If there’s on thing that’s obvious from the people who ardently and honestly believe Bernie Sanders is the best choice as the Democratic nominee for President, it’s the belief that he will be launched into the White House by an unprecedented turnout of engaged youth and erstwhile non-voters.
If this is true, it truly would indicate a revolutionary shift in American politics.
If it’s not true, if we’re betting the farm on an unproven theory, the cost would be tremendous, the type of blow we might not be able to absorb and remain the country so many of us cherish.
First, what is the cost of losing?
A Republican appointing justices to the Supreme Court would appoint people who:
- would return us to the Lochner era of economic laws and regulations. That means:
- no minimum wage
- no overtime
- no workplace safety regulations
- little to no child labor laws
- no five day work week
- no legal remedies against unjust employers
- would overturn not just Roe v. Wade, but the entire right to privacy, meaning:
- no abortion
- no right to contraception
- favor contracts over people, meaning
- no class action cases
- no punitive damages
- no attorneys fees
- no chance for the little guy over a corporation
- believe rights are found in the Bible and the original Constitution, without change, meaning:
- no rights for LGBT Americans
- permissive religious tests for office in State government (yes, Thomas has written about not incorporating the establishment clause into the 14th Amendment, so it doesn’t apply to States)
- no remedies for the unjustly convicted
- No retrospective review of convictions, even if new evidence shows actual innocence — keep the machine of death well-oiled
- no affirmative action of any kind, meaning:
- no consideration in college admissions
- no consideration in jobs
- limits of all kinds in targeted scholarships
And a united Republican Congress and Presidency would do away with:
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- Social Security
- the VA
- OSHA
- the EPA
- the Department of Education
and would squeeze every possible penny out of the poorest among us, dropping us over the edge we’ve been teetering on for so long, from a limping democracy to outright serfdom.
So, what is it we’re willing to bet that against? The idea that people who have never voted en masse are going to do it this time. Let’s test that, shall we?
How have the youth voted, historically?
Clik here to view.
Poorly.
Since people 18-20 got the vote, they have NEVER turned out at a rate over 50%.
NEVER.
The top rate, for the singularly talented, youthful, and transitional politician of our time (and perhaps in American history), was about 48%. The rate from 25-44 was about 50%, and the rate above that was well over 60%.
While there is a lot of anecdotal discussion about excited youth, I have yet to see a single person explain, with anything other than emotion, how Sanders is expected to have an even higher youth vote turnout than Barack Obama.
If you expand the range to identify “youth” voting out a few years, to 18-29, the numbers don’t change much. In 2012, 18-29 year olds voted at a rate of 45%, while 30-44s were 59.5%, 45-64 at 67.9%, and 65-up rang the bell at a whopping 72%.
I do believe some young people are excited about Sanders. I do believe we will see some increase in the youth vote from 2012. I have yet to see anybody posit an actual theory about how it will exceed the 2008 turnout, though.
On the 2008 point, there is another consideration. The youth vote that is so excited about Sanders is, to put it bluntly, very white. Sanders still hasn’t made any significant inroads into the African American vote. So let’s look at that:
Clik here to view.
Assume, for a moment, that Sanders does pass Obama in the white youth vote (though I’ve seen no reason to make that assumption). Will it make up for the lost black youth vote? Not so far, not when he’s polling among blacks in the single digits, or the very low double digits.
In 2012, for the first time in history, black turnout (67%) exceeded white turnout (64%). That didn’t even happen in 2008. Any increase in white youth turnout for Sanders is likely to be lost in black turnout.
Finally, let’s chat just for a moment about waves, coattails, and revolution.
There is a reason Hillary Clinton is getting all those Democratic endorsements. She and her husband have spent decades supporting Democrats, going to Jefferson Jackson dinners around the country, attending fundraisers, and speaking for Democratic candidates. They have been hardworking, contributing, effective Democrats.
Sanders, on the other hand, has not. It’s not his thing. He doesn’t do it. But it’s not just that he doesn’t do it. He has, at times, been rather vehemently anti-Democratic Party. And that will come back to bite every single Democratic candidate down-ticket if Sanders is the nominee.
Remember, in 2016 we won’t just be electing a President. Every single Senate, Congress, Governor, statehouse, even local mayor and council-person candidate will have their own set of ads to run. And every one of them knows that, in a Presidential year, you leverage the top of the ticket, positive or negative, to win down below.
In 2016, if Sanders is the nominee, the ads write themselves:
My own feeling is that the Democratic Party is ideologically bankrupt.
We have to ask ourselves, ‘Why should we work within the Democratic Party if we don’t agree with anything the Democratic Party says?
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a liberal Democrat
They have no ideology. Their ideology is opportunism.
I am not a Democrat, period.
Essentially, it's my view that the leadership of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are tied to big-money interests and that neither of these parties will ever represent the people in this country that are demanding the real changes that have to take place
A down-ticket Republican can run against his opponent by running WITH the Democratic nominee for President! They know that. That’s a very big reason why they’re supporting Clinton. People looking only at the top of the ticket might be emotionally invested in Sanders, but people downstream know he’s poison to them on election day.
A Sanders revolution depends upon an unprecedented turnout of the youth vote and a down-ticket tsunami of support for Democratic candidates he has repeatedly and vociferously not just rejected, but insulted.
If it happens, if Bernie Sanders is a logarithmically better politician and candidate than Barack Obama, if his Democratic coat-tails are longer than Obama’s in the face of his anti-Democratic history, that would truly be revolutionary.
If not, though, the results are dire.
Many Sanders supporters tell us that this is our last chance to turn America toward the sunlight, that if we don’t support their man, America will be lost.
I respectfully suggest that the above statement is hyperbole of a rather high order. He and Clinton have been only a few points apart in ratings on their votes in the Senate and Congress, and voted together far more than apart.
But I also suggest that it is not hyperbole at all to say that if we do roll those dice and lose, the America we know and love might well be lost.
I’m not willing to take that gamble. I’m not willing to bet the possibility of leaving of right-wing pre-New Deal racist theocratic Republican America to my children, against a historical long-shot of the highest order. And, frankly, while I think Sanders is a good man and has done good things in this election, I hope you aren’t, either, because you’re not just betting your dreams, you’re betting with my kids lives, too.