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I Admire Bernie Sanders

Once again, people like to be asked. There is one more bloc of potential voters that the Democratic Party failed to ask—young people—and its failure here is ominous for the future. This new generation is far to the left of the current party, not to mention stone-age Republicans. Bernie Sanders was their man in 2016, and he will continue to be an influential leader in reshaping politics and the governing of the nation.

Many young people are even to the left of Bernie. A YouGov poll in January 2016 found that 43 percent of people under the age of 30 had a favorable opinion of socialism, versus just 26 percent unfavorable. A recent poll of 18-to-29-year-olds by Harvard University found that a majority of the respondents did not “support capitalism.” This was too much for Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader. At a postelection town hall, she bolted out of her seat to declare: “I have to say, we’re capitalists—that’s just the way it is.” Maybe it’s time for the Democrats to start a conversation with these young lefties.

The Clinton partisans who remain in charge of the party machinery will no doubt reject the conclusions of “Autopsy.” The report suggests that the Clinton-Obama crowd tilted the action away from the party’s core voter blocs—labor, people of color, and young people—in order to court suburban voters and maintain the party’s alliances with high finance and multinational corporations. This might also explain why the DNC decided not to undertake its own postelection review. Suspicions are already circulating: As Politico reported, “Party officials involved in fund-raising say donors repeatedly turn them away with a ‘try again next year,’ especially since it became clear there won’t be an official party autopsy from 2016.”

That donor-centric strategy was highly valuable when it came to raising money for Clinton’s campaign. It turned out to be not so good for winning her the election.


all that I want is some actual representation, but that's apparently too much to ask for.

 
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