Editor’s note: David Moats, an author and journalist who lives in Salisbury, is a regular columnist for VTDigger. He is editorial page editor emeritus of the Rutland Herald, where he won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for a series of editorials on Vermont’s civil union law.
The overwhelming sentiment of Democrats across the country is that defeating Donald Trump this year must be their primary goal.
Bernie Sanders has harnessed the anger and dread motivating many Democratic voters, but Joe Biden, who is said to represent the hopes of moderate voters, has now moved ahead of Sanders in the primary race. Anger and dread among so-called moderates are helping Biden, too.
On behalf of all those moderates, here is a plea to Sanders: Bernie, please don’t “Trumpify” the election. Please make it clear to your followers that your victories and your losses have been fair and square. Don’t poison the election by saying it was all about big money and the corporations. It is not big money that has pushed voters to Joe Biden. It is the voters themselves, thinking for themselves, and deciding for themselves. Of course, money is swirling around every corner of the process, and you have plenty of it yourself. But give voters the respect they deserve.
Bernie, talk to the Bernie Bros. They need to hear from you that you respect the process — that, for all its failings, you respect democracy. That means you must tell them to respect your opponents and, should Biden emerge as the nominee, they should embrace him wholeheartedly. Following your victory in New Hampshire, you said you would rally around the winner. You said you expected it would be you, but even if it wasn’t, you said party unity would be essential to defeating Trump. That message must be blared again and again so you can marshal your supporters on behalf of the winner, should it be someone other than you.
As for the Democratic Party establishment, which you have long scorned, it is not some variation of a “deep state.” Those who oppose you have their reasons, and as much as you may disagree, democracy demands that you respect them.
My own experience with Sanders probably has not been much different than the experience of many who have known him. Early in his career as a member of Congress, he regularly came by the office of the Rutland Herald, where I was an editor, to meet with the editorial board and to seek our endorsement. When he first won election to the U.S. House, he defeated the one-term incumbent Republican Peter Smith after earning a surprise endorsement from the Herald. The endorsement was the decision of the publisher, Robert Mitchell, who had a long association with moderate Republicans in Vermont, but who had grown disillusioned by the politics of President George H.W. Bush.
On subsequent visits to the Herald, Sanders showed that he had a one-track mind. His message about corporations and big money explained everything, and he tended to dismiss any question at variance with his ideas. It was seldom a conversation; it was more like a lecture.
In the elections that followed, I argued that the paper should endorse Sanders despite his ideological rigidity, but John Mitchell, the publisher who had succeeded his father, resisted. He bridled at Sanders’ anti-business rhetoric. “A newspaper is a business, too,” he often said.
Once Sanders decided he didn’t need us anymore, he stopped coming by. He won our endorsement in later years, but his ideological rigidity did not vary. In his presidential run in 2016, the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Now, at a historic moment, Sanders has to enlarge his view. The election is about more than him and his ideas. It is about the nation and its democratic values. Sanders must do something never asked of him before. He has to embrace moderate voters — whether he emerges as the candidate or Joe Biden does. That’s because the next president will be president not just of Berkeley and Boulder and Burlington, but of Youngstown and Pittsburgh and Detroit, and of Miami and Charlotte and Charlottesville. There has to be a joining of hands among voters in the industrial heartland and Bernie’s progressive legions, as well as among voters of the North and South.
Here is another plea: If Biden wins, Bernie, please don’t say the election was stolen from you. That sort of whining is pure Trump. Trump blames everyone but himself for his problems, a habit that is small, narrow and destructive. Bernie, it is time to be large. In the event that you don’t win the nomination, be a big-hearted, gracious loser rather than a sore loser. If you win the nomination, be a big-hearted, gracious winner. History will remember you far more kindly if you do, and the Democrats will stand a far better chance of prevailing over Trump in November.
We in Vermont are proud of Sanders for his historic contribution, rattling the cages of the establishment and giving voice without timidity to the interests of workers and ordinary people. Even those who have not been aboard the Bernie bandwagon share in that pride. Friends and relatives from around the country are intrigued by Sanders, even if now they seem to be rallying to Biden.
Bernie, this is your moment, win or lose, but more important, it is a moment for the whole country to rise up, united, on behalf of democracy. You can help that happen by going beyond yourself and reaching out to all of America.
