John Walters is a VTDigger political columnist.
By endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders formally ended his second — and presumably final — campaign for president. Sanders left the stage having failed to solve the fundamental challenge he faced from the beginning of his first candidacy in 2016. He had to broaden his support beyond a hyper-enthusiastic base, and he couldn’t.
It’s really that simple.
After all the blood, treasure and toil, the pundits’ bloviations, the endless 24-hour news cycle and the soul-crushing travel, the Vermont independent never approached majority support in the Democratic electorate.
None of this should take anything away from Sanders’ remarkable, historic accomplishments. He is the first candidate in recent memory to show that a progressive agenda can inspire broad support, and the first candidate to bankroll a national campaign via millions of small-dollar donations.
Most importantly, Sanders has had an undeniable impact on American politics. Ideas that were considered unacceptably wacky are now established in mainstream debate, and were adopted (in some form or other) by just about every Democratic candidate for president.
Sanders has always insisted that his candidacy wasn’t about one person, it was about building a movement. If that movement endures, Sanders’ ideas will also endure — and may ultimately prevail even if he isn’t the political beneficiary.
In the 2016 campaign, Sanders emerged from the pack with a progressive agenda and a raw authenticity that captured the imaginations of like-minded voters across the country, brought millions of young Americans into politics, and compiled a database of committed supporters that was the envy of every politician alive. He won some primaries, but he lost more. Throughout the primary season, Clinton outpolled him by consistent margins. Sanders did better in caucus states, where enthusiasm counted for more than raw numbers. But he never broke through.
He began the 2020 campaign in exactly the same spot. He had the biggest and most committed base of any Democratic candidate. He polled consistently near the top of the field. He never faltered — but neither did he surge.
There were opportunities. Many voters were unconvinced by Biden and casting about for an alternative. Candidates took their turns in the spotlight: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Mike Bloomberg and more. Each one faded back into the pack.
At no point did Sanders seize control. His victory in the Nevada caucus seemed to make him the frontrunner, but that abruptly ended one week later in South Carolina. Another week went by, and Super Tuesday put Biden firmly in the driver’s seat.
Sanders backers are quick to cry conspiracy. Democratic elites, Wall Street power brokers, corporations and Big Media had it in for Bernie. They fixed the outcomes in 2016 and 2020. Sanders never had a fair shot.
There is some truth in those assertions, but to claim the primaries were rigged is to assume that voters who don’t support Bernie are mindless automatons being led around by the nose. They made their own decisions. And for the majority, the Bernie agenda was just too much, too fast.
Also bear in mind that parties are collections of people bound together by ideas — but also by personal ties and loyalty. Clinton and Biden have been fighting for Democratic causes for decades. Sanders doesn’t even want to identify as a Democrat, and relentlessly criticizes the party. Is it any wonder that leaders and foot soldiers alike might be favorably inclined toward proud, reliable Democrats?
In some ways, Sanders actually got off easy. If he’d been the front-runner for very long, he would have been subjected to the kind of scrutiny that’s caused so many shiny new politicos to quickly fade away. He never became the target for the conservative movement, since they saw him as more easily beatable than Clinton or Biden. He never had to endure the conspiratorial onslaught that painted both Clinton and Biden as corrupt and power-hungry.
Sanders calls his movement a “political revolution.” When you’re trying to make fundamental change, you’ll have to endure the skepticism of mainstream media and politics. You’ll have to toil in the shadows and play the long game, building support for an unconventional agenda. Sanders did that, honorably and well.
There is no shame in not quite winning a major party nomination. Many of America’s best political minds never reached the mountaintop. But if his ideas take root and prevail, then he will have won something far more important, and rarer, than personal aggrandizement. He will have changed the course of history.
