It's common knowledge that Americans hate socialism. Just ask the Third Way.

It's common knowledge that it'll be suicide running against Trump as a socialist.

But is that true? It turns out that common knowledge, when given a real-world test, might be bunk.



Data for Progress used the Lucid survey sampling platform to test three different versions of a Sanders and Trump polling matchup question. The survey was in the field from January 9 to January 19 of 2020 and ran these three polls: No information: “If the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump?”

Partisan cues: “If the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump?”

Socialists and billionaires: “If the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Democrat Bernie Sanders, who wants to tax the billionaire class to help the working class and Republican Donald Trump, who says Sanders is a socialist who supports a government takeover of healthcare and open borders?”

Yeh.

Go ahead and scream "Socialism Bad" Trump. See what that'll get you.

You can bet that Trump will run on patriotism and accuse Bernie and his supporters of "hating America" too.

There's just one thing about that.



No other 2020 candidate for president, including Donald Trump, can come close to matching Bernie Sanders’ level of support among members of the U.S. military, to go by the most recent campaign finance data from the Federal Election Commission. People employed by the military have donated a total of $185,625 to Sen. Sanders’ 2020 campaign. By comparison, they have given $113,012 to Trump, $80,250 to Pete Buttigieg, $64,604 to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and a relatively paltry $33,045 to former Vice President Joe Biden, according to Doug Weber, a senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics.

...

That not one or two but all three major branches of the armed forces, plus the Pentagon and V.A., all appear on Sanders’ top-twenty list is probative, to say the least, of his ability to convert former Trump supporters in geographic regions that Democratic Party elites are fixated on turning blue in 2020.

The same can’t be said for the other Democratic contenders.

The Dems need a candidate that clearly beats Trump in head-to-head matchups, and appeals to former Trump supporters from the midwest and Rust Belt.

BUT NOT BERNIE! /s