2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: The "PoC don't support Bernie because they don't know him" claim is actually true [View all]Beowulf
(761 posts)I think many on the left thought all they needed to do was trumpet Bernie's record and PoC would flock to the campaign. That's not how coalitions are built. I also don't think Bernie has ever seen himself as a national figure and I'm positive being president has never been one of his goals. He said at the time he declared that he wanted to make sure certain issues would be addressed in the campaign and to that end there have been successes. I wonder how much discussion of race would have occurred within the Democratic Party had Bernie not run. Outside of pointing to how awful the GOP is in this matter, I doubt it would have been much. What hasn't happened with either candidate is a consensus on what an agenda dealing with systematic racism looks like.
The Clintons have been pointing towards the presidency for at least 30 years and have worked decades building the kind of network necessary to be successful at a national level.
There are differences between running a campaign and building a movement. I think the impatience of many in the Sanders campaign has not been helpful to meaningful coalition building.