5. BERNIE HAS THE IDEOLOGY

In the 21st century, the Democratic Party has lost every single presidential election in which they ran a centrist/moderate candidate (Gore, Kerry, and Clinton), and won every election in which their nominee ran as a progressive fighting for change (Obama in 2008 and 2012). Simply put, we already tried putting a neoliberal running on incrementalism up against Trump in 2016, and that campaign and its message has failed. Even the Republican “moderates” John McCain and Mitt Romney lost while the more extreme Trump succeeded. The middle lane has died, and it’s time to pick a side.

We simply must learn from these mistakes, adapt, and nominate a better and more progressive candidate in 2020 if we don’t want another Trump victory. You know that tacky cliche about how insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results? It is repeated so often for a reason.

When people are dissatisfied with the status quo, as they are now with wealth inequality at its worst since the Great Depression era, they will seek out change, as they did in electing Obama. Though it was the wrong kind of change, Trump beat Clinton because he was offering some while she was not, and candidates like Biden that are running on the message that “nothing will fundamentally change” follow in her doomed footsteps. Trump’s grip on working class populism is vulnerable not to neoliberalism that ignores it, but to Bernie who speaks to and redirects it with the platform that will most comprehensively improve the average American’s life, and therefore inspire them to vote in November.

The data backs this up — the majority of Democrats now want a candidate more progressive than Obama and (though Bernie isn’t even a “real socialist”) even view socialism more favorably than capitalism. Yes, some are still wary of the ‘s’ word, but the GOP’s tired penchant for indiscriminately lobbing the label at everyone (such as noted capitalist Obama, who won anyway) has essentially rendered the word meaningless and the attack toothless.

Polls show Bernie actually beats Trump by more when labeled a “socialist” than when labeled just a “Democrat,” and even Trump himself has admitted running against “socialism” in 2020 “might not be so easy.” In fact, socialism itself is even polling higher than Trump! It’s time to stop worrying about what the far right will be scared by and start fighting for what the rest of America wants instead.

Still, detractors often point to Trump being the “worst ever” as a reason why we can’t “risk” pushing for real progress and should instead revert to the “safe” status quo for the “most important election of our lifetimes.” While this self-fulfilling excuse for digressing to the mean is almost always (often knowingly) wrong, the opposite is especially true in this case — with the most brazenly repulsive opponent in modern history, even the most anti-Bernie naysayers will find it hard to justify abandoning their own #BlueNoMatterWho crusade of the past four years.

In fact, if a more aesthetically civil and “moderate” Republican was incumbent, such as Mitt Romney, then hordes of corporatist, centrist Democrats could defect in the name of “anti-extremist” “unity.” Yes, you can argue that the stakes are now “higher than ever,” but that would be precisely why this is actually the best time there has ever been to diametrically oppose what is especially wrong with what is the most right.