‘The unity candidate’

That Mr. Sanders inspires a unique fervor among his supporters only bolsters the case for his candidacy, the Times writer Elizabeth Bruenig argues, since fiscally conservative Democrats may be more likely to support the general election candidate no matter what. But Ms. Bruenig views the panic over Mr. Sanders’s rise as proceeding less from average Democratic voters, who view him more favorably than any other candidate, than from centrist party insiders, who fear losing control. “If he won the nomination, I think obviously he would take over the party,” a professor of history at Georgetown University told Ms. Bruenig.

The political class and mainstream media underestimate Mr. Sanders because they don’t understand his campaign, writes Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African-American studies at Princeton. That is why, for example, the “Bernie Bro” narrative of his candidacy persists even though a majority of his supporters are women and people of color. “Under normal circumstances, the multiracial working class is invisible,” Ms. Taylor writes, but Mr. Sanders “has tapped into the anger and bitterness coursing through the lives of regular people who have found it increasingly impossible to make ends meet in this grossly unequal society.”

[Related: “Bernie Sanders’s real base is diverse — and very young”]

His appeals to a multiracial working-class coalition could pose the best challenge to Mr. Trump in swing states, argue Matt Karp and Meagan Day. “The truth is that many people in swing states — including many otherwise loyal Democratic voters — were not sufficiently excited by Hillary Clinton, who they rightly associated with business-as-usual politics,” they write. By contrast, they say, a contest between Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump would present a starker choice: “the populist who wants to win you health care and cancel your debt” versus the rich jerk “who doesn’t care if you live or you die so long as your boss gets paid.”

In the end, Mr. Sanders could be just what the party needs to keep from fracturing, writes Matt Yglesias. Despite his revolutionary brand, Mr. Sanders is less radical than people think.

While he’s taken some positions as a legislator that were unpopular at the time, such as opposing the Iraq war and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, he also has a dependable record of compromising when it counts.

Congress will hamstring any Democrat’s agenda, but that’s a reality Mr. Sanders’s supporters will tolerate better if he’s at the helm.

A Sanders presidency, Mr. Yglesias says, would simply mean “an emphasis on full employment, a tendency to shy away from launching wars, an executive branch that actually tries to enforce environmental protection and civil rights laws, and a situation in which bills that both progressives and moderates can agree on get to become law,” he writes. “That’s a pretty good deal, and you don’t need to be a socialist to see it.”

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