(New Republic)
In the wake of Bernie Sanders’s loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, some people argued that, as Vanity Fair put it, he “won in the end” because his race had “a profound, and lasting, effect on his party.” This was not a fanciful idea. The Vermont senator’s “revolution” had succeeded beyond progressives’ wildest expectations, pushing the party leftward on health care, climate change, economic redistribution, and foreign policy. Since Barack Obama’s ascendance, no other politician has had such a deep influence on the direction of the Democratic Party—except perhaps the sitting president.
And yet, as Sanders takes steps toward a second run for the Democratic nomination, many think that he has lost his political momentum. “I don’t see a lot of lasting energy for Bernie,” Markos Moulitsas, the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, told The Boston Globe. “It’s different from last time when he was the alternative to an unfortunately flawed front-runner, and there were just two of them. Right now, the mantle of ‘progressive’ can be carried by any number of candidates and potential candidates.”
Sanders, this line of thinking goes, is “a victim of his own success”: Yes, he moved the Democratic leftward, but he’s been neutered by younger, more broadly appealing candidates who are aping the ideas he popularized. So Sanders allegedly can’t count on his army of supporters to turn out in droves a second time, or even necessarily his staff. “The reluctance of former aides to embrace another campaign reflects what’s expected to be a sprawling field of Democrats stampeding left Read more