did not register with more than about 30 percent of the party. Twitter does not represent the party. The party did not shift far left, as many in the media predicted (egged on by the loudest voices on the left). If anything, Biden’s wins show that the heart of the party rests with moderate African Americans — to whom all Americans are indebted for lifting a viable, electable nominee to oust President Trump. Sanders’s “movement” is far smaller than he would have liked us to believe.

As for winning over his followers, consider a recent poll showing that about 15 percent of Sanders’s supporters intend to vote for Trump if Biden is the nominee. It is hard to fathom the mindset of someone who would prefer an unfit narcissist who opposes virtually every principle and value Democrats hold dear to Obama’s vice president. It is of a piece with those who preferred Jill Stein in 2016. There is no reaching such people. Soliciting them is a waste of time.

The rest of the Sanders coalition should not need much courting. They’ve already signaled they will line up behind Biden and have expressed their determination to oust Trump. Other than not gratuitously attacking them, no great effort should be required to keep them in the fold. (Ironically, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been far more successful in advancing progressive policy ideas with Biden, including her plans on student debt forgiveness and bankruptcy.)