I cannot tell you how many people our campaign has spoken to who have said, and I quote, ‘I like what your campaign stands for, I agree with what your campaign stands for, but I’m going to vote for Joe Biden because I think Joe is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump,’ end of quote. We have heard that statement all over this country.
– Bernie Sanders
After losing primaries in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona Tuesday, the Sanders campaign sent an email to supporters on Wednesday conceding that “while our campaign has won the battle of ideas, we are losing the battle over electability to Joe Biden.”
Biden’s lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is now virtually insurmountable.
I get Sanders’ frustration. More than a few Sanders-sympathizing Kentuckians say they’re for Biden because they think Sanders can’t win. I’m one of them.
Going on four years ago, the country elected a racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic reactionary. Hence, we’re skeptical that the country will do a 180 and elect a democratic socialist.
So while we “Feel the Bern” in our hearts, we’ve got “Joementum” in our noggins. “It all comes down to electability,” said another Kentuckian who likes what Sanders says but is backing Biden. “Bernie can’t get elected. Biden can, though Trump will be tough.”
Sanders’s supporters get steamed at those of us who share his views but think he’s likely to lose to Trump. I understand that, too.
“But most of the Bernie supporters who think he can win live in Blue states,” the Biden supporter suggested. Agree with him or not, our politics are refracted through the prism of where we live.
Here in Kentucky
Kentucky is deep in Trumpistan. The Bluegrass State, where I’ve dwelt all my 70 years, is among the reddest of the Republican Red States. Progressives — and those of us who are fans of western European style democratic socialism or social democracy — are an endangered species in most parts of Kentucky save “Liberal Louisville” and Lexington, which is mostly Blue-hued, too.
A lot of Red State progressives vote their heads, not their hearts. “You all aren’t much, but you’re all I’ve got,” my old history professor used to joke to his students. Blue Dog Democratic candidates aren’t much, but with few exceptions they’re all we’ve got in Kentucky beyond Louisville and Lexington.
These days, almost every Republican office-seeker everywhere is a social Darwinist, a union-buster, a neo-Confederate, or a religious bigot of the Jesus-loves-me-but-He-can’t stand you persuasion – or often a combination of all four. But if you get mad at a Democrat who you think is insufficiently progressive and stay home or go fishing on election day, you’re in effect giving the Republican a vote.
We managed to elect a Democrat, Andy Beshear, our governor last November. Naturally, that was big news nationally. Largely unreported was the fact that the GOP won all five of the other constitutional offices, all but one by double-digit percentages.
In the primary, Beshear, son of former Gov. Steve Beshear, ran as a moderate like his dad. House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins ran as a moderate, too. Former state auditor Adam Edelen appealed to progressives.
A lot of progressives liked Edelen but figured he didn’t have a chance against union-busting, Trump-hugging Republican Gov. Matt Bevin. (Trump won 62.5 percent of Kentucky’s vote in 2016. He twice came to Kentucky to campaign for Bevin.)
Some progressives — like the Biden backer I quoted above — stuck with Edelen. Others of us voted for Adkins or Beshear, believing they had a better shot at making Bevin a one-termer.
Beshear barely beat Bevin – who beat moderate-to-progressive Democrat Jack Conway 53-44 in 2015. Last November’s numbers suggested that Bevin likely would have defeated Edelen, who finished third in the primary, 10 points behind Beshear.
In other words, a lot of progressives who thought Edelen was better on the issues, figured the odds of ousting Bevin were better with Beshear or Adkins.
Don’t get me wrong. A few of us in Kentucky long for the day when the Democratic Party becomes a democratic socialist, social democratic or labor party like the ones they have in industrial democracies like Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. We’d even take a neo-New Deal party. Either eventuality might be a long spell in coming, especially in Kentucky, but hope springs eternal.
Meanwhile, we just don’t see the country suddenly veering from Trump, the right-wing authoritarian wannabe, to Sanders. (I’d love to be wrong. I’m more than willing to chow down on a big plate of crow and a hefty helping of humble pie for dessert if I am.)
But 60 percent of Kentuckians think Trump’s doing a good job; only 37 percent of us don’t, according to Daily Kos. (Nationally, it’s 54-44 the other way. It worries me that the spread is that close.)
In 2016, Trump won 62.4 percent of Kentucky’s vote – 76.4 percent in my county. So come on, Blue and Purple States, save us from another close encounter of the worst kind with Trump.
I’d bet (and be happy to lose) that the president will win big in Kentucky again come November. I fear that with another boost from his pal Putin and more neo-Jim Crow GOP voter suppression laws (Kentucky’s Republican-majority legislature seems poised to pass one), Trump will win a second term and nudge us further down the road toward right-wing authoritarianism, especially if the Republicans win back the House, which some Democrats are afraid might happen if Sanders is the nominee.
The stakes are high
This year’s Freedom House report warns: “Trump has assailed essential institutions and traditions including the separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice, safeguards against corruption, and most disturbingly, the legitimacy of elections.
“We cannot take for granted that institutional bulwarks against abuse of power will retain their strength, or that our democracy will endure perpetually. Rarely has the need to defend its rules and norms been more urgent.”
My defense is my vote. Four years ago, I signed an online pledge promising to vote Blue no matter who. Sanders got my vote in our May, 2016, primary. I voted for Clinton in November.
I’m still with Sanders on single-payer health care and just about everything else he stands for. Go ahead, call me a heretic, apostate, or traitor to the cause.
If Sanders somehow wins the nomination, I’ll work just as hard to help him get elected as I will for Biden. But in our primary, which has been postponed to June 23, Biden has my vote.
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