back
21 comments
According to the article, the (not mutually incompatible) reasons are:

1. Sanders didn’t run a smart enough campaign

2. Democrats were wary of a very liberal nominee

3. Trump aside, Sanders was always a weird fit as the Democratic nominee

There's another possibility. Democratic primary voters are actually participating in a Keynesian Beauty Contest:

> ... entrants are asked to choose the six most attractive faces from a hundred photographs. Those who picked the most popular faces are then eligible for a prize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest

The president has broadly and deeply invaded the psyche of democrats. Instead of choosing the candidate they want, party members are choosing the candidate they think everyone else, even those outside the party, wants.

It's similar to the calculation made during 2016. But this time around, there have been 3+ years of unrelenting psyche assault.

Speaking at the level of gut voter reaction and leaving policies aside, the two probable candidates in the probable 2020 presidential election are by a long shot more similar than any other possible matchup.

Because running as 3rd-party or independent has been rendered nigh impossible by lots of crap that is difficult to undo.
He's a democrat
What jacquesm said and also he's traditionally been independent: "He is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history..."(from his Wikipedia page) but like Ron Paul, knew that he would go nowhere in a 3rd party or as an independent because of the way the presidential election system is setup i.e. the Commission on Presidential Debates (Ross Perot freaked them the heck out and they were like, never again!).

Along with that, the fund-raising rules or lack thereof make it a playing field only for Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin who generally contribute AKA invest the same amount for each party; plus SuperPACs... It's an absolute joke.

Technically true. But in a >2 party country he would have had his own party.
Forgive me for the political ignorance, I'm Swedish:

Won't a centrist Biden have a much better chance of winning against Trump compared to a super-leftist (even compared to Swedish mainstream politics) Sanders?

Isn't the whole point of your upcoming presidential election (I mean for the 80-90% or so non-republicans here on HN) to get rid of Trump and to get back to some kind of normalcy?

> Isn't the whole point of the upcoming election to get rid of Trump?

For approximately half of the country, yes. For approximately the other half, no. It's that tiny slice of true independents in the middle that have been deciding the results for a few cycles by now. The DNC does not like Sanders because he's too far to the left.

In theory, everyone left of Biden will vote for him anyway, so being just a tiny bit left of Trump is the ideal winning strategy.

But in reality, it's more complicated. There is no clear political spectrum on which everyone falls. Not everyone has the same enthusiasm about politics. Not all candidates are equally competent/likeable/trustworthy. People get disillusioned with their own party or excited about a new party or platform.

Ah, I get it - the hope was that Sanders would get young people to vote, and they wouldn't have done so otherwise.

It's kinda different here. People vote. Maybe you should consider making it illegal not to vote, like in Australia. (Yeah, I know, it's an eh.. stretch goal.)

Sanders said he could do that but didn't show a lot of evidence.

It's really a lot more complicated than that. People don't like coronations. If you take someone's vote for granted and act like they have no choice, things will not go well for you. You have to make the case every damn election. To your most loyal supporters and the swing voters and every other constituency.

Biden wont make a dent in the Trump base if you have seen a Trump rally. Normalcy is going to take a long time to restore.

We have to just wait for a politician who can connect and build trust with that base. And hope the size of that base doesn't grow as all kinds of frustrations mount.

Nobody will make a dent in the Trump base. If Trumps misconduct to date doesn't sway them then no outsider ever will. Very few of them will change sides, there was actually an example on HN here a few days ago. But that's definitely not representative of what is happening in Trumps base as a whole.
I think the Trump base knows all that (about Trump's, ah, questionable ethics and, um, distance from the truth and so on), and they don't care, because Trump's appeal was never that he was ethical, or that he was telling the truth. His appeal was that he would do what they thought needed done. And he has more or less done that.

They didn't think that open borders were a good idea. Trump has pushed fairly hard to close them.

They didn't think that shipping jobs to China was a good idea. Trump not only paid lip service to stopping it, he put tariffs on China.

And so on.

Now, if you want to get rid of Trump, you almost certainly have to appeal to those people. You aren't going to do it by telling them how stupid they are, or how racist they are. You aren't even going to do it by telling them how much of a liar Trump is.

You have to do it like this: "You're worried about jobs going to China? Yeah, we understand. That's a real concern. And you don't just want a welfare check when the factory closed, you want another job. Here's what we're going to do about that, and here's why it's better than what Trump is doing." And you need to be right - your approach has to be beter than Trump's, and they have to see yours as better.

You can't get rid of Trump by looking at half the country as backward hicks who just need to be stomped into political oblivion. You have to care about their problems, and you have to help with their problems. Then you can make a dent in Trump's base.

But what if they can't have what they want?

What if they want the mines reopened, and coal and oil workers back to work, the factories churning out American goods made on American soil, and lifetime employment with a pension and health insurance, a turkey in every pot and two cars in every garage like their fathers or grandfathers had, but the world has moved on, and the jobs and stability they want simply cannot, and will never, exist in the modern world?

What if "socialist" initiatives like nationalized healthcare, UBI and free college are better options?

Then tell them so. Tell them in a way that they understand. Don't tell them in a way that you understand, and then look down on them because they don't get it.
That's not how voting in America works. People will vote for whoever promises them what they want to hear. You can stand there on the other side of the line with your scientifically supported facts and you'll be an also ran. People actually want to be lied to.
Trumps base has been hit hardest by his so called solutions. None of those made even the slightest dent in their situation and now the economy on its ass due to Corona and Trumps ineptness it'll get worse.
Well, I think Biden is not as competent as Trump. Democrats already lost it as far as I can see and I might be wrong. There are so many issues with Biden(his speech problems, changing facts) and in the debates he will loose against trump which is Trump's main strategy.

Most of people will lean towards trump in case of confusion because he already run it as president.

I am an outsider and might be completely wrong but seems like Democrats does not learn the lesson from the past. They played again the people and voters.

He and Trump are both accelerationist candidates. Maybe the pandemic has reduced our appetite for it.