The Democrats face a real challenge right now. They absolutely must defeat Trump in November, and there’s a danger — increasingly visible — that what’s emerging from the nominating process is that the Democrats will be choosing between what are arguably two forms of political suicide.
I say “arguably” because there are a lot of people – whose knowledge makes their opinions worthy of respect -- who think that either one or the other of the apparent possible choices the Democrats now seem to face would destroy the party and assure Trump’s reelections.
Some very good political observers believe that it would be political suicide for the Democrats to nominate Bernie Sanders. They point to genuine potential vulnerabilities that might limit Sanders’ ability to attract enough of the American electorate, and they might be right.
We don’t really know how things will play with American voters—especially now with the times so abnormal and amid so many political upheavals. But the case for the idea that nominating Bernie Sanders would be a disaster –while it might be mistaken -- is entirely plausible.
At the same time, many people feel that it would be political suicide to give the nomination to anyone else if, as appears likely, Bernie is the clear leader when the convention delegates, elected in the primaries, vote on the first ballot. The idea of that being political suicide is that (an uncertain number of) Bernie’s supporters would abandon the party and its nominee, out of anger and resentment, thus weakening the party’s ability to win an election that must be won.
Because “political suicide” by the Democrats presumably means the Democrats’ losing the presidential election – i.e. would mean Trump being re-elected to the presidency, thus even more unrestrained and unaccountable than before, thus more dangerous than ever.
In other words, if all the Democrats have as ways of taking to the field against Trump is a choice of two ways of committing political suicide, that means that America itself is poised to commit political suicide—for it will mean that American democracy will have failed, and will be still further degraded by a lawless, would-be-dictator.
Can’t we come up with a way to proceed without going off one cliff or another?
One must hope. Here are thoughts on how this might best be achieved.
The people at the convention, acting through the rules of the convention, will have the job of choosing a path forward if the first ballot doesn’t put Sanders over the top. They will have to choose between those two forms of alleged “political suicide” discussed above: perhaps kill our chances of defeating Trump by nominating Sanders, or perhaps kill our chances by passing over Bernie and nominating someone else.
Let’s all agree to leave that judgment to that collective mind we’ll have sent to the convention to weigh the evidence and decide what’s the best thing to do if the one priority is to maximize the chances of defeating Donald Trump in November.
If the people at the convention, operating according to the rules, make the decision to make Bernie the nominee, everyone else should be pledged to support Bernie’s campaign will all the vigor at their command. Misgivings will have become irrelevant, beliefs to be just set aside. Bernie would be our man.
If the collective conclusion of the people at the convention, on the other hand, is that our chances are better if we put forward one of the other candidates to lead the fight against Trump (and the Trump Party), then everyone who wanted it to go otherwise – the Bernie people, but the people of all the other candidates as well – should pledge to do all they can to help secure the victory of that nominee over Trump.
Trust the convention to decide on a path, embrace that path whatever it turns out to be, doing one’s best to prevent that path from being political suicide.
(A final note:
I’d only add that
the goal of party unity is one that can be achieved by the commitment of all the people who have participated in the Democratic Party’s process of electing delegates and/or of voting at the convention; whereas the goal of getting the necessary votes from the American electorate to win the election is beyond the ability of those in the Democratic tent to determine by themselves.In other words, one of the possible forms of political suicide — fracturing party unity — is within our collective ability to achieve. While the other potential form of political suicide — nominating a candidate the American electorate will reject — depends on a lot of people outside the Democratic nominating process.
Which means that those worrying about Bernie’s electability would have to be mistaken in their judgment.)