S
enator Bernie Sanders lowered
the microphone from his mouth
to his hip, meandered over to the
right side of the podium and looked out
over the crowd packed into the Diag.
The sun was just peeking from the
tops of the Hatcher Graduate Library.
Sanders stood there, holding his voice
and his body still for nearly 10 seconds.
He lifted his right arm, paused again,
and unfurled one of his favorite lines:
“Nelson
Mandela,
one
of
the
great heroes in modern history, said
something that was very profound and
appropriate for today. And he said,
‘Everything seems impossible until it
is done. Everything seems impossible
until it is done.’ ”
He continued: “In other words, if we
were here 70 years ago and somebody
said, ‘You know what? The day will come
that we’ll have an African American
President, people would’ve said ‘Don’t
be ridiculous. Don’t be crazy, it’ll never
happen. America is too racist a country.
The day will come when gay marriage
will be legal in America – ‘Don’t be
crazy. That will never happen.’ The
day will come when we have women
governors and Senators all over this
country — ‘Don’t be crazy. That can’t
happen.’ ”
The crowd gained energy with each
repetition.
Sanders went on to name major
hurdles in this contemporary struggle
for equality: Wall Street, insurance
companies, drug companies, the fossil
fuel industry, among other regular
punching bags on the campaign trail.
“But, you know what, they are not
the major impediment to progress,”
he said. “The major impediment is the
limitations of our own imagination.”
Sanders’s voice bellowed with a
trademark fervor. The moment marked
a tenuous one in the Sanders campaign,
mere days after the axis on which his
candidacy rested turned on its head. The
Michigan primary, to be contested three
days later, had suddenly heightened in
urgency.
His speech came on the heels of an
unexpected blow on Super Tuesday —
one which saw former Vice President
Joe Biden, perhaps improbably, lift
his campaign from its depths to win
10 of 14 states. Biden won seven of
those states by double-digit margins,
including Virginia and Alabama, which
he won by 30 and 47 points, respectively.
Those margins helped boost his lead
in total delegates to 82, and spurred
his projection in the FiveThirtyEight
Democratic Primary Forecast to an
89 percent chance to win a majority of
pledged delegates.
Sanders spent the days prior to
Tuesday’s primary careening around the
state, from Flint to Dearborn to Grand
Rapids. It was announced only late
Saturday evening that Sanders would be
joined in Ann Arbor by Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., undeniably his
most popular surrogate among the Gen
Z crowd. Together, they spent much
of Sunday speaking to their plan: to
reconfigure what is and isn’t possible in
American politics through a resurgent,
energized base of younger voters.
The symmetry of that relationship
— the youngest member of Congress
aligned with one of its oldest — conveys
a degree of clarity about the democratic
socialist movement and the sanctity of
its moral convictions. It weaves a tale of
resilience and longevity, perseverance
and vision.
We hope this is the present, but it’s
most definitely the future. Get on board
or be left behind.
“(Sanders) stands for what I think
(is)
right
...
both
politically
and
morally,” LSA freshman James Aidala,
a leader among the Students for Bernie
organization at Michigan, told The
Daily. “I think that everyone should
have health care. Everyone should have
a wage that they can live off of, if they
work a full 40 hours a week. So he just
speaks to me on basically, you know, all
kinds of levels, that he is somebody who
can run the country the right way.”
What’s
left
unsaid
in
Sanders’s
invocations of Mandela is that in order
to truly reconfigure the structure of
American society, Sanders — or someone
of his ideology — must first ascend
to those positions of power like the
presidency. Idealism without requisite
authority can only go so far.
Through that lens, Sanders’s 14-point
loss three days later to Biden in Michigan,
a bellwether state in both the primary
and the general election, reflected an
electorate increasingly unwilling to
take those leaps. According to exit polls
in Michigan, Biden won a majority of
white voters and a majority of Black
voters. He won among voters with an
advanced degree and he won amongst
those without a college degree. Ninety-
four percent of voters said they’d trust
Biden in a crisis. He won union voters.
He won voters who said healthcare was
their most important issue. The win was
diverse and thorough.
And one statistic told the tale of the
night and the entire cycle: Among voters
under 30, 82 percent supported Sanders.
Among voters 65 and over, 73 percent
supported Biden.
The former category accounted for
just 15 percent of all voters. The latter
made up 23 percent.
I
n the cool Ann Arbor air on
Sunday,
a
protester
walked
around the Sanders rally holding
a large sign reading “Every Socialist is
a Dictator”. Clad in a top that said, “The
Anti-Socialist Social Club”, he engaged
some rally attendees in debate.
Many Republicans today liken Sanders
to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez,
pointing to their
policies in Cuba
and Venezuela.
Among
Democrats, the
fear of electoral
repercussions
ignites a craving
for pragmatism
—
a
trait
antithetical
to
Sanders’s zero-
sum approach.
In
a
July
2019
speech
at
George
Washington University, Sanders likened
his democratic socialist vision to that of
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s
New Deal in the 1930s. In doing so,
Sanders tried to counter the Republican
portrayal of “socialism” as taboo, a
tactic that’s been used for decades.
Roosevelt did not define himself as a
socialist but Sanders has self-identified
as a democratic one for the majority of
his career. During his speech, Sanders
referenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
“This country has socialism for the rich,
rugged individualism for the poor” a
line used to dispute the depictions of
him as a radical and emphasize the class
disparity central to his campaign. Still,
the
long
negative
connotation
of
socialism in the United States begs
the question as to whether Sanders
can win the presidency — let alone the
nomination — as a democratic socialist.
Whether the stigma alone is too much to
overcome.
But, perhaps spurred by Sanders’s
national rise over the past five years, the
tides of that perception are changing.
In 2018, more Democrats had a positive
view of socialism than had a positive
view of capitalism according to Gallup,
with 57 percent of Democrats holding a
positive view of socialism and 47 percent
holding a positive view of capitalism. But
this shift in opinion among Democrats
doesn’t translate to a shift among the
public as a whole. In a 2019 poll, the Pew
Research Center found that 55 percent
of Americans overall have a negative
view of socialism, with 42 percent
having a positive view. However, this is
an increase since 2012, when 60 percent
had a negative view of socialism and
only 31 percent had a positive reaction —
an increase likely owed to Sanders and
his rise.
The classic 18-29 age group has the
most positive view of socialism, with
50 percent labeling socialism as either
“very positive” or “somewhat positive.”
This is the group Sanders courts most
often. LSA sophomore Anna Nedoss,
a leading organizer with Students for
Bernie, detailed Sanders’s operation: a
summer and winter school for training
students in the art of campaigning. Both
schools were aimed at teaching students
how to organize their college campuses
and build support for Sanders. The
program was the only one of its kind in
the Democratic field.
As mentioned, Sanders leans heavily
on those who buy into his brand
of democratic socialism the most:
millennials and the Gen-Z generation.
Aidala chuckled when asked what
democratic socialism means to him.
“Sorry, it’s just everyone keeps asking
that,” he followed. “It’s to make people’s
lives better. It is to help our most
vulnerable wherever we can … you can
call it what you want, but a lot of people
could use health care and education
right now. So if that’s socialism, or that’s
bananas, either way. I like both.”
In each interview with a Students for
Bernie leader, Marx and Lenin were
not brought up. Socialism in Venezuela
and Cuba was not held up as shining
examples — no expropriation of land, no
nationalizing of oil companies, no price
controls. For LSA freshman Alex Nobel,
another leader in Students for Bernie,
it was simple and succinct: “My view
of democratic socialism is government
helping people, instead of corporations,
putting working people ahead of the
rich.” These descriptions of democratic
socialism and its policies sound akin to
Roosevelt’s New Deal policies — which
Sanders would be happy about — rather
than policies of politicians like Chavez
and Castro.
But this heavy lean on young voters
to advance the ideals of democratic
socialism to the White House is unstable.
During Super Tuesday, turnout among
voters under 30 didn’t top 20 percent
across the 14 states voting. That’s
unworkable and is likely a major factor
behind Sanders’s tepid Super Tuesday
result. Sanders needs to add more voters
over 50 to the bandwagon — voters that
consistently turn up and vote. But that
demographic isn’t too positive about
socialism: 38 percent of 50-64-year-olds
and 35 percent of those over 65 think
positively about it.
Seemingly, it’s the label alone that’s
holding him back. The democratic
socialism umbrella of policies includes
such trademarks as Medicare for All,
the Green New Deal and free college.
Those policies are widely popular
among Democrats according to a Marist
poll. Sixty-four percent say Medicare
for All is a good idea, 86 percent say the
Green New Deal is good and 76 percent
like free public college, too. Yet Sanders,
who is the only candidate left touting
these policies, lost 10 states on Super
Tuesday to Biden, who supports none
of these policies. Ray, a longtime Ann
Arbor resident, made plans to vote for
Sanders: “I don’t think Bernie’s about
socialism at all. I really, I very much
doubt it. There’s no way Americans
would do socialism.” While Ray sees
through the stereotype of the word and
supports single-payer healthcare and
free education for those who want it,
the Democratic establishment doesn’t
seem to think the rest of the public can
— at least in numbers that could win an
election.
But
that
generational
disparity
still represents the central chasm in
the Democratic Primary, a numbers
game that leaves Sanders’s bet to turn
out young voters in unprecedented,
revolutionary
numbers
increasingly
flimsy.
The
latest
poll
from
Quinnipiac
highlighted
that
gulf
between older and younger voters.
Nationally, 80 percent of those over 65
support Biden and 71 percent of those
under 35 support Sanders. Based on
turnout numbers, Sanders’s lone hope
at reclaiming momentum and any
feasible path to the nomination requires
bridging that gap.
As rally-goers and pedestrians filed
in and out of the Diag, some heading
out of the chilly evening before the end
of Sanders’s remarks, a voice yelled
out above the fray with one parting
message: “Tell your grandparents to
vote for Bernie.”
A
fter
all
the
pomp
and
circumstance of the last week
— Sanders parading around
the state for days, staking the future of
his campaign on an upset in Michigan
— NBC News called the state for Biden
shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday night.
Neither candidate offered a speech,
precautions taken to combat fears over
Coronavirus.
Many prognosticators used Michigan
as the final nail in the Sanders
campaign’s coffin, some pronouncing
the nomination of Biden a foregone
conclusion.
It also offered an indirect indictment
of Sanders, who defied the polls to win
the Michigan Primary in 2016.
In some ways, the bleak outlook
makes the dynamics of Sunday’s speech
on the Diag even more pertinent.
Ocasio-Cortez, likely the future of the
democratic socialist movement, pre-
empting Sanders’s speech.
Standing near the steps to Hatcher
Graduate
Library,
Ocasio-Cortez
referenced a 1984 speech by Rev.
Jesse Jackson, who had recently
endorsed the Sanders campaign. The
younger cohort of students stood
closer to the stage. Many of the older
attendees held back beyond the fence,
listening from afar.
“Michigan, we have goliaths in our
country today,” Ocasio-Cortez said,
amid fervent roars. “The goliath of
the fossil fuel industry. The goliath
of big pharma. The goliath of the role
of big money in politics. These are
powerful, powerful forces. And we
are David. We are David. David, all of
us, the little guys.”
Then she offered a warning to the
movement, one which superseded
the here and now of Bernie Sanders
and the presidential race.
“What David had to do before he
confronted Goliath was to shed his
unnecessary clothes,” she said. “...
Because in order for us to grow, well
rather in order for us to win, we have
to grow. We have to grow. We must
be inclusive. We must bring more
people into this movement.”
Wednesday, March 11, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, March 11, 2020 // The Statement
BY MAX MARCOVITCH AND FINNTAN STORER, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENTS
‘Tell your grandparents to
vote for Bernie’: a call left unanswered
Seemingly, it’s the label alone
that’s holding him back.
The latest poll from Quinnipiac highlighted
that gulf between older and younger
voters. Nationally, 80 percent of those
over 65 support Biden and 71 percent of
those under 35 support Sanders.