The GOP Cracked Up In 2016. Now It’s The Democrats’ Turn
Trump exposed the chasm between the GOP establishment and Republican voters.
Bernie Sanders is about to do the same for Democrats.
By John Daniel Davidson
February 21, 2020
After Wednesday night’s disastrous debate performance by former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and a flurry of recent polls showing Sen. Bernie Sanders surging ahead of the pack, it’s safe to say there’s a very strong likelihood Sanders will be the Democratic nominee.
How did this happen? The simplest answer is that what happened to the Republicans in 2016 is now happening to the Democrats. I don’t just mean that Sanders is now poised to win plurality after plurality in a primary field that will likely remain crowded through March, fracturing the non-Sanders vote between three or possibly four other candidates. That’s more or less what Donald Trump pulled off four years ago amid a crowded GOP field, and that’s part of what’s happening now.
Also, of course, Democratic primary rules and delegate apportionment are more complicated than they are in the Republican Party, so there’s a scenario in which Sanders could be denied the nomination at a contested convention even if he wins a plurality of delegates in the primaries.
But from a broader perspective, the emergence of Sanders as the Democratic frontrunner mirrors the rise of Trump and the crackup of the Republican Party in 2016, and for many of the same reasons. In both cases, a significant swath of each party’s voter base rejected the party establishment after years of being pandered to or ignored altogether.
Populism cuts both ways, right and left, and the impending takeover of the Democratic Party by a left-wing populist should have been anticipated by party leaders four years ago—and maybe it would have been, if they hadn’t been busy gloating over the GOP’s apparent misfortune of being taken over by Trump.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/21/the-gop-cracked-up-in-2016-now-its-the-democrats-turn/
