Bernie Sanders Didn't Win the Ideas Primary, Either [View all]

[comradebillyboy]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/08/bernie-sanders-2020-drop-out-lost-ideas-fight-176080

On Wednesday, as Sen. Bernie Sanders conceded the Democratic presidential primary, he declared victory for his brand of democratic socialism in the battle of ideas. “Few would deny that over the course of the past five years, our movement has won the ideological struggle,” the Vermont senator said as he announced the suspension of his campaign.

To hear Sanders tell it, he lost the battle, but won the larger war. In reality, however, it’s hard to see Sanders’ presidential campaign as anything other than a defeat.

His signature “Medicare for All” proposal was repeatedly bludgeoned in the presidential debates, fatally infected Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, and ultimately rejected by most Democratic voters in favor of Joe Biden’s proposal of a public health insurance option. More broadly, the Sanders strategy of making big promises with huge price tags, wrapped with the “socialist” label, sent most Democrats into a panic once he appeared to be nearing the nomination.

He lost. His campaign is over. He will not be the next president. And if his loyalists want to make future gains, they need to learn lessons from that defeat, instead of pretending that they have already won.