Why Bernie Sanders' radicalism can take out Trump

Now that Bernie Sanders is officially in the 2020 presidential race, it’s time to face the obvious truth: not only can he beat Donald Trump, he is also a better candidate to do so than any of the other current Democratic contenders.

At a critical moment when the left needs to unify in order to end Trump’s reign of cruelty and ineptitude, Sanders is the person for the job. Nobody else comes close.

For the last two years, Sanders has been setting the Democratic party policy agenda. His 2016 candidacy entirely shifted the political landscape, to the point where the majority of Democrats now view Democratic socialism favorably. Medicare for All and universal free college are so popular that they have almost become litmus tests for prospective candidates. In polls, Sanders is well ahead of the other currently declared candidates, and at this point he should be treated as the presumptive frontrunner.

Ironically given his age, Sanders has been embraced by millennials – even millennial women preferred Sanders over Clinton. The face of the young left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is a veteran of the first Sanders campaign. It makes sense. Young people have a sense of urgency about the future: we don’t want to live in a “neo-feudal” world in which corporations tell cities what to do, nor do we want to live on a ruined planet. We want our children and grandchildren never to have to worry about being unable to afford medical care. We want their public schools to be well-funded and their cities to be above water. We also want to be able to afford to have children in the first place.

The reasons that people on the left should support Sanders are obvious. Since his earliest days getting arrested for protesting segregation, Sanders has shown a firm commitment to advancing a progressive agenda. He’s someone we can trust: he has been “on message” for four decades, sounding pretty much the same over decades of speeches. He’s not someone whose ideals seem to have emerged conveniently just in time for their presidential campaign.

But even those who do not share Democratic socialist instincts should get behind Sanders. He’s a pragmatic choice. Nobody is better positioned to take on Donald Trump. Sanders has name recognition and widespread popularity. He knows how to campaign well, has a network of organizers, and can pack stadiums. He does well at town halls and in debates against Republicans.

Since 2016, polls consistently show him beating Trump. Initially, there were those who doubted these numbers, saying that as voters got to know Sanders they would turn away from his radicalism. This turned out to be false. As voters got to know him, they liked him. His signature policy proposals have achieved widespread popularity among both Democratic and Republican voters. And despite the myth that Sanders only appeals to white “Bernie Bros”, black voters overwhelmingly have positive feelings about Sanders, in part for the reasons voiced by the late Erica Garner in a powerful ad for his last campaign.

Sanders has an unusual advantage against Trump: he’s capable of effectively countering the type of nationalist populism that elevated Trump to office, by offering a more hopeful and heartfelt appeal to popular instincts. He is capable of going to working-class communities and speaking to people without seeming patronizing or insincere. He does particularly well in the midwest, the exact areas that were so critical to Trump’s victory. His message speaks not only to rural white people, but to the black residents of Milwaukee who saw little progress under years of centrist Democratic governance.

In February of 2016, I wrote that unless the Democrats nominated Sanders, Trump would become the president. The Democrats did not nominate Sanders, and we know what happened after that. I argued then that while Sanders may have been a risky choice against a moderate Republican candidate, he had a unique advantage against Donald Trump. He could “neutralize” Trump’s appeal in critical ways. Sanders cannot be saddled with the baggage of the congressional Democratic party, because he has preserved his independence. He can call out the phoniness of the pro-worker rhetoric coming from a billionaire who repeatedly exploited his employees. Sanders sticks to the issues, and cannot be dragged into the gutter. And it’s laughable to worry about Sanders being “outside the mainstream” when Trump himself is wildly outside the mainstream.

Since 2016, the case for Sanders has only gotten stronger. He has learned from the mistakes he made in that campaign. He has gotten better at speaking on issues of racial justice, and in both books and interviews he speaks forcefully about the unique systemic harms faced by people of color. He has been a leader on both domestic and foreign policy, getting Amazon to raise its minimum wage and successfully pushing the Senate to cut off aid for Saudi Arabia’s atrocious war in Yemen. (One of the little-discussed aspects of Sanders’ career is that he is actually a highly effective negotiator and legislator, which is why he succeeded in passing more amendments in a Republican Congress than anyone else.)

Sanders has said and done plenty that I disagree with, and everyone should be open to having their mind changed. There’s a long time yet until November 2020, and a lot can happen. But Sanders is the perfect weapon against Trump’s plutocratic “populism”. He has experience, skill and principles. People like him and trust him, even when they don’t completely share his politics.

What’s more, this moment in history calls for radicalism – issues like climate change, runaway corporate power, racial inequity cannot be solved by someone with only a tepid commitment to political change. This is Bernie’s time, and both progressives and moderates alike should rally behind his candidacy.