In the face of a pandemic that could kill more than a million Americans, overwhelm our health care system, and tank our economy, Democratic leadership in Congress has stood firm in one demand: Let’s not get too crazy with the free stuff, guys. While members of Congress from both parties have proposed immediately stimulating the economy by sending money to Americans, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s staff confirmed that she shot down proposals to send stimulus checks without some manner of means testing getting applied to the process, because such funds “MUST be targeted” based on “need.” Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted his big blue-sky idea: Low-interest loans for small businesses. What better time for business owners staring down the barrel of pandemic precarity to take on additional debt than right now?

These baffling moves are common symptoms of Democrat Brain: Obstinately adhering to an understanding of politics shaped by no events later than 9/11; believing that singing from the right pages of the Republican hymnal, on fiscal responsibility or border security or the magical power of the free market, will earn them points with their opponents; or, worse, genuinely believing those things matter more than the crisis to which they’re meant to be responding. The mewling response from Democratic leaders made the other major political story of the week even more depressing: Another slate of primary wins for Joe Biden, the consummate centrist Democrat, all but assuring that he will be Democratic nominee for president. While Bernie Sanders hasn’t officially dropped out yet, his campaign is over.



Bernie Sanders lost the essential part of his argument: the one in which he, in particular, should be president. Sanders will turn 80 in September of next year; his days as a presidential contender are functionally over. Now his movement must reckon with the mistakes that were made in order to remain on track. There is, nevertheless, some comfort to be taken. Two successive presidential campaigns have wrought some essential changes in the political landscape. Arguments that Democrats had previously treated as either politically impossible to make or simply incorrect are suddenly viable. There’s no reason in the world to reverse course. Indeed, the present crisis suggests that doing so would be unthinkably irresponsible.

When Sanders announced his campaign for president in 2015, it was just five years after the signing of the Affordable Care Act, and only a year after the last of its provisions were implemented. The ACA was meant to provide a permanent and robust fix to health care in America; in fact, it was supposed to provide “universal” health care. This was the Obama administration’s signature achievement, crowned a “big fucking deal” by the then vice president and now presumptive nominee. It shouldn’t have been possible for a Democratic presidential contender to emerge, running on the argument that this success was not enough, that gaping wounds remained.

Sanders nevertheless ran on Medicare for All in direct response to the inadequacies of the ACA, as well as its underlying assumption that market-based health insurance was a workable and just way to provide health care. He railed against the drug and insurance companies who partnered with Obama in the passage of the ACA in order to break off their own sweetheart deals. Sanders shaped his argument outside of Beltway conventions as well. He went to Canada with diabetics who had no other way of purchasing insulin. Often, he simply asked voters what they spend on health care. Sanders helped ordinary people come to learn that they weren’t alone in these struggles. Even in an election cycle that’s run against his electoral ambitions, the fruits of these labors are evident: In every primary state in which exit polls have been conducted, majorities of Democrats consistently affirm their support for Medicare for All.

