After Super Tuesday, my Facebook and Twitter feed was a cacophony of gnashing teeth and abject depression. Most of the people in my feeds support Bernie Sanders and he got pummeled on Tuesday by Joe Biden. Most of the complaints began and ended with the Democratic National Committee putting a thumb on the scale and that they never liked him. The DNC is evil but Bernie’s performance at the polls on Tuesday was the old school lack of votes.
One group that came out in droves for Biden was African Americans:
He talked about the massive African-American vote totals Biden won.
“It’s not just a great sign for Biden that was happening, it’s a terrible sign for Sanders. Why? Because the number is so low. And also because this is exactly what happened to Bernie Sanders in 2016. He actually ran even with Hillary Clinton in 2016 with white voters, but he got blown out with black voters. He was getting in the mid teens in 2016. He spent four years trying to improve that, make inroads, and here he is at 15% again, getting crushed by Joe Biden.
“What that means when you go to the results map and look at what happened last night, I say the southeast, it’s a reason why Biden didn’t just win these states, Biden ran up the score in these states. Look at this, a 30-point win last night for Joe Biden in Virginia. We thought Biden had a chance to win Virginia, nobody thought it was going to be 30 points.
“You go to the state of Alabama, look at this margin, 63 to 17. Joe Biden won this state by nearly 50 points. Bernie Sanders barely got past 15%. That’s the delegate threshold. These are crushing margins and they mean lots of delegates.”
Steve Kornacki Explains The Coalition That Put Biden Across The Top
We were told that Bernie would bring the young people to the polls in droves. His rallies before Tuesday looked fantastic in numbers and enthusiasm. The problem is polls and rallies don’t always equal votes.
Young people failed to show up at the voting booth again:
“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.”
Power Up: Young voters are turning out in lower numbers than Bernie Sanders expected
It is also true that establishment Dems and the DNC hate Bernie and don’t want him to get the nomination and Biden is as establishment as you can get in 2020. They have done all they can to stand in the way of a Bernie revolution – claiming he is not a Democrat and calling out his plans as being too socialist (parroting the Republican talking points), and punishing campaign consultants that work for progressive candidates.
All that would be moot had people voted for Bernie but they didn’t in enough numbers to best Biden. That isn’t the DNC fault.
Unless there is more than conjecture and biased thinking, there is no conspiracy against Bernie. They can’t hide votes – he simply got fewer votes than Biden in many states.
I like Bernie and want to vote for him but then I’m a CIS gendered old white guy so either Biden or Sanders works for me. I am more than willing to fight Biden to pull him more left and stop his previous work to keep the status quo.
I wish Bernie had done better on Tuesday but I can only deal with reality – he didn’t do better.
