Bernie’s strategy to victory was turning out a huge number of young people and disaffected non voters. He lamented in the last months of his campaign that he wasn’t getting the numbers he needed.
It’s so much easier to blame the corrupt DNC than to recognize we need to work on turnout and a broadened message. It should be obvious after 2016 that the virtue of a righteous message is not enough on its own to get a following.
A platform of legal weed, free college, free healthcare, and student loan forgiveness couldn’t even achieve a 75% turnout of young voters – and I say that as someone who was mid 20s in 2020. You could hardly imagine a better platform for young people. There needs to be a much, much better ground game for progressives to win.
Bernie wasn’t on the ballot though, because he got fucked out of the opportunity. Of course the people who were incredibly motivated to vote for him didn’t show up when they were denied the opportunity to vote for him. That’s not a failure of Bernie’s message, that’s a failure of the establishment to embrace a message that motivates young and disaffected voters.
Bernie’s strategy to victory was turning out a huge number of young people and disaffected non voters. He lamented in the last months of his campaign that he wasn’t getting the numbers he needed.
It’s so much easier to blame the corrupt DNC than to recognize we need to work on turnout and a broadened message. It should be obvious after 2016 that the virtue of a righteous message is not enough on its own to get a following.
A platform of legal weed, free college, free healthcare, and student loan forgiveness couldn’t even achieve a 75% turnout of young voters – and I say that as someone who was mid 20s in 2020. You could hardly imagine a better platform for young people. There needs to be a much, much better ground game for progressives to win.
Bernie wasn’t on the ballot though, because he got fucked out of the opportunity. Of course the people who were incredibly motivated to vote for him didn’t show up when they were denied the opportunity to vote for him. That’s not a failure of Bernie’s message, that’s a failure of the establishment to embrace a message that motivates young and disaffected voters.
He was certainly on the ballot in the primaries.