Bernie potentially running for president in 2024: should he?

 So, it's come out today that Bernie is considering a 2024 run if Biden does not run for president again. The real question is: should he?

I'm gonna be honest. If Bernie runs a third time, I'm probably going to be a lot less enthusiastic about him this time around. Don't get me wrong, I still have mad respect for the guy, but let's be honest, over the past 2 years, our politics have diverged quite a bit and I'm not as enthusiastic about a third run from the guy. In 2016, he was clearly the best we had and supported some of my priorities, but with the introduction of Yang and now the Forward party, I've always had mixed loyalties on Sanders. And in the past 2 years, my politics have shifted much harder in Yang's direction. I'm more willing to compromise down to a public option on medicare for all, knowing that funding both UBI and M4A is difficult, and free college has always been a distant third priority for me. I would personally benefit from student debt forgiveness, but a UBI could allow me to put the money toward my loans anyway, and all that's REALLY needed for me to compromise there is a removal of the IBR tax bomb, which if I recall Yang was for. What I have become more firm on is UBI, and Bernie just doesn't support that at all. He's a full jobs program kind of guy. He has that green new deal, and while I ain't going to crap on efforts to improve our infrastructure to be more environmentally friendly, I'm not big on large scale public works. Minimum wage and stuff is fine, but again, these fixes don't end wage slavery. Bernie means well, but his politics are straight out of the 1930s. I mean, he's a dinosaur, politically speaking. I'm really not as enthusiastic about the old left. I believe we need a new left and Yang's politics are more my style. 

Speaking of dinosaurs, how old would Bernie be upon taking office? Like 83? That's kind of a hard sell for me. I mean, before the last couple elections, anyone over 70 was considered a bad person for the job since they might die in office, but Bernie will be in his 80s. And while I wouldn't be as opposed to 75 year old Bernie Sanders getting in and then leaving office at 83, getting in at 83 he's going to be getting out at 91...if he lasts that long. I mean, at that age your life expectancy is like 6 years, so he's probably gonna be one term, with him having less than a 50% chance of getting through 2. I hope he has a strong VP. I think in 2020 I heard Nina Turner thrown around who would be a decent option, but eh.

Now, beyond that, would he ever win? Well, working within the democratic party, probably not. The democratic party is dropping with hostility toward Bernie, regularly choosing the concerns of the white suburbanite professional class over the working class, and using cynical identity politics to sabotage any chance of a progressive uprising from within. And while by 2024 I think the argument for a true successor to Biden could be significantly weakened, I really think the party will mobilize in the primary at least to push an alternative, even if it means getting creamed in the general. And Bernie, he isn't willing to, if it comes down to it, split the vote. Again, given I'm a "forward" kind of guy, I feel like any progressive challenger to the establishment within the party would need to be willing to walk and run on a third party ticket if needed. That's always been a concern of Bernie, he's too nice. He runs, he's hated by the party, he gets crushed because of the now traditional (since 1992) voting base that hates old new deal democrats, and then he endorses the nominee. 

Honestly, that's another thing I feel like Yang has up on Bernie. Yang seems to understand that the democratic party is broken and supports stuff like ranked choice voting to fix the problem. He also has been leaning more and more toward being willing to actually challenge the dems with a third party run push comes to shove to keep them honest. bernie just plays their game, and then loses, and then just gets behind the party. We need someone with backbone, someone who is willing to make waves with the party if they screw them. Like Marianne Williamson or even Nina Turner. And both of them aren't ancient either.

Now, if Bernie did win, could he be electable? Eh, maybe? In 2016, I think bernie would've ran with it and held the rust belt. In 2020, I feel like the country cooled on bernie somewhat. The socialist rhetoric became less popular, and he would've objectively done worse than Biden. While I suspect he would win the rust belt and narrowly win the election, he would've lost Georgia and Arizona in a landslide. Why? Because the dem strategy in the south once again relies explicitly on winning over minorities and the professional class. And given how enamored the white working class is with trump and how much they now hate "socialism" for some reason, I'm not sure how strongly they would've gone for Bernie. I feel like the country changed from 2016 to 2020. people became less enthused about Bernie and Trump actually gained support with wedge demographics if anything. 

In 2024 how would he do? I don't know. Sadly there are no polls on it. Still, Biden is down 3.7 to trump which is an almost definite loss, and Harris is WORSE. The fact is, if Biden doesn't run for reelection, the democrats are screwed. Bernie could distance himself from the Biden administration given his progressive orientation, and he could be successful, but given inflation I feel like he would be attacked relentlessly. I feel the same about any leftie honestly. Unless inflation is under control, I feel like the left is gonna be screwed. Still, could I see Bernie eeking out a win? Yeah. I think he would probably be the only other person than Biden who could potentially secure a democratic win. It might mean that the new democratic southern strategy fails, but he does have a path to victory up north. If you want to know what I think a Bernie win map would look like, it would be this: a 275-263 narrow win. The fact is, he won't win anywhere in the south, but as long as he holds the rust belt, he can secure a win. He could even possibly make headroom in places like Iowa and Ohio, but I wouldn't count on them either. The trump camp seems to be making headroom in the rust belt and midwest and I don't see any democrat reversing those states. I will say, if Bernie did, it would be a massive repudiation of the centrist wing of the party and show us that we really don't need the south to win. But yeah. The fact is, I really don't think the democrats would let Bernie anywhere near the nomination and even if he did win, I could see them mcgoverning him. 

The fact is, bernie's moment was in 2016. In 2020, I feel like his magic was gone or seriously reduced. We had more options, and the democratic party was more all over the place, with people supporting Biden, Bernie, or a wide variety of people in between like Yang, Warren, Buttigieg, etc. And most people went with Biden. I do feel like the dems kind of pushed the narrative toward Biden unfairly, but the fact is, bernie could never break like 35% support in most polls. And the centrists just had an overwhelming statistical majority where all they had to do was organize to remove their excessive cadndiates and turn it into a two person race. And then Biden destroyed Bernie.

And while Bernie would have won if he had made it to the general, it would've been narrower than Biden was. And while Bernie does have the luxury of coming out swinging far to the left of the Biden administration and potentially saving the party from itself in the general, I don't think he has the magic he did. He's ancient, his politics are dated and have several weaknesses, and I honestly think things would be better if the "progressive" option of the party was someone else. Maybe Turner, maybe Williamson, and I would get behind Yang in a heartbeat. Honestly, I feel like the progressive wing needs someone younger and slightly less polarizing.

That said, would I vote for Bernie in 2024? In the primary, eh, I wouldn't rule it out, but it depends. In the general, probably. Heck that's one of the few options that would dissuade me from a potential Yang vote or write in. All in all though? For now, I plan to see how Yang and the Forward Party approach 2024 before I set anything in stone. Ideally, I'd like to see yang run within the party, and then do a third party run against the eventual dem nominee in order to pressure concessions from them. The fact is, I don't think we can get real change from within the democratic party, and we will need to run third party candidates to try to crack the two coalitions and begin a realignment. otherwise we're gonna end up with more trump vs clinton type elections with the faces changing until some time in the 2050s or 2060s.