The same political class that got 2016 so horribly wrong is now warning us not to underestimate Bernie Sanders.
His opposition to NAFTA and free trade, they tell us, will siphon off the crucial voters in the Midwest who went for President Trump in 2016. Trump should be trembling in fear that Sanders will be able to channel the discontent that once sent voters, especially white working-class voters, running Trump’s way.
There is no reason to believe this nonsense. Republicans should be thrilled the Democrats might be dumb enough to nominate a man whose views are more outside the political mainstream than any major political candidate since George McGovern.
Sanders’s opposition to NAFTA, a trade agreement that many of his young supporters have never heard of and can’t even spell, has nothing to do with his status atop the Democratic field. And the fact that so many pundits think it does shows a fundamental but typical inside-the-Beltway misunderstanding of what is actually going on. Sanders is ahead because the Democrats have been captured by far-leftists demanding radical change that no else wants.
Sanders wants government to take away people’s private healthcare plans. He wants to raise taxes on everything and everyone. He gives succor to U.S. enemies with a spineless, toothless attitude to foreign policy that would especially coddle despotic socialists. This might be Sanders’ path to the nomination, but those things would all lead to his crushing defeat in November. Most people are happy with their health insurance plans and want to keep them. Most people don’t want their taxes raised. Most people don’t support erasing all student loans. Most people don’t think bread lines are cause for optimism.
Trump knows this. So does Barack Obama, who is reportedly mulling intervening in the primaries to block Sanders from getting the nomination. Maybe the pundits could ask themselves what chance a man who is too radical for Barack Obama has of winning.
The answer is none, but that won’t prevent Washington’s echo-chamber from telling everyone who lives outside their bubble that Sanders can win. Well, no, he can’t.
Elections don’t hinge on trade policies. Since there is no virtually no space between Trump and Sanders on trade, whatever advantage Sanders might have is neutralized anyway. The “Sanders Could Beat Trump” shibboleth also ignores the personal. Sanders is going to be 78 years old and is coming off a heart attack. He’s a craggy, scolding old man who makes Donald, and even Hillary for that matter, seem warm and fuzzy.
There is an emerging political consensus that Sanders can beat Trump in November. Trump supporters should be comforted by this. Trump has spent five years destroying Washington’s conventional wisdom, and he is being set up to do it again.
Dr. Justin P. Coffey is professor of history at Quincy University and is the author of Spiro Agnew and the Rise of the Republican Right.
