theatlantic--2020-02-10--The Atlantic Politics Daily: There Is No Unity Candidate

3 .
In New Hampshire , Sanders might not have to win that many Democrats to prevail in the state .
It ’ s an “ open primary , ” meaning non-Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary , and those types of contests tend to favor the Vermont senator .
My colleague Russell Berman thinks through Sanders ’ s secret weapon .
A polar-bear / demonstrator at a Joe Biden campaign event on Sunday in Hudson , New Hampshire .
1 .
“ But surviving the slog , without stepping away from it and bowing to the idea that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to live through the short term.
” Impeachment is over , and the Americans who ’ d hoped for a Senate that keeps the president in check now must make it through the Trump presidency without giving in to cynicism .
Quinta Jurecic argues for a way forward .
2 .
“ They sought the truth .
And they told the truth when called upon to do so.
” The president waited until last Friday , two days after being acquitted in the GOP-controlled Senate , to fire Alexander Vindman , a key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security Council .
Vindman is just one of several new members of a super special club of public servants who ’ ve ventured to tell the truth about Trump , Benjamin Wittes writes .
Benefits of membership range from Twitter mockery from the president himself to security threats .
3 .
“ They are so focused on that performance that their actual jobs can seem like a distraction.
” What exactly do America ’ s politicians do at their jobs if gridlock is the word of the day on Capitol Hill ?
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ various audiences , using Congress as a platform for clout and culture-war grift , Yuval Levin argues .
So how about a little less transparency ?
This is How Reaganism—and Thatcherism—Ends There was a time when concern for human rights , an integrated Western political bloc , and the spirit of democracy were universally praised by Washington , London , and Rome .
But times have changed .
The new kind conservatism that ’ s sweeping through the West rejects the schools of Reagan and Thatcher , Anne Appelbaum argues .
Read her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conference in Rome .
Today ’ s newsletter was written by Saahil Desai , an editor on the Politics desk , and Christian Paz , a Politics fellow .
It ’ s edited by Shan Wang , who oversees newsletters .
You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments , or send a note to politicsdaily @ theatlantic.com .
Your support makes our journalism possible .
Subscribe here .

Or: What Bernie Sanders has in common with Michael Bloomberg. Plus: What if transparency is the problem?
It’s Monday, February 10. In today’s newsletter: What Bernie Sanders has in common with Michael Bloomberg. Plus: What if transparency is the problem?
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(M. SCOTT BRAUER / REDUX)
The “unity candidate” may be a myth.
Bernie Sanders has been running for president as an anti-establishment insurgent for some five years now. But for the first time, he finds himself in a new position: early frontrunner.
Heading into tomorrow’s New Hampshire primary, Sanders is widely expected to notch a victory—one that would put him on the path to winning the Democratic nomination. Still, he faces familiar challenges: Can the independent grow his coalition beyond his base, inspiring them to turn out in November?
A few thoughts from our reporters:
1. Sanders has had some trouble reaching beyond his particular lane. As Ron Brownstein writes, one factor helping him nevertheless lead the 2020 Democrats’ multi-car pileup: Every other candidate has that same problem.
2. On Sanders vs. Warren: My colleague Elaine Godfrey has spent lots of time with Sanders supporters who are far less interested in Elizabeth Warren, the other progressive firebrand in the race. Why, exactly? Here’s what one Bernie supporter told her last summer: “It’s not that her policies are bad—it’s just that her stuff would work [better] in a system that wasn’t a failed state.”
3. In New Hampshire, Sanders might not have to win that many Democrats to prevail in the state. It’s an “open primary,” meaning non-Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary, and those types of contests tend to favor the Vermont senator. My colleague Russell Berman thinks through Sanders’s secret weapon.
—Saahil Desai
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS)
A polar-bear / demonstrator at a Joe Biden campaign event on Sunday in Hudson, New Hampshire.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(TURTIX / SHUTTERSTOCK / PAUL SPELLA / THE ATLANTIC)
1. “But surviving the slog, without stepping away from it and bowing to the idea that nothing matters, is the only way to live through the short term.”
Impeachment is over, and the Americans who’d hoped for a Senate that keeps the president in check now must make it through the Trump presidency without giving in to cynicism. Quinta Jurecic argues for a way forward.
2. “They sought the truth. And they told the truth when called upon to do so.”
The president waited until last Friday, two days after being acquitted in the GOP-controlled Senate, to fire Alexander Vindman, a key impeachment witness who served in the National Security Council. Vindman is just one of several new members of a super special club of public servants who’ve ventured to tell the truth about Trump, Benjamin Wittes writes. Benefits of membership range from Twitter mockery from the president himself to security threats.
3. “They are so focused on that performance that their actual jobs can seem like a distraction.”
What exactly do America’s politicians do at their jobs if gridlock is the word of the day on Capitol Hill? They’re really just performing for their various audiences, using Congress as a platform for clout and culture-war grift, Yuval Levin argues. So how about a little less transparency?
*
« EVENING READ »
(ED REINKE / AP)
This is How Reaganism—and Thatcherism—Ends
There was a time when concern for human rights, an integrated Western political bloc, and the spirit of democracy were universally praised by Washington, London, and Rome.
But times have changed. The new kind conservatism that’s sweeping through the West rejects the schools of Reagan and Thatcher, Anne Appelbaum argues.
Read her analysis and dispatch from a recent political conference in Rome.
*


The Sanders Doctrine

The Sanders camp ’ s “ evolving position ” is that the United States should keep its core alliances in Europe and Asia while withdrawing militarily from the Middle East , Daniel Nexon , a scholar of progressive foreign policy , told me .
Duss said that Sanders would aim to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan , Iraq , and Syria “ by the end of his first term , ” and repeal Congress ’ s vague 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force .
“ We ’ ve watched as successive presidents have been maneuvered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and we ’ re committed to avoiding that , ” Duss told me .
Of course , that ’ s also what Obama and Trump said before confronting the challenge of leaving dangerous vacuums and squandering U.S. influence in these conflict zones .
Duss contrasted his boss ’ s tactics and Trump ’ s , noting that Sanders would consult with allies and not announce changes to America ’ s overseas military presence “ by tweet ” or “ treat the United States military as a paid mercenary force.
” But he didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ objectives .
“ There are real questions about the cost of maintaining these huge military presences in some of these places , so we ’ re definitely interested in thinking hard about whether we can reduce the number of troops in these places and still meet these [ security ] commitments we ’ ve made to these partners , ” he said , when I asked about U.S. troops stationed in countries such as Japan , South Korea , and Germany .
“ Economically , it ’ s not really sustainable in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic congressman and national co-chair of the Sanders campaign , told me that he expected a Sanders administration to continue deploying military assets to protect the “ freedom of the seas ” in the Persian Gulf and waters surrounding China and to “ maintain some [ troop ] presence ” in the territory of Asian and European allies .
But when I asked about Sanders withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea in coordination with Seoul as part of a process to eliminate North Korea ’ s nuclear-weapons program , Khanna didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether a President Sanders would retaliate militarily against Bashar al-Assad in Syria for using chemical weapons on civilians , as Trump did twice but Obama declined to do , Khanna said it was conceivable under the right conditions , but that Sanders “ may think that it wouldn ’ t actually save lives .
I think what he would focus on is , how do we get a cease-fire in Syria ?
How do we get regional partners to work towards a diplomatic solution that tries to end these civilian casualties ?
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to resort to military action ?
His advisers say an imminent threat to Americans would prompt him to do so .
He would also consider military intervention as a means of averting mass atrocities or addressing humanitarian crises abroad if it were blessed by Congress and a multinational coalition , and , as Duss put it , had “ a realistic chance of making the situation better at an acceptable cost.
” In practice , those would be high hurdles to clear .
( “ You don ’ t want to drone strike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” the comedian Hasan Minhaj recently inquired .
“ Yes , correct , ” Sanders confirmed . )

One’s a democratic socialist, and the other’s a right-wing nationalist. In many ways, their views on international affairs couldn’t be further apart. But in 2011, when the United States joined the NATO military campaign to protect civilians in Libya, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump initially seemed to support it. Then rebels murdered the country’s dictator, unleashing chaos that continues to this day. Nine years later, with Trump nearing the end of his first term as president and Sanders surging in the Democratic presidential primary, they appear to agree on something again. It’s difficult to imagine either of them authorizing a military campaign if confronted with a Libya-style crisis as commander in chief.
The shift underscores a central foreign-policy message of the 2020 presidential election: The days of the United States projecting power around the world primarily through its military are officially numbered. If the race pits Trump against Sanders, regardless of the outcome, the America that instinctively sent the cavalry to the rescue won’t be returning anytime soon.
This is the first U.S. presidential election to feature voters who were born after the Afghan War began. The “forever wars” in the Middle East have disillusioned younger generations in particular, who constitute a significant part of Sanders’s base. In different ways, both Trump and Sanders have seized on this despair. Central to the case they're making to voters is that as president, they would end these conflicts and refuse to have America serve as the world’s policeman.
Peter Beinart: It’s foreign policy that distinguishes Bernie this time
“Sanders will represent, like Trump, maybe in a more civilized way, a more sophisticated way, a more predictable way, the U.S. partially withdrawing from world affairs,” Gérard Araud, the former French ambassador to the United States, told me.
Many European officials consider Sanders “a left-wing isolationist,” Araud explained. They’re as “terrified” by the prospect of his presidency as of a second Trump term, because it would sow doubts about America’s continued commitment to NATO and sustaining the U.S.-led international system.
For many in the United States and the wider world, Sanders is a relative cipher on international affairs. But since his first presidential bid, in 2016, he has developed a serious set of foreign-policy views. What most distinguishes Sanders from past American presidents and some of his competitors in the Democratic primary are his rejection of U.S. military hegemony as a means of ensuring American security and prosperity, and his determination to wean the United States off its dependence on military solutions. What will likely frustrate those grand plans, just as they have Trump’s, are unanswered questions about how realistic they are, not least during a period when the United States will contend with a rising China and resurgent Russia.
Fears that a Sanders administration would be isolationist miss what the senator is proposing, Matt Duss, Sanders’s foreign-policy adviser, told me. “Just because it’s more restrained than the aggressive interventionism of the past 20 years, Bernie’s foreign-policy vision is mischaracterized as a withdrawal from the world,” he told me.
In the 1990s, “there was a belief, especially after the first Gulf War, that we were this unparalleled military power and could use our military to achieve pretty much anything,” and that conviction yielded the disastrous Iraq War, Duss said. A President Sanders would challenge the “deeply held belief in Washington” that “unless America is at the front of every parade, the world will fall into chaos.”
Ever since entering politics in the 1970s, Sanders has focused on America’s military blunders, be it CIA-sponsored coups in Iran and Chile or the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The stance stems from his view, consistent to this day, that his domestic political agenda is inextricably bound up in foreign policy—that runaway military spending is choking investments at home, and that corporate interests are corrupting American statecraft. He was also incensed about America’s Cold War–era crusades to overthrow leftist leaders, such as Ronald Reagan’s military support for rebels fighting Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. (As a Senate candidate for an anti-war party in 1974, he once went so far as to call for abolishing the CIA.)
In an effort to push back against U.S. politicians who romanticize America’s foreign policy, Sanders highlights the harm caused and unintended consequences unleashed by America’s regime-change efforts. But his reading of history is also skewed in the sense that he rarely acknowledges relatively measured and effective uses of force. And it has led him to downplay the faults of those he considers victims of American military imperialism. In the 1980s, when a constituent took issue with his support for Ortega despite his rollback of civil liberties, Sanders, then the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, responded that he was worried not about whether the Nicaraguan government was “good or bad” but whether “the United States has the unilateral right to go to war and destroy a government that President Reagan and members of Congress dislike.” He’s so scarred by U.S. aggression in Latin America that he now opposes the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw its recognition of authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, even though the move hasn’t involved military force.
When Sanders does praise American foreign-policy initiatives, they are of the nonmilitary variety: the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-ravaged Europe, the creation of the United Nations, the U.S.-led effort under Barack Obama to strike an agreement constraining Iran’s nuclear program. And they tend to cluster in the early years after World War II, just as his favorite prophet, Dwight Eisenhower, warned of the rise of the military-industrial complex and the corrosive influence it would have on the U.S. government’s conduct at home and abroad.
At times, Sanders seems to simply be selling a more progressive third Obama term, during which he would recommit to the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and finish extricating the U.S. from wars in the Middle East.
Viewing Sanders as merely an extension of Obama on foreign policy, however, elides the extent to which the senator says he would shun military power in favor of diplomatic and economic tools. It also overlooks Sanders’s pledge to exercise U.S. leadership in the world according to a new (if still hazy) set of progressive priorities, including combatting climate change, kleptocracy, inequality, authoritarianism, and far-right political movements. “Instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year collectively on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change,” Sanders suggested during last week’s Democratic debate.
It’s not that Sanders is a pacifist. He has occasionally supported U.S. military operations, including a NATO bombing campaign to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in the ’90s and the invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. But far more often, he has opposed not just military interventions, but militaristic thinking. He rejects what he considers the establishment’s shibboleths that seriousness in foreign policy is synonymous with a willingness to use force, and that force is more decisive than diplomacy.
The Sanders camp’s “evolving position” is that the United States should keep its core alliances in Europe and Asia while withdrawing militarily from the Middle East, Daniel Nexon, a scholar of progressive foreign policy, told me.
Read: Bernie Sanders’s secret weapon
Duss said that Sanders would aim to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria “by the end of his first term,” and repeal Congress’s vague 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force. “We’ve watched as successive presidents have been maneuvered into staying and sending more troops, and we’re committed to avoiding that,” Duss told me. Of course, that’s also what Obama and Trump said before confronting the challenge of leaving dangerous vacuums and squandering U.S. influence in these conflict zones.
Duss contrasted his boss’s tactics and Trump’s, noting that Sanders would consult with allies and not announce changes to America’s overseas military presence “by tweet” or “treat the United States military as a paid mercenary force.” But he didn’t necessarily distinguish between their strategic objectives.
“There are real questions about the cost of maintaining these huge military presences in some of these places, so we’re definitely interested in thinking hard about whether we can reduce the number of troops in these places and still meet these [security] commitments we’ve made to these partners,” he said, when I asked about U.S. troops stationed in countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Germany. “Economically, it’s not really sustainable in the long term.”
Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman and national co-chair of the Sanders campaign, told me that he expected a Sanders administration to continue deploying military assets to protect the “freedom of the seas” in the Persian Gulf and waters surrounding China and to “maintain some [troop] presence” in the territory of Asian and European allies.
But when I asked about Sanders withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea in coordination with Seoul as part of a process to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program, Khanna didn’t rule it out. And as for whether a President Sanders would retaliate militarily against Bashar al-Assad in Syria for using chemical weapons on civilians, as Trump did twice but Obama declined to do, Khanna said it was conceivable under the right conditions, but that Sanders “may think that it wouldn’t actually save lives. I think what he would focus on is, how do we get a cease-fire in Syria? How do we get regional partners to work towards a diplomatic solution that tries to end these civilian casualties?”
So what would it take for Sanders to resort to military action? His advisers say an imminent threat to Americans would prompt him to do so. He would also consider military intervention as a means of averting mass atrocities or addressing humanitarian crises abroad if it were blessed by Congress and a multinational coalition, and, as Duss put it, had “a realistic chance of making the situation better at an acceptable cost.” In practice, those would be high hurdles to clear. (“You don’t want to drone strike every brown country into the Stone Ages,” the comedian Hasan Minhaj recently inquired. “Yes, correct,” Sanders confirmed.)
Khanna added that Sanders might still be willing to take out terrorist leaders under a new and and more restrictive authorization of military force. But that wouldn’t apply to targeting state actors such as Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was recently killed on Trump’s orders. “You cannot go around saying, ‘You’re a bad guy; we’re going to assassinate you,’” Sanders explained during last week’s Democratic debate.
The senator has also vowed to get congressional authorization for any new military conflicts. If he honors that promise, it would effectively make U.S. military interventions highly unlikely during his presidency.
The Sanders campaign has not offered specifics about how his administration would slash military spending to free up resources for its alternative priorities, other than conducting a systematic review of the defense budget when he enters office. Nor has it detailed how it would shepherd those reductions through a resistant Congress while mitigating the economic fallout. In reality, the changes might not live up to the political revolution that Sanders says he’ll bring about. When I asked Khanna whether Sanders would advocate lowering defense-funding levels by hundreds of billions of dollars to that of the world’s second-largest military spender, China, he said he expected the decline to be more modest. “It would certainly get back to the Obama level,” he noted.
As the Brookings scholar Thomas Wright wrote in The Atlantic, progressive presidential candidates such as Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have yet to express a willingness to make the radical changes—exiting the NATO alliance, for example, or permitting U.S. allies to acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves—that the less-militarized foreign policy they envision would require. “It is possible that Sanders and Warren find themselves stuck between the mainstream national-security worldview they have articulated and their aspirations to opt out of geopolitical competition and military interventions,” he noted. The question is just how far a President Sanders would really be willing to go in doing less militarily, especially outside the Middle East.
Trump loves boasting about how he’s built up the most powerful military in the history of the world, but he’s shown little interest in, as he put it during this year’s State of the Union address, using it to “serve other nations as a law-enforcement agency.” Even as he’s poured record sums of money into the U.S. military and launched limited strikes against America’s enemies, Trump has been just as amenable as Sanders to rethinking military interventionism and the country’s global military presence.
As Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and onetime candidate to be Trump’s national security adviser, told me recently, “Trump came to office understanding that he was at a strategic inflection point” and that “there was reason to question the wisdom of distributing U.S. armed forces all over the world in 800 bases.”
Read: The problem at the core of progressive foreign policy
But in what should be a chastening lesson for the Sanders campaign, the president has struggled to implement his vision. He’s announced plans to withdraw forces from Syria and Afghanistan—only to reverse course amid an outcry in Washington, dispatch thousands more soldiers to the Middle East, and nearly engage in all-out war with Iran. His demands that South Korea, Japan, and European nations vastly increase their financial contributions to their U.S. military alliances have run into stiff resistance from those partners and Congress, though they have spurred NATO members to up their defense spending by billions of dollars.
“Even with how disruptive Trump has been, he’s mostly been able to freak out people and make them question U.S. commitments and U.S. resolve,” Nexon, who informally advised the Sanders campaign in 2016, said. “But how much has he changed on the ground?”
One thing that has changed is that allies are already hedging against the erosion of U.S. military alliances, whether it’s Japan acquiring new military capabilities or European nations discussing new forms of shared nuclear deterrence.
Some U.S. allies may welcome a Sanders administration over the chaos of the Trump years. “I think [Sanders] can come up with a more coherent, credible, and predictable U.S. foreign policy, albeit inward-looking,” one official with a U.S.-allied government, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the 2020 election, told me. “What we need from the U.S. is coherence and credibility.” Other allies, particularly those whose relationships with Trump have not been rocky, will feel differently.
“When Trump keeps asking, ‘Why do we defend Europe?’ he has a point,” Araud observed. What’s in question now for future American presidents is the very “definition of the American national interest.”
That questioning, in truth, started well before Trump. Araud recalled that when the Europeans were pressing the Obama administration to intervene in Libya back in 2011, he received a call from Susan Rice when they were representing France and the United States, respectively, at the United Nations. “You are not going to bring us into your shitty war,” he remembers Rice telling him. But eventually, Obama caved. Trump and Sanders seem determined to not do the same.


Nevertheless, She’s Undecided

There is a lot of pressure , then , on the voters of the Granite State .
And there is a nonzero chance that King , despite her almost unparalleled access to the candidates , may walk into the voting booth this afternoon without knowing whom she ’ s voting for .
I talked with King yesterday about that pressure , a weight felt by thousands of undecided voters across the state .
Our interview has been edited for length and clarity .
Elaine Godfrey : Walk me through your political involvement this year .
Which candidates have you met @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Ron , and I have ] hosted 12 candidates in our home this year , starting a year ago when Cory Booker came and 120 people showed up—with six days ’ notice—during the holidays on a Saturday night .
When we get that many people , a candidate ’ s staff has to help take our furniture out to the garage to accommodate them .
Obama was at our house when he first ran , and Howard Dean was here when he ran a long time ago .
It ’ s the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is not the norm that there are so many undecided—us included .
The reason that I haven ’ t decided—and many of our friends say the same thing—is that there are so many good candidates .
So it ’ s a good reason .
When I ’ m asked what I think of the candidates , I describe them [ as making up ] one perfect person .
Godfrey : You held an event at your house a couple of weeks ago for undecided voters to hear from Buttigieg supporters .
Tell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hirshberg , who started Stonyfield yogurt , and Jennifer Frizzell , who ’ s very big in policy , are both supporting Pete Buttigieg .
They asked us [ if they could ] come to our house and meet with undecided voters .
We put out word to our very long list of people , probably 150 or 200 people , and said we were having that event .
People came just to hear why they were supporting him .
Godfrey : What did you hear from voters there ?
Were people worried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I haven ’ t seen people terribly stressed .
I ’ ve seen them a little nervous .
It ’ s like when you ’ re in college , and your paper ’ s due tomorrow .
I don ’ t know if people are going to pull all-nighters … Godfrey : How about your own decision-making process ?
How are you thinking about all of this ?
King : When I start , I always keep an open mind .
I didn ’ t think my mind would be open at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radio a couple of months ago talking about undecided voters and they called and said , ‘ Do you wan na come back ?
’ I said , ‘ My list has gotten longer instead of shorter.
’ The story we tell about my husband is , he thought he was really narrowing down and then more candidates came to our house .
Ron ’ s response was : ‘ Damn it !
’ Godfrey : Who has impressed you most ?
King : I have to say , this really sounds sort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they have been gracious .
They ’ ve been fun .
We do all the cooking [ at our events ] .
I was brought up Jewish , and I make a dish called noodle kugel .
The only time I make it is for candidates .
What happens is , I put a sign out that says , “ Our experience is that if the candidate takes a bite of the kugel , they win something.
” I [ also ] put out a disclaimer saying I really apologize to Howard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it [ to him ] and see what happened ?
I think Obama had kugel for the first time here .

How one deeply engaged New Hampshire voter still hasn’t figured out whom to vote for: “It’s like when you’re in college, and your paper’s due tomorrow”
Gerri King has never felt so unsure.
At this point in a Democratic presidential primary, the 77-year-old consultant has always had a favorite candidate. She’ll have observed him or her intently over coffee and dessert at her home in Concord, New Hampshire—where she receives most of the contenders every four years at her well-attended house parties and luncheons—and she’ll have made careful note of how they respond to questions from her friends and neighbors. Once she’s convinced of a particular candidate’s abilities, she’ll have begun to fervently campaign for him or her.
That’s how it went with Barack Obama in 2008, and with Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this time around, with just hours to go until the New Hampshire primary, a final decision has eluded her. There are just too many good options, King told me. “I feel like I’m foreign to myself,” she said. “I used to think, when people would say [they were undecided], How could you not know by now? Well, now I know how you can not know!”
The primary is still bloated with candidates, and the muddled results from last week’s messy Iowa caucus did not help much to narrow the field. That makes today’s election in New Hampshire even more fraught. A victory for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, for example, would help cement his front-runner status, and a win for Pete Buttigieg would show that the former mayor’s success in Iowa wasn’t an aberration. How Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Vice President Joe Biden perform here could make or break their campaigns.
There is a lot of pressure, then, on the voters of the Granite State. And there is a nonzero chance that King, despite her almost unparalleled access to the candidates, may walk into the voting booth this afternoon without knowing whom she’s voting for. I talked with King yesterday about that pressure, a weight felt by thousands of undecided voters across the state. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Elaine Godfrey: Walk me through your political involvement this year. Which candidates have you met?
Gerri King: [My husband, Ron, and I have] hosted 12 candidates in our home this year, starting a year ago when Cory Booker came and 120 people showed up—with six days’ notice—during the holidays on a Saturday night. When we get that many people, a candidate’s staff has to help take our furniture out to the garage to accommodate them. Obama was at our house when he first ran, and Howard Dean was here when he ran a long time ago.
It’s the norm here that we see candidates. It is not the norm that there are so many undecided—us included. The reason that I haven’t decided—and many of our friends say the same thing—is that there are so many good candidates. So it’s a good reason. When I’m asked what I think of the candidates, I describe them [as making up] one perfect person.
Godfrey: You held an event at your house a couple of weeks ago for undecided voters to hear from Buttigieg supporters. Tell me about that.
King: Gary Hirshberg, who started Stonyfield yogurt, and Jennifer Frizzell, who’s very big in policy, are both supporting Pete Buttigieg. They asked us [if they could] come to our house and meet with undecided voters. We put out word to our very long list of people, probably 150 or 200 people, and said we were having that event. People came just to hear why they were supporting him.
Godfrey: What did you hear from voters there? Were people worried about still being undecided?
King: I haven’t seen people terribly stressed. I’ve seen them a little nervous. It’s like when you’re in college, and your paper’s due tomorrow. I don’t know if people are going to pull all-nighters …
Godfrey: How about your own decision-making process? How are you thinking about all of this?
King: When I start, I always keep an open mind. I didn’t think my mind would be open at this point! I was on NHPR public radio a couple of months ago talking about undecided voters and they called and said, ‘Do you wanna come back?’ I said, ‘My list has gotten longer instead of shorter.’
The story we tell about my husband is, he thought he was really narrowing down and then more candidates came to our house. Ron’s response was: ‘Damn it!’
Godfrey: Who has impressed you most?
King: I have to say, this really sounds sort of silly, but to a candidate, they have been gracious. They’ve been fun. We do all the cooking [at our events]. I was brought up Jewish, and I make a dish called noodle kugel. The only time I make it is for candidates. What happens is, I put a sign out that says, “Our experience is that if the candidate takes a bite of the kugel, they win something.” I [also] put out a disclaimer saying I really apologize to Howard Dean because I didn’t serve it [to him] and see what happened? I think Obama had kugel for the first time here.
Godfrey: Do you have a top three right now at least?
King: A top seven! I certainly like Pete. I like Warren. I think Amy [Klobuchar] is great. Biden is probably the most experienced. I also really like what Tom Steyer is brave enough to say. Because we’re a neighboring state, we kept up with [Deval Patrick] as governor of Massachusetts, and he’s terrific. He is really good.
Read: Deval Patrick’s righteous anger
Godfrey: Are you picking someone based on electability? On their ability to turn out voters? What are your concerns as you’re deciding?
King: It’s their leading potential. I’m often asked if I think various candidates are electable. My response is to remind everybody that we did not think Obama would win, because he was a man of color, and we sure as hell didn’t think Trump would win. I think we have no way of knowing who is electable. I can’t use it as criteria anymore.
I used to base it on how people felt about particular issues. In this case, although they have various ways of getting there, they all agree. Health care, how we’re treating immigrants, climate are very high on my list. That’s part of the reason it’s hard to decide! I can’t separate it by issues.
Godfrey: What does it feel like to have the eyes of the country on you?
King: One of the reasons people are undecided—a much larger percentage than there ever has been in New Hampshire—is we feel a responsibility. What happens here does matter and has mattered in past elections. So, yes, in addition to my making a choice, it does feel like a responsibility to the process. I haven’t met a single person who hasn’t said [they] will work tirelessly for whomever gets the nomination. That’s not the issue. The issue is: Who do I choose on Tuesday?
Godfrey: It’s not like Iowa, where you could go into a caucus undecided and be convinced. You have to know going in that you’re going to cast a vote for someone.
King: You walk in and you have to check somebody. I’ve never been in this situation, and I’ve been doing this for decades. I’ve always known. I’m [usually] out canvassing and making phone calls; I’m helping train other people to do those kinds of things. It’s been very strange not to be out there.
Godfrey: Were you hoping that Iowa was going to help you make this decision by shaping the field more?
King: That never occurred to me, and it never has. I’ve usually known by the time Iowa happens who I’m supporting. It never even entered my mind.
Read: What went wrong at the Iowa caucus
Godfrey: The turnout in Iowa was roughly at 2016 levels, which is not what Democrats were anticipating. Do you expect a low turnout in New Hampshire?
King: I’m probably the wrong one to ask, because every single person I know will vote. Concord traditionally has very high turnout. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t voted. I don’t meet people who don’t vote.
Godfrey: What are you going to be doing between now and tomorrow when you go vote? How are you going to narrow it down?
King: In a couple of minutes, I’m going to go deliver a speech, a professional speech. I’m working in between. We’ve been asked to be on CNN this afternoon. And I’ve been asked to be on Fox on Tuesday.
I go to sleep thinking about the election, and I wake up thinking about it. And in between, I think about it.
Godfrey: But how are you going to do it? You’ll just end up making a decision at some point in the day tomorrow?
King: I think I will, yeah. I feel like I’m foreign to myself! I used to think, when people would say [that], How could you not know by now? Well, now I know how you can not know!
Godfrey: I just can’t believe how cheerful you sound. This is a high-pressure situation—I think I’d be more stressed.
King: [Laughs] Because with all the pressure, there is an enormous amount of excitement. It is such a kick. It is really hard to explain to people what fun this is. I’ve had people say, ‘Oh, I could never stand going to all those events.’ The people we talk to couldn’t stand not going! It’s become part of our process and our life.
Godfrey: Is there a chance that you walk into the voting booth tomorrow and still don’t know, and just have to make a decision then and there?
King: I hope not. I guess I won’t know until tomorrow, and by then it’ll be too late for your article!


theatlantic--2020-02-11--Elizabeth Warren’s Last Stand

Elizabeth Warren’s Last Stand

Read : Elizabeth Warren doesn ’ t want to be Hillary 2.0 Warren built her campaign on a fast-paced rollout of detailed plans—plans to break up Big Tech , provide debt relief to Puerto Rico , cancel student loans , tax the wealth of the uber-rich , and institute Medicare for All .
But as the Democratic field winnowed in the fall , she pivoted to the argument she believed might matter most to voters : that she is the candidate who can unite the Democratic Party and defeat Donald Trump .
In order to be the unity candidate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more delegates ; where she finishes in New Hampshire will have a significant impact on how long she can stay in the race .
When Reyes began door-knocking on her behalf in August , Warren was polling at 15 percent in the state , within the margin of error of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont , and eight points behind former Vice President Joe Biden , according to FiveThirtyEight .
By the middle of October , her support had ballooned to nearly 27 percent—positioning her as a front-runner both in New Hampshire and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s precipitous slide , the steadying of the Sanders campaign , and a resurgent Buttigieg candidacy .
The Warren campaign sounded the alarm late in December that it might miss its quarterly fundraising target , before recovering to finish with $ 21.2 million in the fourth quarter— $ 3 million shy of her previous mark , and $ 13 million less than the Sanders campaign .
That news , however , was blunted by the endorsement of her onetime primary opponent Julián Castro .
Onstage at the debate , moderator Linsey Davis pressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrests in South Bend when he was mayor .
He dodged the question , reverting to an answer focused on a larger discussion of systematic racism .
Davis turned to Warren and asked whether Buttigieg ’ s answer was sufficient .
“ Oh !
” one person at the Manchester watch party exclaimed .
“ Looks like that was her moment , ” Jerold Paulson , a 60-year-old IT professional and Warren supporter who had traveled up from Washington , D.C. , to canvass for her , leaned over and told me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ people had started to trickle out with an hour still left in the debate .
I asked Reyes if what she had seen up to that point was enough to sway voters .
“ No , ” she said .
“ The people who tune in are the ones who already care.
” Candidates ping-ponged around the state on Saturday as snow flurried off and on , before finally arriving at the week ’ s capstone event : the New Hampshire Democratic Party ’ s annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100-Club Dinner .
Outside of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporters shouted warring chants .
“ BOOT-EDGE-EDGE !
” and “ BERNIE !
BERNIE !
” and Warren ’ s signature “ DREAM BIG , FIGHT HARD !
” Some Bernie supporters handed out hot chocolate .

MANCHESTER, N.H.—Inside a local brewery here, dozens of Elizabeth Warren supporters refused to believe this all might be over soon. Sipping craft beer (or seltzer water), these Warren diehards gathered, in some cases, to simply be near one another. Ten miles away, in Goffstown, seven Democratic candidates would soon debate at St. Anselm College. The low hum of conversation broke for remarks by Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, one of Warren’s regional surrogates. “We have a couple days left,” he told the room. “We can win this.”
At a table near the back of the bar, I met Christine Reyes, an assistant professor at Colby-Sawyer College, in nearby New London. She’d been knocking on doors for Warren since August, and conceded that she was just happy to have a night out. (Her husband was home watching their 1-year-old.) “A lot of my co-workers don’t like to really talk about who they’re supporting,” Reyes told me. She said that she only recently began to notice Warren signs in her neighborhood—or any campaign signs, for that matter. “But, I feel good. We’re top four,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”
That night, Friday, coming off a third-place finish in the muddled Iowa caucus, Warren was hardly the star of the debate. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg received the front-runner treatment (in the form of attacks) and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota boasted the most post-debate momentum after a strong performance, raising $2.5 million in 24 hours. But Warren—who seems most likely to appeal to white college-educated voters, which New Hampshire has more than its fair share of—needs a strong finish in this first primary if she hopes to win the nomination. If her strategy is going to work anywhere, it’s going to work here. But what if it doesn’t?
Read: Elizabeth Warren doesn’t want to be Hillary 2.0
Warren built her campaign on a fast-paced rollout of detailed plans—plans to break up Big Tech, provide debt relief to Puerto Rico, cancel student loans, tax the wealth of the uber-rich, and institute Medicare for All. But as the Democratic field winnowed in the fall, she pivoted to the argument she believed might matter most to voters: that she is the candidate who can unite the Democratic Party and defeat Donald Trump.
In order to be the unity candidate, though, Warren has to start amassing more delegates; where she finishes in New Hampshire will have a significant impact on how long she can stay in the race. When Reyes began door-knocking on her behalf in August, Warren was polling at 15 percent in the state, within the margin of error of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and eight points behind former Vice President Joe Biden, according to FiveThirtyEight. By the middle of October, her support had ballooned to nearly 27 percent—positioning her as a front-runner both in New Hampshire and nationwide.
But then came Warren’s precipitous slide, the steadying of the Sanders campaign, and a resurgent Buttigieg candidacy. The Warren campaign sounded the alarm late in December that it might miss its quarterly fundraising target, before recovering to finish with $21.2 million in the fourth quarter—$3 million shy of her previous mark, and $13 million less than the Sanders campaign. That news, however, was blunted by the endorsement of her onetime primary opponent Julián Castro.
Onstage at the debate, moderator Linsey Davis pressed Buttigieg on the racial disparity in marijuana arrests in South Bend when he was mayor. He dodged the question, reverting to an answer focused on a larger discussion of systematic racism. Davis turned to Warren and asked whether Buttigieg’s answer was sufficient.
“No,” Warren replied.
“Oh!” one person at the Manchester watch party exclaimed. “Looks like that was her moment,” Jerold Paulson, a 60-year-old IT professional and Warren supporter who had traveled up from Washington, D.C., to canvass for her, leaned over and told me.
It was about 10 p.m., and people had started to trickle out with an hour still left in the debate. I asked Reyes if what she had seen up to that point was enough to sway voters. “No,” she said. “The people who tune in are the ones who already care.”
Candidates ping-ponged around the state on Saturday as snow flurried off and on, before finally arriving at the week’s capstone event: the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100-Club Dinner. Outside of the Southern New Hampshire University arena, freezing supporters shouted warring chants. “BOOT-EDGE-EDGE!” and “BERNIE! BERNIE!” and Warren’s signature “DREAM BIG, FIGHT HARD!” Some Bernie supporters handed out hot chocolate.
Read: The activist left already knows who it wants for president
Inside the arena, luminaries of the state’s Democratic Party and other liberal notables—former New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, the filmmaker Michael Moore—were seated around a stage, wearing formal attire and eating dinner. Meanwhile, in the stands, supporters of each candidate had joined together in different sections with signs, lights, and noisemakers in a test of organizing might. Warren appeared to have the largest group of fans.
I met Matt Gatzke as he was walking into Buttigieg’s area. The 61-year-old trade-association manager had just recently decided to support the former mayor; though he told me he was still interested in Warren and Klobuchar. He said his neighbors are merely looking for “strong leadership.” But he worries about enthusiasm generally in the state. “I still run into too many people who say, ‘Oh, I’m just not going to vote, because it doesn’t make any difference.’” He brushes off that mentality. “You need to get involved in the process and see how much influence you can have,” he told me.
Each candidate had about 10 minutes to address the crowd. Buttigieg was assailed with chants of “Wall Street Pete” from the Sanders section as he spoke, and was the only candidate to receive boos. Biden, who has presented himself as the most electable candidate, had a dimly lit sliver of supporters sandwiched between two Warren contingents. In an arena where applause was currency, his account was low on funds.
When she took the stage, Warren got the crowd to its feet. “It was three years ago yesterday that Mitch McConnell pitched me off the floor of the United States Senate for reading a letter from Coretta Scott King,” she began. The statement McConnell made about Warren became a rallying cry—one that “women had tattooed on their bodies,” she said: “Nevertheless, she persisted.” Her campaign started with a fight; it will be one until the end.
Warren did something few of the other candidates did Saturday night: She got supporters in every candidate’s section to clap for her. “There are a lot of people who talk about what races aren’t winnable or what kind of people can’t win,” she told the room. “The way I see it, they’re gonna keep saying that right up until we get in the fight, we persist, and we win.”


theatlantic--2020-02-11--The Atlantic Politics Daily: The Plight of the Undecided Voter

3 .
New Hampshire voters also take their special position in the Democratic primary seriously .
And for one voter in the state who is still ( ! )
undecided , that ’ s a lot of pressure : “ It ’ s like when you ’ re in college , and your paper ’ s due tomorrow , ” she told Elaine Godfrey .
Her list of favorites has narrowed to a manageable … seven or so candidates .
4 .
The state ’ s special position is under more scrutiny than ever .
New Hampshire looks nothing like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Democratic Party whose members are disproportionately nonwhite .
If the winner of the state goes on to lose to Donald Trump , could New Hampshire lose its coveted status ?
1.
“ If Republicans want black votes , their strategy should be simple : End racial segregation.
” President Trump has been wooing African Americans of late , but these gestures won ’ t do all that much to win over black voters , Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird argue .
2 .
“ Perhaps there could be a North @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and West Massachusetts .
A new state of Long Island … would be more populous than most of the presently existing states.
” It ’ s not a stretch to argue that American presidential elections are undemocratic : Two of the past three presidents have received fewer votes than their opponents , and Republicans have been able to take control of Congress even when winning fewer total votes than Democrats .
But the way to address minority rule isn ’ t reversible legislation ; it ’ s carving out more states , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indeed , anyone charged with defending the Constitution is morally and legally bound to disobey an illegal order.
” The president and his generals have often disagreed , but what happens when those military officers sworn to defend the Constitution must defy a presidential order ?
The military isn ’ t ready for that kind of crisis , one former U.S. navy pilot writes .
What would President Sanders do ?
Our staff writer Uri Friedman , who covers national security and global affairs , explored what a Bernie Sanders presidency mean for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world .
“ Isolationist , ” one frequent assumption about Sanders , certainly isn ’ t the right label .
Many European officials consider Sanders “ a left-wing isolationist , ” Gérard Araud , the former French ambassador to the United States , explained .
They ’ re as “ terrified ” by the prospect of his presidency as of a second Trump term , because it would sow doubts about America ’ s continued commitment to NATO and sustaining the U.S.-led international system .
For many in the United States and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cipher on international affairs .
But since his first presidential bid , in 2016 , he has developed a serious set of foreign-policy views .
Today ’ s newsletter was written by Saahil Desai , an editor on the Politics desk , and Christian Paz , a Politics fellow .
It ’ s edited by Shan Wang , who oversees newsletters .
You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments , or send a note to politicsdaily @ theatlantic.com .
Your support makes our journalism possible .
Subscribe here .

New Hampshire votes. For some (still!) undecided voters, “it’s like when you’re in college, and your paper’s due tomorrow.” Plus: The Sanders doctrine.
It’s Tuesday, February 11. In today’s newsletter: New Hampshire votes. For some (still) undecided voters, “it’s like when you’re in college, and your paper’s due tomorrow.” Plus: The Sanders doctrine.
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(DREW ANGERER / GETTY)
Live free or try (to vote for a favorite Democratic candidate).
Voters in libertarian-ish New Hampshire headed to the polls today—and unlike last week’s historic blunder of an Iowa caucus—there won’t be a faulty app or byzantine vote-counting rules to mess up an influential early primary. Though the entire state has about as many people in it than say, the greater Richmond, Virginia area, it plays an outsize role in shaping the narrative of the rest of the 2020 race.
Here are some key factors to watch for as you wait for the final tallies.
1. Is Warren nearing the end of the road? Last fall, Elizabeth Warren was steadily rising in the polls, positioning herself as the candidate to beat come primary night. But now that day is here, and Warren is closer to an afterthought than to being the frontrunner. Read my colleague Adam Harris reporting from Manchester on Warren’s last stand.
2. Bernie Sanders is the runaway favorite to prevail tonight (take a spin in the time machine and read our piece about his 2016 victory in the state). The continued Sanders rise could be a dream scenario for one other Democratic candidate in particular.
3. New Hampshire voters also take their special position in the Democratic primary seriously. And for one voter in the state who is still (!) undecided, that’s a lot of pressure: “It’s like when you’re in college, and your paper’s due tomorrow,” she told Elaine Godfrey. Her list of favorites has narrowed to a manageable … seven or so candidates.
4. The state’s special position is under more scrutiny than ever. New Hampshire looks nothing like America as a whole, let alone a Democratic Party whose members are disproportionately nonwhite. If the winner of the state goes on to lose to Donald Trump, could New Hampshire lose its coveted status?
—Saahil Desai
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(EVAN VUCCI / AP)
1.“If Republicans want black votes, their strategy should be simple: End racial segregation.”
President Trump has been wooing African Americans of late, but these gestures won’t do all that much to win over black voters, Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird argue.
2. “Perhaps there could be a North and South California, or an East and West Massachusetts. A new state of Long Island … would be more populous than most of the presently existing states.”
It’s not a stretch to argue that American presidential elections are undemocratic: Two of the past three presidents have received fewer votes than their opponents, and Republicans have been able to take control of Congress even when winning fewer total votes than Democrats. But the way to address minority rule isn’t reversible legislation; it’s carving out more states, this Minnesota-based attorney argues.
3. “Indeed, anyone charged with defending the Constitution is morally and legally bound to disobey an illegal order.”
The president and his generals have often disagreed, but what happens when those military officers sworn to defend the Constitution must defy a presidential order? The military isn’t ready for that kind of crisis, one former U.S. navy pilot writes.
*
« EVENING READ »
(SCOTT OLSON / GETTY / KATIE MARTIN / THE ATLANTIC)
The Sanders Doctrine
What would President Sanders do? Our staff writer Uri Friedman, who covers national security and global affairs, explored what a Bernie Sanders presidency mean for America’s military presence in the world.
“Isolationist,” one frequent assumption about Sanders, certainly isn’t the right label.
Many European officials consider Sanders “a left-wing isolationist,” Gérard Araud, the former French ambassador to the United States, explained. They’re as “terrified” by the prospect of his presidency as of a second Trump term, because it would sow doubts about America’s continued commitment to NATO and sustaining the U.S.-led international system. For many in the United States and the wider world, Sanders is a relative cipher on international affairs. But since his first presidential bid, in 2016, he has developed a serious set of foreign-policy views.
Read the rest.
*


theatlantic--2020-02-11--The Night Socialism Went Mainstream

The Night Socialism Went Mainstream

More recently , Sanders has argued that the U.S. is already “ a socialist society ” that redistributes national wealth to corporations through tax breaks and subsidies .
“ The difference between my socialism and Trump ’ s socialism is , I believe the government should help working families , not billionaires , ” he said on Fox News Sunday .
In claiming his victory on Tuesday night , Sanders made no mention of democratic socialism .
Still , it ’ s clear that Sanders is more comfortable with the term than even some of his top backers , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liability has actually passed .
“ He can call himself whatever he wants .
For most of his supporters , we are not democratic socialists , ” Larry Cohen , the chairman of Our Revolution , the progressive organization that spun out of Sanders ’ s 2016 campaign , told me .
“ We don ’ t use the term , and we don ’ t use the term because it doesn ’ t do any good .
Again , my friends in DSA would disagree with that .
I don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I asked Cohen whether Sanders should disavow the phrase , he replied : “ I think that would come off as disingenuous.
” Republicans have indicated that they plan to target Sanders ’ s socialist label aggressively if he ’ s the nominee .
They ’ ve already begun attacking Democratic congressional candidates whom they lump together with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York , another progressive who has identified as a democratic socialist .
Trump , however , has already gone a step further in trying to tar Sanders ’ s ideology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s a communist , ” the president told Fox News ’ s Sean Hannity in a pre–Super Bowl interview .
“ I think of communism when I think of Bernie .
You could say socialist , but didn ’ t he get married in Moscow ?
” ( Sanders did not get married in Moscow , but he and Jane Sanders did take their honeymoon in the Soviet Union in 1988 . )
While some Republicans , including the president , may salivate at the prospect of facing Sanders in November @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is alarming to conservatives who fear that the concept they have spent their entire professional life trying to discredit is suddenly catching hold again .
“ I view it as really dangerous , ” David McIntosh , the president of the conservative Club for Growth , told me about the prospect of Sanders winning the nomination .
“ Don ’ t assume that if Bernie gets the nomination , it ’ s a layup and you ’ re going to beat him .
All of us have to redouble our efforts.
” In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump to win the GOP nomination on the grounds that he would be an easy opponent in the fall .
Conservatives should not make the same mistake with Sanders , McIntosh told me .
As for socialism , he acknowledged that the term was not as resonant with voters as it was during the height of the Cold War .
“ Is it enough to just say socialism is bad ?
” he asked .
“ We do have to explain to the American people why it ’ s bad , why we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We need to do a better job of that .
Bernie hopefully will be a wake-up call to all of us on the conservative side as well .
”

It has taken a single week for Senator Bernie Sanders to achieve a distinction that eluded him for the entirety of his underdog campaign four years ago: The 78-year-old democratic socialist from Vermont is now, at least for the moment, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president.
Sanders’s victory tonight in the New Hampshire primary, combined with his strong finish last week in Iowa and a bounce in national polling, places him firmly at the top of the Democratic field as the nomination race heads to Nevada and South Carolina. He has benefited from a split in the moderate vote, as a late surge from Senator Amy Klobuchar slowed the momentum of Sanders’s closest New Hampshire rival, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s second consecutive lackluster result could threaten his firewall in South Carolina, where Sanders was on the rise and cutting into Biden’s lead among its crucial constituency of African American voters.
But the significance of Sanders’s standing in the race goes far beyond the next round of primaries. In the modern history of American politics, no candidate so firmly planted on the left has been so well positioned to capture the nomination of the Democratic Party. Sanders has won election after election in Vermont as an independent, regularly declining the label of the party he now seeks to lead. His rise to the top of a field filled with more mainstream candidates could point to an important shift in the electorate. In Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders’s talk of revolution overtook Biden’s pleas for a return to normalcy in the age of Donald Trump, and with his platform representing a kind of untainted progressive purity, the oldest white candidate on the ballot prevailed—albeit narrowly—over a plethora of younger, more diverse options.
Yet none of the transformative policies Sanders has proposed—a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and debt-free college the most notable among them—embody the change he represents as much as the label he proudly carries: democratic socialist. It’s a term Republicans have weaponized against liberals so frequently that most Democratic politicians simply reject the tag out of hand. Sanders does not, and his success frightens establishment Democrats who worry that the socialism label remains a potent pejorative among the swing voters they’ll need to defeat President Trump in key battlegrounds this fall. On the day after Iowa’s caucuses, Trump devoted an entire section of his State of the Union address to a warning against the advance of socialism, while Biden spent his final days in New Hampshire cautioning that Sanders’s “democratic socialist” label would bring down Democrats running alongside him on November’s ballot.
Neither attack worked, and to Sanders’s supporters, his surge to the top is evidence that socialism as an epithet has lost its sting. “If you look at the history of this country and the left, there have been times when our ideas have been popular and millions of working people have stood up for them,” Maria Svart, the national director of the Sanders-backing Democratic Socialists of America, told me. “And I think the time is coming again for us to do that.
“The socialist bogeyman idea,” she continued, “has been used for decades to prevent people from bringing up alternative ideas, and Bernie winning validates our ideas and demonstrates that people, especially young people, are willing to confront capitalism.”
David Frum: Bernie can’t win
The recent evidence for whether Sanders’s identity as a democratic socialist would hurt him in a general-election matchup with Trump is mixed. He fared no worse against the president when pollsters identified him as a socialist in a survey conducted by the progressive group Data for Progress. But socialism remained broadly unpopular in a poll released last month by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal: Just 19 percent of respondents said they had a positive view of socialism, compared with 53 percent who held a negative view. That was roughly the inverse of how people in the poll felt about capitalism.
Rather than renounce the term, he has sought in both of his presidential campaigns to define it as part of a “quintessentially American” tradition, a descendant of mainstream liberals such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr. (who were also demonized by their opponents as socialists while they were alive). “We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights,” Sanders said in a speech in June. “That is what I mean by democratic socialism.”
More recently, Sanders has argued that the U.S. is already “a socialist society” that redistributes national wealth to corporations through tax breaks and subsidies. “The difference between my socialism and Trump’s socialism is, I believe the government should help working families, not billionaires,” he said on Fox News Sunday.
In claiming his victory on Tuesday night, Sanders made no mention of democratic socialism. Still, it’s clear that Sanders is more comfortable with the term than even some of his top backers, who wonder whether its time as a political liability has actually passed. “He can call himself whatever he wants. For most of his supporters, we are not democratic socialists,” Larry Cohen, the chairman of Our Revolution, the progressive organization that spun out of Sanders’s 2016 campaign, told me. “We don’t use the term, and we don’t use the term because it doesn’t do any good. Again, my friends in DSA would disagree with that. I don’t think the term is helpful.”
When I asked Cohen whether Sanders should disavow the phrase, he replied: “I think that would come off as disingenuous.”
Read: The 2020 Democrats all have the same problem
Republicans have indicated that they plan to target Sanders’s socialist label aggressively if he’s the nominee. They’ve already begun attacking Democratic congressional candidates whom they lump together with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, another progressive who has identified as a democratic socialist. Trump, however, has already gone a step further in trying to tar Sanders’s ideology as fundamentally un-American. “I think he’s a communist,” the president told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in a pre–Super Bowl interview. “I think of communism when I think of Bernie. You could say socialist, but didn’t he get married in Moscow?” (Sanders did not get married in Moscow, but he and Jane Sanders did take their honeymoon in the Soviet Union in 1988.)
While some Republicans, including the president, may salivate at the prospect of facing Sanders in November, his rise within the Democratic Party is alarming to conservatives who fear that the concept they have spent their entire professional life trying to discredit is suddenly catching hold again. “I view it as really dangerous,” David McIntosh, the president of the conservative Club for Growth, told me about the prospect of Sanders winning the nomination. “Don’t assume that if Bernie gets the nomination, it’s a layup and you’re going to beat him. All of us have to redouble our efforts.”
In 2016, many Democrats were rooting for Trump to win the GOP nomination on the grounds that he would be an easy opponent in the fall. Conservatives should not make the same mistake with Sanders, McIntosh told me. As for socialism, he acknowledged that the term was not as resonant with voters as it was during the height of the Cold War. “Is it enough to just say socialism is bad?” he asked. “We do have to explain to the American people why it’s bad, why we think freedom is a better alternative. We need to do a better job of that. Bernie hopefully will be a wake-up call to all of us on the conservative side as well.”
Sanders and his supporters point out that conservatives will try to affix the socialism label to any Democratic nominee, no matter how centrist the person is. But to people like Cohen, the battle to reclaim socialism isn’t worth the fight in 2020. “We can’t afford to lose voters based on labels,” he told me.
He likes to instead call the Sanders campaign “a democratic popular movement” with a new New Deal for the economy at its core. Sanders, Cohen noted, isn’t calling for the nationalization of banks, the railroads, or other major industries—the kinds of proposals that many people might associate with socialism.
Sanders’s early victories, Cohen suggested, aren’t a verdict on democratic socialism—however you define it—or whether its time has come in America. It’s a far simpler message, he said, aimed at “the Democratic naysayers” who say that the senator from Vermont’s ideas are impractical. “You’re not standing for what people want to see,” Cohen said. “People actually are hurting. They’re not at death’s door. But they can imagine a better America, and that’s what’s winning tonight—that vision of a better America.”