Elizabeth Warren/Flickr

A recent poll by Emerson included some data about Sanders supporters that came as a bit of a surprise.

26% of current Bernie Sanders supporters said that they would rather vote for President Donald Trump over Senator Elizabeth Warren, if that were the eventual 2020 matchup.

It is important to note that a clear majority of Sanders supporters didn’t agree. But given that Warren and the senator from Vermont are often labelled as the two most progressive candidates in the 2020 field, a lot of questions were raised by the fact that about a quarter of his supporters would vote for Trump over Warren. There was some discussion about whether that is a reflection of sexism, which might be a factor. But Bhaskar Sunkara, one of Sanders’ most vocal supporters, had a different explanation.

For a layer of intellectuals, policy people, and other professionals, supporting Warren is a way to signal genuine concern with the US and support broadly egalitarian fixes, while still not crossing the Rubicon. It’s understandable. For the rest of us, it’s Bernie. pic.twitter.com/YejpX2HEWa — Bhaskar Sunkara (@sunraysunray) April 23, 2019

Sunkara went on to point to an article in which he analyzed the differences between Sanders and Warren. He wrote that for Sanders, who was trained in the dying remnants of the Socialist party, “the rich were not morally confused but rather have a vested interest in the exploitation of others. Power would have to be taken from them by force.” On the other hand:

Warren has established herself as a credible, progressive Democrat. But her background hints at the difference between her more wonkish approach – seeking to construct better policy but not an alternative politics – and the class-struggle, worker-centric approach of Sanders. Not surprisingly, Warren has been keen to assure business interests that she believes that “strong, healthy markets are the key to a strong healthy America” and that she “is a capitalist”.

The candidates themselves would have to speak to whether those descriptions are accurate, but it seems to be a fair assessment based on what we’ve heard from the two of them. That is why conventional wisdom has almost always placed Sanders a bit farther left on the political continuum than Warren.

Personally, I have never placed much stock in that particular strain of conventional wisdom. The reasons for that were made abundantly clear when several candidates participated in town hall discussions on CNN Monday evening, including Warren and Sanders. The candidates were asked whether they supported impeachment proceedings following the release of the Mueller report. Warren gave an impassioned response in the affirmative.

Senator Warren on impeachment: “If there are people in the House or the Senate who want to say that’s what a president can do, when the president is being investigated for his own wrongdoings…then they should have to take that vote and live with it for the rest of their lives.” pic.twitter.com/hqz9zjCYjV — Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) April 23, 2019

Sanders denounced the actions of the president and suggested that the House should investigate whether Trump obstructed justice, but aligned himself more with moderate Steny Hoyer rather than Maxine Waters and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom have called for impeachment.

While it may not factor into Sanders’ position, it is interesting to note that some of his most vocal supporters—like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi—tend to side more with Trump and his enablers in suggesting that the Mueller report totally exonerates the president. Taibbi went so far as to claim that voters will hold the media accountable for spreading conspiracy theories about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. So in circles that people often describe as the most progressive, there is no uproar in favor of impeachment, but quite the opposite.

The inadequacy of conventional wisdom about the left-right continuum is further demonstrated by the fact that the Vermont senator, who has always identified as an Democratic Socialist, had to move to the left on issues like gun control and immigration reform in order to run in the 2016 Democratic primary. On the other hand, Warren was a Republican until the 1990s and has consistently become more progressive upon entering the world of electoral politics in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

There are those who suggest that at this point, with the numerous detailed proposals put forward by Warren, she is now more progressive than Sanders. And yet, on what has become Sanders’ signature issue—Medicare for All—Warren continues to talk about the multiple paths to universal healthcare at affordable costs.

All of this is to use Sanders and Warren as examples to demonstrate that a simple embrace of the left to right continuum fails to capture the complexity of differences between candidates. It takes a lot more work to thoroughly understand the position of candidates on a variety of issues—not to mention all of the other areas to be evaluated, like their worldview, mettle, and ability to learn. But that is what is required of citizens in a democratic republic.