What happened

Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York City early yesterday during a private ceremony in a disused subway station under City Hall, then publicly inaugurated hours later before thousands of people who braved freezing temperatures to witness the historic moment. The 34-year-old democratic socialist is the first Muslim to lead the city and its “youngest mayor in a century,” The New York Times said. He is also New York’s “first millennial mayor, its first South Asian mayor and its first mayoral soccer fanatic.”

Who said what

“I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations,” but the “only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations,” Mamdani said after being ceremonially sworn in by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed, but never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.” He vowed to “govern as a democratic socialist,” but said he would be a mayor for all New Yorkers, “regardless of whether we agree.” 

Mamdani “largely stuck to repeating the campaign pledges of universal child care, free city buses and freezing the rent for rent-stabilized tenants” that set his “longshot campaign alight and rocketed him to international fame,” Politico said. “Notably absent” from his speech were “any direct shots aimed at President Donald Trump.” 

Trump, like other Republican politicians, has “sought to paint Mamdani as a radical communist and the face of a Democratic Party out of touch with mainstream voters,” The Washington Post said. But the new mayor’s “friendly visit to the Oval Office after being elected last year undercut some of those attacks and displayed the political skills that have propelled him to prominence.”

What next?

Mamdani is “arguably the most charismatic New York City mayor of the 21st century,” with his “personal magnetism, warm, engaging smile” and “unusual ability to communicate his ideas to the masses in plain English (and Urdu and Bengali and Spanish) on social media,” the Times said. But he is “also one of the least proven city managers in New York’s history,” and he now has to oversee 300,000 workers in the nation’s largest city while “managing deep cuts to federal funding, an erratic and often vengeful president and a more moderate governor facing her own re-election this year.”

Democrats have sometimes seemed confused about how to confront the second Trump administration, but Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are responding with boldness. They are roving across red states — and drawing big crowds — with a series of anti-Trump rallies.

The duo took Sanders' "Fighting Oligarchy" tour "deep into Trump territory this week," said The Associated Press. What's more, they are seeing the same crowds "they got in liberal and battleground states" earlier on the tour. A Monday rally in Boise, Idaho, drew 12,500 people in a county that has 11,902 registered Democrats. An earlier event in Salt Lake City pulled a reported 20,000 attendees. "When it comes to standing up to Trumpism there is no such thing as a red state," said Sanders on X on Sunday. The events offer a "dose of hope to progressives living in the places where they're most outnumbered," said the AP.

A party looking for 'fighters'

Democratic voters are "terrified, angry and desperate for leadership," said Lauren Gambino at The Guardian. They see much of their party's leadership as "unable or unwilling to stand up to [Trump]." Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, both self-identified Democratic socialists on the leftward edge of the party, are "stepping in to fill the void."

The big crowds for Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez do not mean Democrats are "clamoring for the party to become more progressive," said Perry Bacon Jr. at The Washington Post. They are furious at figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), whom they perceive as "hesitant to take on President Donald Trump and Elon Musk." What rank-and-file party activists want "aren't necessarily socialists, but fighters." If Kamala Harris, Barack Obama or any other "center-left Democrat with a national following" went on tour, "they, too, would draw big crowds."

Attendees at the rallies are frightened that the "country they'd always counted on" is "sliding away because of Trump," said Megan K. Stack at The New York Times. They are "wondering how much leaner things could get" if a recession hits. And they are alarmed as Trump and Musk upend parts of government that "long seemed as unremarkable and permanent as boulders." But Sanders is saying the same things he always has. His longstanding warnings about oligarchy now seem "prescient and thoroughly relevant."

'A vehicle for their anger'

If AOC is the Democratic Party's future, the "party is even worse off than we think," said Rich Lowry at the National Review. The New York congresswoman is being spoken of as a "potential primary challenger to Schumer, and even a national leader for Democrats." She may be "charismatic and adept at social media," but her "woke" politics make Ocasio-Cortez a "cartoonish version of the Democratic Party that the GOP hopes to run against."

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are giving voters a "place to gather, scream, and feel a little less helpless," said John Hendrickson at The Atlantic. Democrats lost to Trump "because they've become the party of elites." The duo may point to a way back. "What Sanders and AOC are addressing" is that "people want a vehicle for their anger."

'Mistreatment of them affects us too'

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic

The White House has "assured the public that individuals it is deporting are terrible people," yet in many cases, "it has presented little or no evidence to back up its claims," says Conor Friedersdorf. "These moves don't just hurt foreigners," they "threaten Americans too, eroding the very foundations of our liberty." Immigration enforcement "needn't be this way," as "Trump could easily" deport illegal immigrants "without threatening our open society," in much the same way Barack Obama once did.

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'Trump's tariff policy arrives at a perilous time for Xi'

Simone Gao at The Hill

"Under the pressure of rising U.S. tariffs," China may be "trying to de-escalate a full-blown trade war through top-level talks," says Simone Gao. Trump's tariffs are "painful for the U.S. too, but it's probably China that won't be able to hold out," in large part thanks to President Xi Jinping's "repeated, disruptive and erratic economic moves." Against "this backdrop, Trump's tariffs sting," and "that may give the U.S. an edge at the negotiating table."

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'The stakes feel too high to take our chances on "interesting ideas"'

Zach Gottlieb at The Boston Globe

"My peers strategically filled their schedules with classes, clubs and activities directly related" to their "post-grad goals rather than to their wide-ranging interests," says Zach Gottlieb of his freshman year at Stanford. Now, as high schoolers "across the country decide where to spend their college years, I worry that they'll be thinking of their choice as another resume-building enterprise," when college is actually the "only time in their life when they should let their curiosity, and not conventional thinking, be their guide."

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'There is no excuse for people dying young because of financial stress'

Bernie Sanders at Newsweek

"Being poor or working class in America is a death sentence," says Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). A recent report found the "bottom 50% of Americans can expect to live seven fewer years than those in the top 1%." The "life expectancy in the United States is lower than almost every other wealthy nation, even though we're spending twice as much per capita on health care" because other countries have a "far stronger social safety net than we do."

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Can bipartisanship survive in Donald Trump's Washington? Credit cards might offer a way. Trump has talked about capping credit card interest rates — a position also endorsed by progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Warren has signaled an eagerness to work with Trump on the issue. "If Donald Trump really wants to take on the credit card industry, count me in," she said in a social media post. Sanders, too, is ready to work with Trump on capping the fees. If Trump follows up on his campaign pledge to limit credit rates to 10%, Sanders told The New York Times, "absolutely I will be there."

"There's a catch," Natasha Sarin said at The Washington Post. Americans right now face credit card rates that can climb above 20%, so a new limit "sounds like a win for struggling Americans" who face "hefty costs" when trying to pay down their debt. But the card companies like Visa and Mastercard say rate limits mean they'll be less likely to issue cards to risky borrowers — who might then turn to payday lenders who charge even higher rates. Credit cards "won't be as easy to get," said Sarin.

Bringing Trump to the table

Finding common ground on credit cards is part of the "new progressive strategy for warring with Trump," said Politico. Democrats like Sanders and Warren can navigate a second Trump presidency by taking his "populist, working-class proposals at his word." If they succeed, they get credit for "bringing him to the table" on progressive priorities, and if not, "they can bash him for it," said Politico. If Trump can't follow through on his campaign promise to cap rates, Warren said, "then he should be held accountable."

But success in this case means "only people with strong credit ratings would be able to borrow money on their cards," Tyler Cohen said at Bloomberg. Americans with "lower net wealth, or poorer payment histories" would be blocked from obtaining credit cards "because they would no longer be profitable to serve." Citizens are more qualified to determine than the government how best to use their financial resources, Cohen said. "Be wary of any politician who sides with the government on this question."

Will Trump's 'populist streak' win?

The financial markets are betting that "Trump won't fix high card rates," said The Wall Street Journal. Following the election, card lenders became "some of the best-performing stocks" in evident anticipation of favorable "regulatory changes" under the new president. But there should be some caution on those companies' part: Trump's "populist streak" might win out, and so might the instincts of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, who in the Senate co-sponsored a bill to limit rates.

Americans have $1.14 trillion in credit card debt, said CNN. That's a "record high," and an average of $6,500 in debt for every single person. But lenders may have good reason to believe that a cap isn't actually in the cards: Similar plans have often "stalled in Congress." If a cap passes, said LendingTree analyst Matt Schulz, companies might respond by eliminating credit card rewards programs in order to preserve their profits. "The house," he said, "always wins."

A presidential nominee's choice of a running mate is one of the more high-profile decisions made prior to the general election. Political science research shows that these choices have limited impact, but in the kinds of agonizingly close elections that have characterized American presidential politics for most of this century, running mates can be consequential. 

The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, is vetting her short list, and GOP nominee Donald Trump selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) earlier this month. Vance has subsequently come under fire for a series of controversial statements over the previous few years, fueling speculation that Trump might dump him from the ticket before it is too late. While it is much too early to say whether Vance will help or harm the Trump campaign, modern history is full of running mates who either helped the ticket across the finish line — or turned out to be a drag on losing campaigns. 

The best picks compensate for a nominee's weaknesses

George H.W. Bush (1980): In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan's brand of social and fiscal conservatism was in the process of taking over the GOP. But the party still included millions of moderates who were uncomfortable with the hawkish Reagan and considered him too extreme. So Reagan took the unusual step of tapping his moderate rival for the nomination, former U.S. Rep. and C.I.A. Director George H.W. Bush, as his running mate. Bush, who would later run successfully for the nomination and win the presidency in 1988, was from the Republican old guard of social liberals. He helped make voters comfortable with Reagan, who only a few years earlier was considered a firebrand who might accidentally start a nuclear war with the Soviets. The soft-spoken Bush ultimately helped Reagan deliver one of the worst defeats of an incumbent in American history when they vanquished Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a landslide. 

Mike Pence (2016): Critics derided him as "Mike Dense" and mocked Trump's selection of the pious incumbent governor of Indiana. But the staid and steady Pence helped solidify support from white evangelical voters – perhaps the single most important Republican voting bloc – who were uncomfortable with Trump's personal history as a twice-divorced man with a reputation for womanizing. When the infamous Access Hollywood tape that included Trump talking about sexually assaulting women was leaked to the press in October 2016, Pence's standing on the ticket may have made it possible for Trump to survive the episode. Pence's wife, Karen, told him that she "would no longer appear in public if he carried on as Trump's running mate," after hearing the tape, said journalist Tim Alberta. But Pence stuck with Trump, and together they won the election, in part by winning 80% of white evangelical voters, according to exit polls. 

Al Gore (1992): After 12 years of Republican control of the White House and three straight blowout presidential losses, Democrats were desperate to get their nominee right – especially because the incumbent, George H.W. Bush, looked increasingly vulnerable as the party conventions approached. Already dogged by allegations of extra-marital affairs (and possibly worse), Democrats worried that their nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, would be seen as too liberal despite his status as one of the early members of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Gore, a Tennessee senator, was also a charter member of that centrist Democratic group, which wanted to move away from the party's reliance on a brand of liberalism that had become unpopular. Clinton gambled that a young ticket of self-styled ideological moderates would persuade the electorate to once again trust Democrats with the country's highest office, and they were proven right when they won the election decisively.

The worst picks compensate for the wrong problem

Sarah Palin (2008): Palin is the ultimate cautionary tale in running mate selection lore. GOP nominee John McCain, a longtime Arizona senator with a carefully cultivated image as a "maverick," wanted to pick his friend and longtime colleague Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) as his running mate. But Republican strategists feared that the party's base would revolt, and McCain impulsively chose the little-known Palin to increase enthusiasm from the conservative wing of the party. Despite an electric debut at the Republican National Convention, Palin later gave a series of disastrous interviews in the following weeks that led to her enduring Saturday Night Live caricature as an intellectual lightweight. In one infamous exchange, Palin was unable to tell CBS's Katie Couric the names of any newspapers that she read. As the campaign dragged on, even Palin's own staff grew frustrated with her and voters began to doubt her credibility as a possible successor to McCain, who would be 72 by Election Day. McCain went on to lose to Democratic nominee Barack Obama by 7.3 points. The "Palin effect," ultimately "cost McCain almost 2% of the final vote share," according to one 2010 study

Tim Kaine (2016): Riding high in public opinion polls and watching Republicans make the seemingly suicidal choice of Donald Trump as their nominee, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton decided to pick Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) as her running mate. The moderate Kaine was not from a swing state, was not particularly charismatic, and did nothing to shore up Clinton's left flank with progressives still seething from the outcome of the bitter primary contest against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Reports suggested that Clinton chose Kaine precisely because of their ideological affinity, a callback to her husband Bill Clinton's choice of Al Gore in 1992. Clinton and Kaine "are cut from the same political cloth," said The New Yorker's John Cassidy about the puzzling selection. Kaine was thought by Clinton's advisors to be "someone with whom they might work closely for four or eight years," Cassidy said. Instead, they only got to work together for a few months before their shock loss to the Trump-Pence ticket. 

Joe Lieberman (2000): For Democrats, it is hard to think about Joe Lieberman outside the context of what followed his losing campaign with then-Vice President Al Gore in 2000. A social moderate, Lieberman, a veteran senator for Connecticut, became so disenchanted with his party during George W. Bush's two terms that he ran successfully as an independent for another term in 2006.  In 2008 Lieberman campaigned for the Republican nominee, John McCain and appeared at the Republican National Convention. But in 2000, Gore chose him as a way of distancing himself from President Clinton's sordid personal history. Lieberman had given a fiery speech on the Senate floor during Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial denouncing his conduct while still voting to acquit. Lieberman was also the first Jewish candidate to serve on a major-party presidential ticket and was very popular in his home state. But Gore's real problem was with the disenchanted progressive wing of his own party, and enough people deserted him for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader to cost Gore the crucial swing state of Florida and thus the election. 

Perhaps the biggest crisis facing the world in the 21st century: Retirement.  An "aging population is stressing retirement safety nets such as Social Security," said BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, per The Wall Street Journal  — a problem that will only get worse as medical breakthroughs help people live longer. A "tremendous" effort goes to that medical innovation, Fink said, "but not even a fraction of that effort is spent helping people afford those extra years."

Fink's solution to the "retirement crisis?" Raise the retirement age. "No one should have to work longer than they want to," the 71-year-old billionaire wrote in his annual letter to BlackRock shareholders. But the tradition of retiring at 65 "originates from the time of the Ottoman Empire." Now demographics are quickly changing. In 2019, fewer than one in 10 people around the world were older than 65 — that number will be one-in-six "by the midcentury mark."

For some, a crisis is already here. "Retirement is becoming a luxury in the U.S.," Business Insider said. The portion of older Americans still in the workforce has risen steadily in recent years, from 11% in 1987 to just under 20% in 2023. The reasons include the disappearance of pensions, debt problems — home, student and medical — and the rising cost of living. If you're in your 50s, one expert said, you should ask yourself: "Am I doing a job that I would be happy to do a little bit longer if I had to?"

What did the commentators say?

"Working in old age can't be the only answer to the retirement crisis," Peter Coy said at The New York Times. He cited Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist, to argue for shoring up Social Security while also creating a government-sponsored pension plan for workers who don't receive such benefits from their jobs. But it's also true that as people live longer, they have had to "stretch their savings over more years out of the work force." Working longer solves that problem — but only for those who want to. "Imposing what are effectively work requirements on older people is harsh."

"Progress on life expectancy has been very uneven across U.S. society," Matthew Yglesias said at Bloomberg. Educated Americans are living longer "but those without bachelor's degrees are not." This means that raising the retirement age "essentially singles out the very worse-off class of elderly people — and makes them worse off." That is "peculiar and cruel."

Raising the retirement age is the "least bad option," said Karl W. Smith, also at Bloomberg. Social Security is already paying out more in benefits than it receives in taxes. That means some kind of shift will be needed. Raising the retirement age to 69 — a proposal from Republicans to shore up the system — would bring costs in line with revenue. Democrats have objected, but math is math: For Social Security, "raising the retirement age would create savings that grow over time."

What next?

Fifteen states have already established automated savings plans known as "auto IRA" for workers whose employers don't provide a retirement plan, Pew's John Scott said at The Hill. That's a way to help workers "close the gap between what workers can save and what they need for retirement." The plans have proved popular — and would benefit more Americans if made available more widely. "We need to make it easier, not harder, for everyone to have the opportunity to save for retirement."

The retirement crisis is likely to become part of the debate surrounding the 2024 presidential election. Republicans have presented their plan to raise the retirement age. Another possibility is to tax the rich to strengthen and expand Social Security. A cap on taxes paid into the program means a "billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $168,700 a year," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an op-ed for Fox News. Congress has the ability to change that and "support a secure retirement for working Americans." 

Speculation continues to mount about President Biden's potential re-election bid in 2024. While Biden has reportedly confirmed he will run for a second term, eyes have shifted to other possible candidates to take up the mantle for the Democrats if the president changes his mind. This would potentially open the door for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to launch a White House bid for the third time. The democratic socialist remains highly popular among the younger generations, but he is also among the eldest candidates — older even than Biden, at 81 years old.

What are the chances that, if Biden opts out of the next campaign, an announcement could come for a Sanders 2024 run? Here's everything you need to know:

Has Sanders said anything to indicate he's running?

Given that Sanders has run for president twice before, the Vermont senator has been asked a number of times if he plans to gear up for attempt number three next year. However, Sanders has remained mostly quiet about his upcoming plans, and whether or not they include a presidential run.

Sanders told CBS Mornings in September "I haven't made that decision" when asked if he planned to run. He also told CNN over the summer that he would not primary the president if he decides to run again, adding, "If [Biden] runs again, I will support him."

Beyond these brief comments, Sanders has shied away from speaking about 2024, instead focusing on raising awareness about Democratic issues ahead of the upcoming midterms.

What challenges would a Sanders 2024 campaign face?

Sanders is one year older than Biden, who was already the oldest person to be elected president when he took office nearly two years ago. Sanders, though, would be 83 on Election Day 2024 — meaning he'd be 87 when his hypothetical first term ended in 2028.

Just as people have brought up concerns about Biden's advanced age, there would likely be similar rhetoric around Sanders if he launches a campaign. However, the octogenarian has downplayed concerns about age, telling CBS Mornings in the same interview that it was more important to look at the individual candidate than make generalizations about age.

"What I think we do is we look too much at race, at gender, at age," Sanders said during the interview. "What does somebody stand for? What are their views? Do you agree with them? Are they standing with you?"

"And obviously you want people who are competent, capable, and have the energy to be president of the United States ... I would say, first of all, take a look at what people stand for," he added.

How would the Democratic Party respond to Sanders running for president again?

The Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee have often found themselves at odds with Sanders, who is actually an independent — the longest-serving independent in Senate history — despite being a large proponent of Democratic and liberal issues.

This clash between Sanders and the DNC particularly came to the forefront in 2016, when he was in the middle of a fierce primary battle with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was eventually revealed that the DNC had criticized and derided Sanders' campaign in thousands of leaked emails. Sanders consistently claimed the committee was biased against his candidacy.

Accusations of similar derailing were also seen during Sanders' subsequent 2020 campaign, in which he at one point appeared to be the likely Democratic nominee. However, Politico reported on a potential plan by the DNC to try and weaken Sanders' surging campaign.

The DNC dismissed these accusations in 2020, but it is likely to have caused further bad blood between the committee and Sanders, particularly after what happened in 2016. Given the previous anti-Sanders sentiment, though, it is possible that the DNC would be wary of yet another Sanders campaign.

Do voters want Sanders to run?

Sanders remains popular among prospective 2024 voters from both parties. A USA Today/IPSOS poll published this past August found that 46 percent of those surveyed saw him as a favorable candidate — higher than both President Biden and former President Donald Trump.

That poll also had Sanders as the highest-rated Democrat among independent voters at 41 percent; even 18 percent of Republican voters saw him as favorable. More than two-thirds of Democrats also support the senator, with a 78 percent favorability rating.

The poll, which interviewed 2,345 voting-eligible adults and had a 2.5 percent margin of error, also found that Sanders was the most favored among a list of 23 potential candidates. This saw Sanders beating out heavyweight names such as Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

So … will he run?

Many within Sanders' own circle believe he may enter the race. The senator's aides sent out a memo this past April in which they wrote, "In the event of an open 2024 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Sanders has not ruled out another run for president." The memo also claimed Sanders was "the most popular office holder in the country right now."

Politico also noted that even with the presidential election two years away, Sanders "remains popular, is the undisputed leader of the progressive left, and … he must be part of any conversation about a potential open Democratic presidential primary."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) expressed his approval of the Arizona Democratic Party's decision to censure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.

Arizona Democratic Party leadership voted unanimously to censure Sinema on Saturday after she refused to support a Senate rule change that would have circumvented the filibuster and enabled President Biden's voting rights bill to pass.

Sinema said she supported the bill, but weakening the filibuster would "worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country." On Wednesday, she joined Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in voting with Senate Republicans to defeat the rule change motion, effectively killing the voting rights bill.

"Do you think ... it's been healthy for the Democratic Party to highlight the division in the party?" Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked Sanders. "You look at Sen. Sinema, she was censured by the Arizona Democratic Party —"

"Good," Sanders said before Todd could finish his question.

Todd continued, " — over what some will look at as a disagreement over tactics; not over substance, but over tactics. Do you think that was an appropriate action?"

"Yeah, I do," Sanders responded. "I think it's exactly right."

According to The Associated Press, Sanders is considering campaigning on behalf of Sinema's eventual primary opponent in 2024.

President Biden is hosting various congressional Democratic factions on Tuesday as the party struggles to find common ground on the second part of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, a sweeping bill to tackle climate change and a host of family and social services. The progressives and a handful of centrists have made their preferences clear, but with negotiations taking place mostly in private, Washington and the political press have been consumed by the 'Dems in Disarray' drama.

"It was almost inevitable that the fight over President Joe Biden's agenda would come down to Bernie Sanders vs. Joe Manchin," Politico writes. "And in an evenly divided Senate," The New York Times adds, "Manchin — one of his party's only holdouts on the bill — might as well be king." As Democratic "negotiators sift through the details of what's in and out of the proposal, it's Manchin's priorities that are driving much of the debate, infuriating colleagues and complicating a deal," The Associated Press reports.

But Manchin (D-W.Va.) spoke on the phone with Biden on Monday and met separately with Sanders (I-Vt.) and Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). Manchin and Sanders, who got in a public spat on Friday, mugged for the cameras after leaving the Capitol on Monday night. "Get a picture. You want to get a picture of us?" Manchin asked, calling Sanders over.

"We're talking," Manchin said, wrapping an arm around Sanders, who agreed. "I would hope that we're going to see some real action within the next week or so," Sanders added. "We discussed the way forward."

"Never give up, Bernie," Manchin called to Sanders as they went to their respective cars.

It isn't clear how much Manchin — or his fellow holdout, Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — are actually willing to give in the give-and-take. Jayapal declined to speak for Manchin when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked her Monday night if Manchin believes he'll get everything he wants, but she said she thinks he does want to pass a bill.

"It was great to spend time with Sen. Manchin today — I'm not going to get into the details of what we talked about, but I just think it is important for us to be talking to each other," Jayapal told Maddow. And in the end, "I do think that we will deliver something very transformative for the country, I really do."

It seems that Sens. Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders have had quite enough of each other.

That's no surprise. Technically, both men are on the same Democratic team, but their divergent viewpoints test the limits of "big tent" politics. Manchin represents West Virginia, a deep red state, and has plenty of reasons to keep his conservative constituents happy. Sanders, meanwhile, is a democratic socialist from Vermont who is far enough to the left that he isn't actually a member of the party. They're an odd fit, but Democrats are going to need both men if they're to get any portion of President Biden's agenda through Congress. And right now, Manchin and Sanders are acting more like opponents than teammates.

On Friday, news broke that Manchin opposes Biden's proposed $150 billion Clean Energy Payment Program — a key pillar of White House efforts to address the increasingly urgent climate emergency — because of his worries about how West Virginia's coal and natural gas producers would be affected. The same day, Sanders published an op-ed in West Virginia's Charleston Gazette, singling out Manchin for his failure to help pass the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that includes Biden's climate provisions. Manchin responded angrily. "This isn't the first time an out-of-stater has tried to tell West Virginians what is best for them despite having no relationship to our state," he said, and later added: "No op-ed from a self-declared Independent socialist is going to change that." You could practically hear the growling.

It wasn't a great moment for Democratic unity, nor for the party's efforts to get some big and important legislation passed. While Manchin has taken a terrible stance on the clean electricity program, Sanders is precisely the wrong person to make that argument — to West Virginians, at least — and his op-ed was almost certainly counterproductive.

It's frustrating to watch Manchin block one of Biden's most potent climate efforts, if only because the problem has become so pressing. In August, the United Nations reported that swift action is needed around the world to limit the growing damage — longer wildfire seasons, lengthy droughts, stronger storms, devastating flooding — from global warming. Just last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed the U.S. in 2021 has suffered 18 separate weather and climate disasters that have cost the country at least $1 billion each. (Hurricane Ida, which wreaked havoc from New Orleans to New York, is the most obvious example of the phenomenon.) Manchin's constituents are hardly exempt from the threat: The New York Times reported on Sunday that "no state in the contiguous United States is more exposed to flood damage than West Virginia." The senator might be able to save a few jobs in the short run, but it won't be long before his state and the world suffer the consequences of his obstruction.

So Sanders might have had the right message, but he was the wrong messenger — almost any other Democrat would have been better. The Mountain State is really, really conservative. Let's not forget that Donald Trump won two-thirds of the state's votes during last year's presidential election. Even if the state's residents might be persuadable on some elements of the Democrats' proposals, it's clear they're not much interested in aligning themselves with progressives. And of course Sanders isn't just any progressive: Along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), he embodies the sort of lefty politics that is almost lab-manufactured to produce a tribal reaction and repel West Virginians, regardless of what he might be saying. In other words, Sanders may have inadvertently stiffened Manchin's opposition. Once again, progressives have been found wanting in the politically indispensable art of persuasion.

What's done is done. The question now is if and how Manchin can be persuaded to help pass a strong bill to fight climate change. It's tempting to look for a solution akin to the "Cornhusker Kickback" that helped secure the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) to pass ObamaCare a decade ago, but the current reconciliation bill is already loaded up with money to help West Virginians transition to a post-coal economy. Something more is needed, apparently.

You can't blame Manchin for trying to protect his constituents from becoming losers in a green economy, but he will be responsible if his efforts end up scuttling Democrats' work on the climate. And progressives, together with Biden, might want to be a bit smarter about how they go about getting Manchin on board. Sanders is not the right person to fix what Manchin is getting wrong.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has told the White House he firmly opposes a clean electricity program that is a major part of President Biden's climate agenda, suggesting it is likely to be removed from a massive spending bill before Congress, The New York Times reported Friday, citing congressional staffers and lobbyists. The $150 billion program would speed up the replacement of coal- and gas-fired power generation with wind, solar, and nuclear energy. West Virginia produces both coal and natural gas, and Manchin still earns money from a coal brokerage he founded.

Democrats can pass the budget legislation without Republican votes using a process known as budget reconciliation, but with the Senate split 50-50, they can't afford to lose a single vote from their own caucus. That has forced White House staffers to write a new version of the legislation deleting the clean energy program and trying to come up with replacement policies to reduce emissions, the Times reports.

Losing the Clean Electricity Performance Program poses a couple of problems for Biden, because it makes it much harder to achieve his goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, leaves him heading to Glasgow for a U.N. climate summit with less leverage, and diminishes Democratic enthusiasm for the reconciliation bill, Politico notes. Environmentalists were predictably unhappy with Manchin's veto.

And adding to the discord, Manchin and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took their disagreements over the reconciliation package to a new public high on Friday night. Sanders' decision to name-check Manchin in an op-ed in his hometown newspaper, the Charleston Mail-Gazette, prompted a sharp response. "This isn't the first time an out-of-stater has tried to tell West Virginians what is best for them despite having no relationship to our state," Manchin wrote. "Congress should proceed with caution on any additional spending and I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs. No op-ed from a self-declared Independent socialist is going to change that."

"Sanders' office ran a draft by Manchin's after the op-ed was submitted to the paper but before it published," Politico reports. But "Manchin and Sanders have plenty of history: Sanders won West Virginia's Democratic primary in 2016, defeating Manchin-backed Hillary Clinton in the state. And a year later Sanders' wife appeared alongside Manchin's primary opponent in his 2018 re-election race." In his op-ed, Sanders made the case that Manchin was blocking policies popular in West Virginia.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is calling for "Democratic unity" to help pass President Biden's Build Back Better Act, to which Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) have notably remained key hurdles (both lawmakers have issues with the legislation's size and certain provisions).

In a Fox News op-ed published Wednesday, Sanders wrote that "the question of whether we finally deliver consequential legislation to improve the lives of working class families comes down to Democratic unity."

"Will all Democrats stand together to protect the interests of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor?" he added. Will "all Democrats" agree to take on the pharmaceutical and health care industries, as well as corrupt campaign money? "I certainly hope so," Sanders concluded.

The Vermont senator also noted that the provisions currently included in the party's sweeping spending and social safety net package are quite popular with the American public — at the very least, with Democratic voters. A new CNN poll found that 75 percent of the party's constituents "prefer a bill that goes further to expand the social safety net and combat climate change over one that costs less and enacts fewer of those policies." Just 20 percent of voters prefer a scaled-back version; notably, even two-thirds of moderate and conservative Democrats are in favor of the more robust package.

The final scope of the legislation has yet to be agreed upon, and unfortunately for Sanders, the ostensible subjects of his op-ed subtweet may not even have demands that overlap.

CNN and SSRS surveyed 1,000 respondents from Oct. 7-11, 2021. Results have a margin of error 4.2 percent. Read Sanders' full write-up at Fox News, and see more results at CNN.

House progressives are making good on their threat to protest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) planned Thursday infrastructure vote. Though some lawmakers previously warned they'd revoke support, it was unclear if the bill would actually be put in jeopardy by progressives who are upset by it advancing without the party's sweeping spending package, writes Bloomberg.

Now, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joining the call.

"Let's be crystal clear," said Sanders on Tuesday. "If the bipartisan infrastructure bill is passed on its own on Thursday, this will be in violation of an agreement that was reached within the Democratic Caucus in Congress." Pelosi has long purported she would not take up the infrastructure bill without an approved spending package, but then "effectively decoupled" the two on Monday.

"I strongly urge my House colleagues to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill until Congress passes a strong reconciliation bill." The roads-and-bridges legislation has already passed the Senate.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that she will also vote no on Thursday "unless I get some new information here," per Newsweek. And fellow progressive Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) shared similar sentiments, writing in a statement that "progressives will vote for both bills, but a majority of our members will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the president's visionary Build Back Better Act passes."

As one person has put it...woah.

Edible insects could be coming to a supermarket near you. An Israeli company has devised brown, jellied sweets made from an edible, jumping insect - locusts, which are a type of grasshopper. “Grasshoppers taste like pecans, mushrooms, coffee and chocolate,” said the creator, Dror Tamir. “But with our range of food we can add in different flavours… the gummies come in orange and strawberry flavour.”

‘Sexy’ Bernie Sanders outfit launched for Halloween

Sky News said that the “scariest Halloween costume of the year” could be a sexy take on Bernie Sanders’ outfit from Joe Biden's inauguration. The manufacturers of the Trickz N’ Treatz Once Again Asking Costume Set say the look is meant for “you to be a viral internet meme! This political chairman costume comes with a grey coat, cozy mittens and a face mask for a total insta-worthy moment”.

Man, 100, given car he chauffeured in the 1960s

A 100-year-old man has been given the Bentley car he used to chauffeur in the 1960s. Eddie Hughes has never forgotten his time driving the car. He remembered: “I was king of the road, driving the best thing on four wheels and that was a great thrill!” His family found the Bentley for sale in America and made it road-ready again.

In the early days of President Biden's tenure, not too long after the Jan. 6 Captiol riot, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attended a meeting in the Oval Office alongside a group of leading Senate Democrats — one in which he almost "immediately raised the stakes," Jewish Insider writes per Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's upcoming book Peril.

"If we cannot deliver, authoritarianism may be on the march," Sanders told Biden, according to an account of the meeting detailed in Peril. The Vermont senator then argued the party badly needed to pass a major rescue bill and show working-class voters, lured away from the party, that Democrats could change their lives for the better.

"The future of democracy depends on which party is the party of the working class," said Sanders, as paraphrased by Woodward and Costas.

After the meeting, Sanders reportedly turned to his colleagues, invoking the Holocaust and Germany in the 1930s, per Jewish Insider. "Germany was one of the most cultured countries in Europe. One of the most advanced countries. So how could a country of Beethoven, of so many great poets and writers, and Einstein, progress to [barbarism]?"

"How does that happen?" he reportedly wondered. "We have to tackle that question. And it's not easy." Read more at Jewish Insider.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) both made the network rounds on Sunday, and though they appeared separately, their words amounted to a bit of indirect, civil sparring over Democrats' $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Manchin was very clear about the fact that he won't support the bill, which would effectively kill it, since all 50 Democratic senators need to be on board for passage. Manchin indicated that his opposition stems as much as much from the speed at which his colleagues are pushing the bill as the price tag (though he thinks the current figure is far too high, as well), and he reiterated that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is aware of his stance.

Sanders, meanwhile, bluntly stated that the $1 trillion or so alternative Manchin briefly posited is "absolutely not acceptable." He also dismissed Manchin's claim that there isn't urgency to get the bill out the door, pointing to both socio-economic struggles in the United States and the threat of climate change. That said, he thinks Manchin will eventually get on board.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) acknowledges that back in 2016, when he was battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, much of his platform came with the "radical" label.

"Ideas that I talked about when I ran for president in 2016, five years ago, were considered radical, like Medicare-for-all or boldly addressing climate change or making sure that children had quality, affordable child care or demanding that the wealthy and large corporations are paying their fair share of taxes," Sanders told USA Today's Susan Page.

Now, though, he believes his ideas "have really become mainstream," at least among Democratic senators. That was perhaps mostly clearly exemplified by Senate Democrats' approval of a sweeping $3.5 trillion budget resolution which sets the stage for a final bill to pass via reconciliation later this year. Sanders, Page writes, played a significant role in the process as the Senate Budget Committe chair after historically operating on the fringes. Read more at USA Today.

How should the Democratic Party position itself to win? One option embraced by a faction of the party is to become "shorpilled," referring to the contrarian data guru David Shor. He advocates a position that writer Aaron Freedman intelligibly dubbed "survey liberalism," which Shor has explained this way: "You should put your money in cheap media markets in close states close to the election, and you should talk about popular issues, and not talk about unpopular issues."

Concretely, that means placating the racism of white voters, avoiding slogans like "defund the police," being cautious on immigration reform, heavily means-testing welfare programs, and so on — basically the suite of policies moderate Democrats already support — because that's what polls say most voters like. Other prominent believers in this doctrine include writer Matt Yglesias, former President Barack Obama, and reportedly members of the Biden White House.

I am skeptical.

The first and most obvious problem with survey liberalism is that polling is a highly imprecise business. Many, many studies done from decades ago to the present day have demonstrated that slightly changing the wording of a poll, or which questions are included, or the order in which the questions are asked, can significantly alter results.

In the modern age, there is a further problem that getting accurate samples has gotten harder and harder. A pollster obviously cannot speak to every person in the country, so they use a statistically representative sample (and/or weight their results to adjust for the demographic background). This was fairly easy 30 years ago, but today, most people no longer have landlines, and few people answer unknown cell phone numbers anymore thanks to a constant deluge of spam calls. Polling firms have repeatedly overhauled their methodology in an attempt to account for this, but their budgets are not unlimited, accuracy is a moving target, and their recent record is not great. National forecasts were fairly close in both the 2020 and 2016 elections, but several state polls were quite badly off in both years, and in the same direction — each time underestimating Trump's support in critical swing states.

All this means that using polls to assemble a "popular" agenda is going to be biased by a substantial dose of random happenstance, even if you are being as scrupulous as possible.

In practice, scrupulousness is a rare commodity in politics. I don't doubt that the survey liberalism adherents are familiar with most if not all of the data I have cited so far. But as a famous repeat victim of Twitter hoaxes once wrote, "a man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with." All the ways that polls might be slanted or biased raises the possibility of cynical abuse (just rigging the questions to get what you want), or self-deception, as Shor himself says was true of the Hillary Clinton campaign. No matter how sure you are in your own head that you are being Mr. Data Professional, everyone who thinks and writes about politics has strong political views and that will inevitably color how they treat polls — there will always be a temptation to seize on (or commission) convenient polls, or ignore inconvenient ones. (I of course am guilty of this myself.)

When Shor asserts that "the more you means-test a program the more popular it gets" — absurdly implying that the pandemic stimulus checks, which registered support from about three-quarters of Americans in multiple polls, would be even more popular if they went to only the single poorest person in the entire country — he's revealing how a contrarian delight in needling the left can lead to (at a minimum) ridiculous exaggeration. When Yglesias argues that Matt Damon would be a good political candidate because he was reported to have only recently stopped using homophobic slurs in a country where same-sex marriage polls at 70 percent approval (though Damon later denied the story), we see a heated dislike of identity-centered "wokeness" overriding common sense.

This isn't just about individuals, either. Consider Gallup, one of the oldest and most-reputable polling firms on earth. For years now it has been conducting a set of polls on Social Security that are wildly biased and ideological — smearing the program, implying it will disappear soon, and asking how benefits should be cut rather than if they should be cut at all. One poll has this prompt: "Next, I'm going to read a list of problems facing the country … How much do you personally worry about the Social Security system?" Another: "Which of these statements do you think best describes the Social Security system — it is in a state of crisis, it has major problems, it has minor problems or it does not have any problems?" Another: "How long do you think it will be until the costs of the Medicare and Social Security programs create a crisis for the federal government[?]"

This is because of a well-funded, decades-long neoliberal propaganda campaign to cut the program, explained well in an old Slate article by Yglesias, of all people. "Important People absolutely despise Social Security," he wrote, because "Taxing working people to hand out free money so people don't need to work is antithetical to the spirit of capitalism." Eventually the Gallup pollsters internalized the notion that Social Security is a problem as neutral and non-ideological, and started writing polls reflecting that thinking. (More welfare-friendly polls have naturally found much more positive results for Social Security.)

A similar abuse of polls and the rhetoric of political "realism" was a key part of the strategy neoliberals used to take control of the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s. When George McGovern got smashed by Nixon in 1972, they declared that the New Deal was dead, and Democrats needed to pivot to the right to win. This argument was facially dubious — every Democratic presidential candidate who lost between 1980 and 1988 was some kind of neoliberal, yet somehow their ideas were not blamed for the loss — but when Bill Clinton finally won, they closed the rhetorical circuit. From that day forward the Democratic leadership has hectored its own base that leftist ideas are always unpopular and doomed (so as to keep them off the policy agenda) and that the most important characteristic by far in a politician is their ability to get elected.

In reality, no political party has ever been completely agenda-neutral and just done whatever is popular. As Matthew Stoller wrote in a book review about the neoliberal takeover: "Parties don't poll for good ideas, run races on them, and then govern. They have ideas, poll to find out how to sell those ideas, and run races and recruit candidates based on the polling."

This matters because how some policy proposal performs in the political vacuum of a single phone call from a stranger is a very different question than how it will perform when exposed to a national media debate. The most important factor there, of course, is the behavior of the right-wing propaganda machine. Conservative media is so good at lying that it has successfully convinced millions and millions of people not to take a safe, effective vaccine during the worst pandemic in a century. People are dying unnecessarily as a result.

The policies Democrats run on will face a coordinated attack from extremely loud and well-funded liars, no matter what they are. A once-popular agenda can easily fall far underwater under such an assault.

On the other hand, there is a liberal media as well (and a much smaller leftist media). While not nearly as unified, this also has a powerful effect on public opinion. There are more people who trust MSNBC, NPR, The Washington Post and The New York Times, and so on, than there are loyal Fox News and Newsmax watchers, though the attachment is not so strong. Moreover, anyone who has done a lot of door-to-door canvassing can tell you that a sizable portion of people do not have super well-formed views about complicated policy questions (or any views at all), and can quite easily be swayed one way or the other.

It follows that behavior of Democrats themselves (and their media allies) is nearly as important as the behavior of the right in shaping what is popular. Survey liberals sometimes point to the fact that leftist members of "the Squad" are considerably less popular than President Biden in their own districts as evidence for the unpopularity of their ideas. But this could be because they are routinely attacked and criticized by the party leadership, who are trusted implicitly by liberals. If Biden was constantly buddy-buddy with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and anointing her as a future party leader then she would likely be roughly as popular as he is, at least in her own heavily-blue district.

I don't blame Democratic elites for disagreeing with AOC's politics. I do blame them for heaping her with scorn and then passive-aggressively pointing to her relative unpopularity as being proof of her Bad Politics. It's the exact same dishonest 1990s strategy of hiding ideology behind polling results the very critics have helped produce.

The writer Osita Nwanevu has argued persuasively that the American left doesn't have a magic formula for victory. The polling on policies like Medicare-for-all is (no surprise) highly equivocal and contradictory. There's no guarantee that if Biden were to adopt that, or any other of Sen. Bernie Sanders' ideas, he would benefit at all.

But as Nwanevu also points out, it's much more certain that the left is correct about what is mechanically necessary to preserve American democracy. Recent reporting has shown ever more clearly that former President Donald Trump attempted an autogolpe after he lost the election — aside from the Jan. 6 putsch, he tried to convince his acting attorney general and deputy attorney general to "just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me," as transcribed in the notes of the deputy. Meanwhile, Trump's acting head of the Department of Justice civil rights division also tried to convince the attorney general to overturn the election results in Georgia. The effort to stay in power only didn't succeed because a handful of key Republicans (most of whom have since been purged from the party) refused to go along with it. It would be idiotic to count on that happening again.

Today, famous conservatives have taken to praising Hungary (and the former conservative dictatorship in Portugal) because they are deeply attracted to the idea of a pseudo-democratic gangster state in which an extreme right-wing party holds permanent power, and liberals, leftists, and minority groups face state persecution.

One would think that a party that currently controls the federal government would use it to stop themselves from being rigged out of power forever. But not if you only do popular things! Getting rid of or reforming the Senate filibuster doesn't get majority support. Nor does banning partisan gerrymandering on a party-line vote. And adding more justices to the Supreme Court — where a turbo-reactionary majority hews to the noble principle of "if Democrats do it, then it is unconstitutional" — is far underwater, with 26 percent support and 46 percent against. (Notably, only 43 percent of Democrats support it, probably because party elites like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are against the idea.)

In theory, one could imagine a politician that took popular stands on policy, yet took aggressive procedural actions when it couldn't be avoided (as Shor indeed suggests). In practice this does not happen. The reason is that the neoliberal decades have produced a class of wimps: Democratic politicians who are fearful, timid, and hesitant when it comes to pursuing their own interests or confronting Republicans. They are bold and aggressive only when they are fighting internal battles with the nearly-powerless left of their own party, who threaten their cushy post-office consulting gigs.

Obsessively monitoring polls and instantly trimming down or throwing out policies that don't register a strongly positive poll result will tend to reinforce that wimpy attitude. It will also tend to rule out unpopular but tactically sound moves, like for example pushing through with an economic stimulus that may not poll well today but will ensure unemployment is low on Election Day. Conversely, Bill Clinton's passage of free trade deals may have paid off politically in the short term, but did tremendous damage to the Democrats' long-term performance in the numerous places that were harmed.

Now, to give the surveyors their due, polls certainly have their place. Their argument for a focus on concrete economic policy that will create lots of jobs is largely correct. But they are no more immune to bias than anyone else. And popularity in high places reliably indicates that one is saying what the powerful want to hear more than it does the discovery of political data wizardry.

The classic Democratic combination of timidity and seething hatred for their only energetic leaders was on full display this week as Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and a few others staged a sit-in outside the Capitol building to delay the cancellation of a pandemic eviction moratorium that could have created a politically-calamitous homelessness crisis across the country, all while much of the party establishment (along with pro-Israel lobbyists and Republican groups) pulled out all the stops to defeat Sanders protege Nina Turner in an Ohio congressional primary election. Biden, after unconvincingly hemming and hawing for a month, abruptly reinstated a watered-down version of the eviction ban, and Turner indeed lost.

But the bedrock political reality today is that the Democrats have had the consistent support of a solid majority of the country for well over a decade, while Republicans are plotting to exploit the wildly un-democratic features of our 18th-century Constitution to institute permanent minority rule. For instance, as Shor has (correctly) argued, the Supreme Court is a tyrannical, racist institution that should be radically disempowered. The same is true of the Senate. To ensure even a remotely fair election next year, much less put through reforms to these institutions, Democrats will need to muster guts and determination that are not currently in evidence.

Looking at polls more is not likely to help.

Tuesday's Democratic primary in Ohio's 11th congressional district, for the November special election to replace former Rep. Marcia Fudge, feels like an extension of the acrimonious 2016 presidential primaries between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. That's because one of Sanders' most prominent allies, former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner, is seeking the nomination. And because her sometimes acerbic style alienated senior Democrats with very long memories, leading Democrats including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-N.C.), the Congressional Black Caucus' PAC, and Clinton herself, have thrown their considerable weight behind Turner's opponent, Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chairwoman Shontel Brown, who has since erased Turner's early lead. Even Marcia Fudge's mom has gotten in on the anti-Turner action.

What is it about this extremely safe Democratic seat that has drawn the attention of the party's heaviest hitters? Like many of the most prominent Sanders supporters, Turner's rhetoric in both 2016 and 2020 sometimes seemed designed to alienate the kind of normie Democrats who, let's remember, delivered the party's presidential nomination to Clinton in 2016 and then Biden in 2020. She was also the co-chair of Sanders' unsuccessful 2020 run for the nomination, so it's not like she was some surrogate gone rogue on a talk show. Last summer she told an Atlantic reporter that voting for Biden in the general election was like if "You have a bowl of s--t in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing."

That Turner drew a strong opponent in this race is not a DNC conspiracy, and the depictions of Brown as some kind of neolib puppet in the left-wing press are not especially persuasive. There's no law of political thermodynamics that says the party's progressive wing is entitled to this seat, and Hillary Clinton, who is a private citizen, can continue to wage guerrilla war on everyone she blames for her loss in 2016 if she wants to, and that definitely includes Bernie Sanders and his top allies. In What Happened, the post-2016 book she wrote trying to make sense of her loss to Donald Trump, Sanders loomed large. She blamed him for wrecking her public image by "impugning my character" in ways that caused "lasting damage" in the general election.

Clinton almost certainly holds a particular grudge against Turner, who was barred from delivering a speech nominating Bernie Sanders at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Unlike Sanders himself, Turner never endorsed Clinton in the general election. She was offered the Green Party's vice presidential nomination that summer but declined. "I'm a Democrat, and that's worth fighting for," she said at the time. Video that recently surfaced of Turner with Green Party grifter Jill Stein in July 2016 didn't help smooth over relations with the party establishment.

But Democratic leaders are losing sight of the bigger picture here. Throughout modern American history, the two parties have warded off third party challenges in two ways. One is by co-opting their policy ideas. You can draw a straight line from Ross Perot's 1992 independent campaign for the presidency and the GOP's 1994 Contract With America, which endorsed several of Perot's ideas, including a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and congressional term limits.

When he ran again in 1996, Perot's vote share collapsed by more than half and his Reform Party exists today mostly as a website. Political scientists Shigeo Hirano and James M. Snyder also argued persuasively in a 2007 paper that the overall decline in third party congressional representation was mostly due to the Democratic Party moving left in the 1930s and hoovering up the policy ideas of left-wing third parties like the Farmer-Labor Party.

Appropriating insurgent ideas is one way the major parties keep third party candidates from acting as spoilers. Another is holding party primaries themselves. The potential to gradually transform the party from within, rather than mounting a ruinous challenge from outside the two-party system, gives the Sanders/AOC rank-and-file strong incentives to stay and fight for their vision within the Democratic Party. It means that even if you lose the party leadership fight, like progressives did in 2016 and 2020, there are still pathways to power that offer the hope of future change.

If Democratic leaders think Turner-style firebrands won't cut it in swing districts, that's one thing. But this is a Democratic landslide district that Fudge (now Biden's secretary of Housing and Urban Development) won by more than 60 points in 2020. By weighing in so ostentatiously for Shontel Brown, what party leaders are saying, in effect, is that it's not about defending this seat. It's that they don't think Turner or anyone like her belongs in Congress at all. And that's not really a message you want to send to younger Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, whatever you might think of Turner.

The longstanding generational divide in American politics is well known, with voters under 29 supporting Joe Biden over Donald Trump by more than 20 points. But Democrats have their own issues with the TikTok set. In state after state, Biden's primary wins were powered by older voters, while younger Democrats went overwhelmingly for Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In the decisive Super Tuesday contests that effectively ended the Sanders campaign, the Vermont senator won an estimated 63 percent of 18-29 year olds and 42 percent of voters between 30 and 44. These voters want sweeping change and aren't necessarily as put off as older voters are by the progressive left's broadsides against the Democratic establishment.

Most people worry about millennials and Gen Z marching off to the right, but the real threat is that the party's septuagenarian leadership maintains its grip on Democratic Party policies indefinitely and leads radical younger voters to form a credible progressive alternative. Ask your nearest Canadian how much fun it is to have two different parties representing the left in our shared electoral system, Single Member District Plurality, which awards most offices in Congress to a single winner, even if that person lacks a majority. Dividing the left is a Republican dream come true, and could rescue the GOP from its own potential demographic oblivion as the party's core supporters die off.

If those young activists feel like the Democratic Party as an institution circles the wagons with a siege mentality every time a progressive gets near Congress, they'll be much easier prey for third parties. And the health of the Democratic Party rises in importance every day that the Republican Party drifts further and further toward conspiracy-driven authoritarianism. If Democrats — left, right, and center — can't keep their focus on the gathering far-right threats to our political system, they might find that whoever wins this race will spend the rest of their career sifting through the ashes of American democracy rather than making policy.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) played "a kind of gadfly role" in the upper chamber for many years, David Axelrod, who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama, told Politico. But now, the de facto leader of progressive Democrats is at the center of congressional deal-making, including Democrats' recent agreement on a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint.

Sanders had been pushing his fellow Democrats to embrace an even larger $6 trillion proposal, but now, it seems, that was a tactic to push everyone else a little higher. "We wouldn't be there without him putting out $6 trillion," Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told Politico.

"You're seeing a very pragmatic Bernie Sanders, but he's pragmatic in a principled way," Axelrod said, adding that Sanders and President Biden "have come together in the sunset of their careers to do something potentially historic" despite coming "from different places in the party."

Sanders didn't sound so sure "pragmatic" is the right word, though the fact that he told Politico that he's going about his business the way he is because "there are 50 members of the Democratic Caucus" in the Senate "and unfortunately not all of them agree with me on everything" did little to dispel that notion. Read more at Politico.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) "would have loved to run against" former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, he told The New York Times' Maureen Dowd. "He's a fraud and he's a phony," Sanders said of Trump. "That's what he is, and he has to be exposed for that."

But he retains a different attitude toward many of Trump's supporters, whom he says he wants to reach out to soon, seemingly when he gets a break from his work on infrastructure legislation. Sanders told Dowd that the "Democratic elite" doesn't always "fully appreciate" the need to speak to the struggles of the white working class, reflecting a message he often relayed throughout his presidential campaigns. "We've got to take it to them," Sanders said, referring to the aforementioned demographic. "I intend, as soon as I have three minutes, to start going into Trumpworld and start talking to people."

Sanders told Dowd "it's absolutely imperative if democracy is to survive that we do everything that we can to say, 'Yes, we hear your pain and we are going to respond to your needs.'" If Democrats fail to do that, Sanders added, he fears "very much that conspiracy theories and big lies and the drift toward authoritarianism" will continue. Read more from Dowd's sit-down with Sanders at The New York Times.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday that an infrastructure proposal being developed by a bipartisan group of senators "provides spending in some very important areas — roads, bridges, water systems." That's a good thing, he said, before quickly acknowledging that he still has two major concerns about the plan.

The senator said the amount of "new" money (that is, money that's not taken from surplus COVID-19 relief funds) the group is willing to spend as of now is "not adequate," and subsequently, he's also concerned about how the bipartisan group is aiming to pay for the infrastructure improvements.

The details haven't been released and are apparently in flux, but Sanders addressed some of the whispers that are out there, including raising gas taxes or an electric vehicle users' fee. "Those to my mind are bad ideas," he told Bash. In a separate interview, Sanders told NBC News' Chuck Todd that he would not support those proposals if they are ultimately included. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) had previously dismissed the idea that she and her colleagues would raise gas taxes, but she did say an electric vehicle fee was a possibility.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has a few burning questions.

When Politico's Natalie Fertig introduced herself to Sanders as the publication's cannabis reporter, Sanders asked, incredulously, if she was "stoned" right now. The senator then wondered out loud if being stoned was a job "requirement," to which Fertig replied, "It's actually not."

He's probably just asking for a friend.

Listen to a clip of the brief exchange below:

A small crotchet doll of Bernie Sanders has sold for $23,000 (£16,823) online. The doll, a tribute to the inauguration day photo of the veteran Vermont senator hunched over and wearing chunky knitted mittens, was made by Tobey King in Texas. Commenting on the price-tag, she said: “It’s mind-blowing.” King has donated the money to Meals on Wheels America.

Loch Ness Monster spotted twice

The Loch Ness Monster has been spotted twice this year, according to reports. Viewers say they spotted the mythical beast on a live webcam stream of Urquhart Bay, when they witnessed “unexplained” objects in the loch measuring around “a dozen feet long”. Meanwhile, Nessie watcher Eoin O’Faodhagain also claims he spotted the mysterious creature twice in a matter of days.

Man has nose removed to look like alien

A man has had his nose surgically removed to try and look like a “black alien”. Anthony Loffredo has also split his tongue and covered his entire body - including his eyeballs - in tattoos. During a live Q&A on Instagram, Loffredo said he also dreams of removing his skin and replacing it with metal. He previously told French newspaper Midi Libre: “From a very young age, I have been passionate about mutations and transformations of the human body.”

It's a little known fact that the presidential inauguration actually doubles as a fashion show of preppy winter 'fits, and President-elect Joe Biden's was no different. But the winner of the Capitol steps on Wednesday wasn't Michelle Obama, in her plum Sergio Hudson, or Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' step-daughter, Ella Emhoff, in her embellished coat, or Jill Biden, in her custom blue Markarian.

No, it was the grumpy chic outfit of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders:

Sanders, naturally, wears mittens made by a teacher from Essex Junction, Vermont, and knit from "repurposed wool sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled plastic bottles," BuzzFeed News' Ruby Cramer reports.

After Congress agreed to send $600 stimulus checks to Americans, President Trump decided he wanted to push for $2,000 checks instead, launching Trump and some Republicans into an unlikely alliance with Democrats. But the proposal likely won't even get to the Senate floor thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who spent Thursday once again railing against the proposal with a pointed hit at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

In his Thursday floor speech, McConnell declared Democrats took Trump's proposal and "skewed it so the checks would benefit even more high-earning households," calling the whole thing "socialism for rich people." McConnell has refused to put the $2,000 checks up for a vote, lumping them in with a repeal of protections for social media companies and other unrelated legislation despite bipartisan criticism.

Sanders meanwhile took a more direct approach, capping off a week of fiery floor speeches with a harsh response to McConnell on Thursday. "The majority leader helped lead this body to pass Trump's tax bill. You want to talk about socialism for the rich, Mr. Majority Leader?" Sanders exclaimed. He likewise criticized McConnell's focus on Section 230, sarcastically calling it something "that is absolutely on the minds" of struggling Americans.

Sanders previously tried to filibuster a vote to override President Trump's veto of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, trying to hold it up until McConnell brought up a standalone vote on the $2,000 checks. But most Republicans and even more Democrats voted to proceed with the vote anyway on Wednesday, stripping Sanders of some of his leverage.

For this moment, anyway, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) might be President Trump's greatest ally in Congress.

Sanders announced on Monday that he will filibuster the Senate's anticipated vote to override Trump's veto of the defense funding bill until and unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stops his obstruction and lets the chamber vote on Trump's demand for $2,000 pandemic stimulus payments to most Americans.

"McConnell and the Senate want to expedite the override vote and I understand that," Sanders told Politico. "But I'm not going to allow that to happen unless there is a vote, no matter how long that takes, on the $2,000 direct payment."

Sanders might be more likely to get his vote than to actually procure Senate approval for the $2,000 checks — though Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both Georgia Republicans in tight runoff elections, said Tuesday morning they'll vote for the payments, as did Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). But this very temporary alliance between Sanders and Trump represents a taste of what might've been, a throwback to when both men's insurgent presidential campaigns were full of populist potential.

For a few months in early 2016, Sanders and Trump seemed almost mirror universe versions of each other.

Each man was a relative outsider to the party establishments. Both railed about how those establishments had left working-class Americans behind, and both were openly suspicious of international free trade agreements they said exported jobs overseas. Both were less-than-sanguine about immigration's effects on workers. Yes, Sanders labeled himself a democratic socialist and Trump presented himself as the epitome of capitalist success, but their rhetoric overlapped considerably. Fortune even offered a quiz daring readers to tell the difference between the two men's public statements.

There was never much crossover between the two men's supporters — a March 2016 poll showed just 13 percent of Sanders voters had a favorable view of Trump — though the MAGA-ites and Bernie Bros both gained reputations for snarling and elbow-throwing. That didn't stop Trump from making a bid for those voters when Sanders faded in that year's primary campaign against Hillary Clinton.

"Bernie Sanders had a message that's interesting," Trump told MSNBC in April of that year. "I'm going to be taking a lot of the things Bernie said and using them."

Trump was mostly trolling, trying to drive a wedge between Sanders voters and Clinton, the Democratic nominee. But Trumpist populism was always pretty much a pose — early in his term, he bullied some manufacturers into announcing they would keep their jobs in America, it is true. But those efforts didn't always pay off as promised, and in any case the president found populism more useful as a political tool, a way to generate the rage of his supporters and rail against the elites who despised him, rather than the lodestar for an actual governing agenda. His most significant legislative accomplishment is the passage of a giant tax cut whose benefits mostly went to the rich and big corporations — and mostly failed to create good new jobs, as Trump and his allies had promised.

Sanders, meanwhile, returned to the Senate (and the presidential campaign trail) and started working for "Medicare for all." And by the time 2020 rolled around, Trump — rhetorically at least — no longer found Sanders' message "interesting." Instead, he spent his campaign railing somewhat ironically against socialism, and trying unsuccessfully to pin Sanders' views on decidedly centrist Joe Biden. These days, the two men could hardly be further apart in their politics and rhetoric.

The fight over $2,000 payments, though, is a glimpse of what was possible if Trump had had a genuine interest in or ability to advance populist legislation, instead of using populism as a button to push in order to get a reaction. He might have found common ground with Sanders on issues here and there to advance the interests of the working class. If he had done so — even in the face of opposition from his own party — we might be talking very differently now about Trump's presidency. At the very least, such an effort would have been more interesting than the tedious grind of culture warring that has dominated the last four years. Some ambitious Republicans seem ready to pick up the mantle of economic populism. How might Trump have fared if he had pushed hard for such policies from the beginning, instead of waiting until the waning weeks of a lame-duck presidency?

We'll never know. Instead, Trump is going home in a few weeks. And Sanders remains in Washington, still working and fighting.

Luke Letlow, a Republican congressman-elect from Louisiana's 5th District, died on Tuesday due to complications from COVID-19, his campaign manager announced.

Letlow, 41, contracted the virus last week, and was receiving treatment in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Shreveport, WDSU reports. He won his election in November with 62 percent of the vote, and was set to be sworn in as a congressman next month.

On Dec. 21, Letlow tweeted that he was thankful for the "continued outpouring of prayers and support for my family and me," and said he was "confident" that with the help of doctors, he would be "on the mend soon." Letlow added that he believed "strongly in the power of prayer" and had learned "firsthand how important plasma and blood donations are during this pandemic."


Letlow is survived by his wife, Julie Barnhill Letlow, and two young children.

Things reportedly got testy on Wednesday during an internal conference call as lawmakers tried to iron out a bipartisan agreement for a coronavirus relief bill, The Washington Post reports.

Multiple aides told the Post that tensions flared specifically between Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), who reportedly got into a heated exchange over how big stimulus checks should be. Checks were initially left out of the $900 billion proposal before reportedly being added as part of a compromise. Sanders argued for more robust direct payments, while Manchin advocated for a lower amount, instead preferring to emphasize unemployment benefits.

Reports the Post, members trying to rush the $900 billion proposal into law are "infuriated" by the potential for Sanders' opposition to blow up the whole deal.

Sanders, for his part, has called the inclusion of $600 checks a "good start," but is vowing to keep fighting "for more." Read more at The Washington Post.

Back in May, establishment reporters were writing obituaries for the left's attempt to take over the Democratic Party. Alex Thompson wrote at Politico that the left was in "despair," thanks to Joe Biden defeating Bernie Sanders, and the failure of three other progressive primary challengers. Conservative columnist Josh Kraushaar at National Journal confidently predicted the "end of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's revolution," as three members of the "Squad," including AOC herself, were facing their own primary challenges.

Now it's August and, with several more rounds of primaries gone past, a good time to take stock. Democratic socialists AOC and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) obliterated their primary challengers easily. Progressive Mondaire Jones won an open primary in New York, Jamaal Bowman defeated longtime incumbent and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), and Black Lives Matter activist Cori Bush ousted the moderate incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay in St. Louis. Leftist candidates have also made strides at the state and local levels in New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.

It seems predictions of the left's demise were somewhat premature. This year's fight is not over — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has her own primary in a few days, among others — but it is clear that the movement Bernie Sanders helped build will outlast him.

Left-wing politics is a challenge in any country, and especially so in the United States. The basic goal of the left is equality, which necessarily means displacing rich elites from their control over the economy and the political system. Money buys political influence, in the form of campaign contributions, control of the media, bribery, and so forth. And if that doesn't work, there is always outright oppression. Nascent American socialist and union movements have indeed been repeatedly strangled by naked political repression, from legal harassment, to frenzied witch-hunts, to assassination and mass murder. For all the operatic whining about "cancel culture" from the right these days, I would much rather be dragged online than thrown in prison for criticizing a stupid war, or shot to death by the national guard for going on strike.

So far we have not yet seen that much illiberal repression or terrorist violence directed against the modern left (though there has been some). But the Democratic Party establishment still has considerable advantages. They have a deep-pocketed donor class, broad support among the mainstream press, and probably most important, an increasingly unhinged and extreme Republican Party. The most effective argument moderate Democrats have used against the left is simply pointing at the GOP and saying "we can't take the risk." Somehow it still worked in 2020 even after a moderate Democrat lost a gimme election to a reality TV clown in 2016.

That said, the left has largely won the argument about values among Democratic voters. A Pew poll from this January found 61 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters think the government should provide more assistance to the needy, 72 percent support tuition-free college, and 74 percent support Medicare-for-all. Fully 95 percent think economic inequality is a big problem, and 85 percent think corporations have too much power.

Now, as the unfortunate defeat of Sanders shows, agreement does not automatically translate to support. One has to undertake a grinding process of mobilization and argument to convince the Democratic base to emerge from its defensive crouch and to start actually demanding the things they believe in. The original Black Lives Matter protests in 2014 and the Sanders campaign in 2016 got the ball rolling, and the George Floyd protests accelerated things dramatically. Both Bowman and Bush gained enormous attention and support thanks to their association with the movement and the intense coverage of racial injustice. Left-wing challenges have generally performed best when tied directly into the movement for racial injustice, particularly when they involve candidates of color.

There will no doubt be many more reverses in the future, and overall success is by no means guaranteed. This kind of political effort is always a patchwork, herky-jerky process, with candidates winning here and losing there — but the general trend is undeniably up. In 2021 there will be the beginnings of a socialist caucus in the U.S. Congress for the first time in American history. The moderate congressional leadership has managed to cling to power so far, but they are all 69 years old or older, and the left has proved that even committee chairs are no longer safe. Without another paroxysm of repression, it will be harder and harder for moderate Democrats to excuse their hesitation and timidity.

They had better keep one eye over their shoulders. The left's long march through the Democratic Party has only just begun.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who recently locked up enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement Friday that he is "proud" the party is "united" heading into November's general election against President Trump. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Politico reports, appears to have something to do with that.

Sanders received a portion of the blame for Trump's 2016 victory within some Democratic circles because many folks didn't think he did enough to help Hillary Clinton after she defeated him in the primaries that year. But even some of his more vocal critics don't feel that way way now. Neera Tanden, president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress and a longtime Clinton aide, said Sanders "has been a tremendous force in helping unify the party," adding that she's "grateful for his work to urge his supporters to support Biden and fight Trump."

The senator has maintained throughout the election cycle that he'd support the Democratic nominee, and it sounds like his team isn't messing around when it comes to sticking by that promise. Gregory McKelvey, a Sanders supporter from Oregon who ran to be one of his delegates at the Democratic National Convention, told Politico he spoke with a Sanders aide who told him that if they find anything expressing dissent, such as posts including catch phrases "DemExit" or "Never Joe", on a person's social media feed, "then you are out" as a delegate. Read more at Politico.

New York state's Democratic presidential primary is a go.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that New York's Board of Elections can't call off the primary scheduled for June 23. In agreeing with a lower court's decision, the Tuesday ruling will put former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and several other Democrats back on the ballot even though all but Biden have suspended their campaigns.

The board decided in late April to cancel the Democratic primary, which had already been pushed from April to June over coronavirus concerns, because it determined Biden was the only candidate left on the ballot. Sanders protested the decision, but it was entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang who led a lawsuit to get the primary reinstated. A district court agreed with Yang's suit earlier this month and declared calling off the primary was a violation of 10 Democratic presidential candidates' First and 14th Amendment rights. The Second Circuit upheld that decision on Tuesday.

While Sanders had suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden, he encouraged supporters to keep voting for him so his progressive ideas could gain influence in the Democratic party. He, Yang, and any other Democrat who had filed to be on the primary ballot will be on the June ballot even if they'd since dropped out.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) thinks it's the perfect time to give Medicare-for-all a try, or at least Medicare for the uninsured.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and for many of them, that meant losing employer-based health care coverage as well. Some Democrats — namely former Vice President Joe Biden — have suggested the U.S. government cover COBRA payments so those who lost their insurance can keep it, but Sanders laid out a new route in a Tuesday Politico op-ed.

COBRA lets people who've lost their jobs keep health care coverage by paying for it out of pocket. House Democrats have discussed having the federal government cover those payments for newly-unemployed Americans, and Biden has called for the same. Sanders doesn't mention the former vice president in the op-ed, but he does offer an alternative to what Democrats have cooked up, as well as the White House's plan to funnel funding directly to hospitals to cover uninsured patients.

"Subsidizing COBRA, as they have suggested, would be both expensive and ineffective," Sanders writes for Politico. COBRA payments are notoriously pricey, health insurance companies would make money off the idea, and "it would still leave tens of millions uninsured or underinsured" and left to cover costly deductibles, Sanders writes. So Sanders suggests the government "empower Medicare to pay all of the health care costs for the uninsured, as well as all out-of-pocket expenses for those with existing public or private insurance" throughout the pandemic — a plan he's turned into the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act. Read Sanders' whole op-ed here.

Cardi B's trademark long, acrylic nails "are typically adorned with around 500 crystals," so you know she has high standards when it comes to ungual upkeep. Still, during a Tuesday interview with former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders — whom Cardi B fondly refers to as "Uncle Bernie" — the rapper couldn't hide her dismay over her favorite senator's hands.

"I want you to take a look at my nails, how're they looking?" Sanders had asked when he signed onto the call, flashing his cuticles to the camera. Cardi wrinkled her nose, replying that they looked "very quarantine."

Did you get that, Bernie? Glue on some Swarovski crystals, and get back to us.

Former Vice President Joe Biden praised Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a live stream Monday after officially securing his endorsement, telling the Vermont senator he doesn't "get enough credit."

Sanders remotely joined Biden for a live stream after Sanders announced last week he was suspending his campaign for president. Sanders offered Biden his endorsement, something Biden called a "big deal" while telling Sanders "you just made me" the Democratic nominee and heaping praise on his former primary competitor.

"You've been the most powerful voice for a fair and more just America," Biden told Sanders. "...You don't get enough credit, Bernie, for being the voice that forces us to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves, 'Have we done enough?' And we haven't."

Biden, who during the stream said it's not "good enough" to go "back to the way things were before" after the coronavirus crisis, also embraced Sanders' 2020 campaign slogan of "not me, us" and asked the senator's supporters to join him.

"Thank you for being so generous," Biden told Sanders. "I give you my word, I'll try my best not to let you all down."

After the live stream, the Trump campaign in a statement said this endorsement news is "further proof that even though Bernie Sanders won't be on the ballot in November, his issues will be." Meanwhile, Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for the Sanders campaign, tweeted that because Biden doesn't support issues like Medicare-for-all, "With the utmost respect for Bernie Sanders, who is an incredible human being and a genuine inspiration, I don't endorse Joe Biden." Brendan Morrow

Idealism in politics gets too much good press.

When it informs political rhetoric, elevating the pursuit of power and giving it moral shape, idealism has its place. But too often it becomes indistinguishable from magical thinking — from the empirically unfalsifiable conviction that what one's ideological compatriots hope to achieve is so self-evidently wonderful, so obviously pure, so transparently righteous that it is bound to prevail.

Witness the now-defunct presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

I can understand some of Sanders' appeal. For a politician with presidential ambitions, he was refreshingly honest. And he highlighted some of the very real injustices and cruelties of the distinctly Darwinian form of capitalism that prevails in the United States. This enabled him to tap into high levels of discontent among young voters.

But Sanders also campaigned for the presidency in a way that showed an almost absurd disregard for the realities of small-d democratic politics. To win elections, politicians need to build broad coalitions. They need to reach out to voters who don't immediately and instinctually respond to the purest form of their message. As an experienced pol, Sanders obviously knows this. His long-term record on guns and other issues shows that he was quite willing to make moderate moves in his mostly rural home state. But he apparently decided that he wanted to run for president as a prototypical leftist preaching a gospel of political revolution instead.

That made Sanders a quintessential idealist who bought into magical thinking. No wonder it didn't work out for him.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that he believed his surprisingly impressive showing in 2016 was a function of the widespread appeal of his (in an American context) radical message rather than what it almost certainly was: a combination of genuine enthusiasm among the young and broad-based dislike for Hillary Clinton. Without Clinton as an opponent and foil, Sanders proved incapable of performing the same magic trick again, let alone building on it.

This was obscured for a time by his campaign's continued strength at organizing caucuses (in Iowa and Nevada) and by a field that was deeply divided during the opening weeks of the primaries. If that division continued, there was a small chance that Sanders could have reproduced Donald Trump's 2016 inside straight and eeked out a plurality victory in the race for delegates. But as soon as the competition dropped out, that path became impossible. In the end, Sanders won fewer states this time around (9) than Rick Santorum did in the GOP primaries eight years ago (11).

Which is pretty much what one would expect from a man who insisted on referring to himself as a socialist, despite polling that consistently showed the unpopularity of the term. And who loved to point to different polls that showed strong support for Medicare-for-all, while dismissing many others that revealed serious apprehensions about it when its painful corollaries (like the abolition of private insurance and a gargantuan price tag) were presented to respondents.

Go right on down the line of the campaign's policy positions and the candidate's revolutionary rhetoric on the stump and in debates: At no point was there the slightest sign of an inclination toward moderation, compromise, or conciliation; no acknowledgement of a need for trade-offs or adjustment of expectations in the face of economic or fiscal limits; no sense that Sanders understood that lots of people besides his billionaire betes noires prefer something between socialism and the cartoonishly pro-business approach of present-day Republicans; or that many millions of Americans both deeply dislike the current president and yet have no desire to see $60 trillion in new government spending.

None of that seemed to matter to Sanders. He and his supporters wanted what they wanted, and they had faith that if he promised it over and over again without variation, the voters would respond and the candidate would prevail — in the primaries, and then against Trump in the general, and apparently even in the Senate, where of course a socialist president would be incapable of getting even the first piece of his revolutionary program passed without a 60+ majority of left-progressives.

Possible? I suppose it could have happened. Just as it was possible that the primary challenge to Trump by former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld might have taken down the sitting president. It was just exceedingly unlikely. Sanders did much better than Weld at the first part of the electoral triathlon he set for himself. But winning the presidency while sweeping a supermajority of wannabe socialists into both houses of Congress along with him? You've got to be kidding.

This is the fantasy of the true believer who allows himself to forget the political rules — or who assumes he's simply so superhuman that he possesses the power to suspend those rules with his convictions and self-evidently appealing message. Building a broad-based coalition? Setting priorities? Reaching out to segments of the electorate who didn't start out swooning for the candidate? Acting like a retail politician, selling a message to voters, meeting them part way, working to get them to buy in? All of that is beneath the One True Thing and the activists sitting at his feet. (In this respect, the campaign of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was little better. Aside from claiming the capitalist mantel for herself, she resisted drawing policy contrasts with Sanders, appeared to match his radicalism with her hundred-and-one plans for dramatic reform, and actually tried on numerous occasions to outflank him on his left on issues wrapped up with identity politics. All told, Warren proved just as incapable of telegraphing a message of moderation as Sanders.)

A socialist may recoil at the language of marketing and advertising, of buying and selling, but that's the way democratic elections work. Sanders himself never indicated even the slightest inclination toward seeking to gain power through any other means. (Only in his peculiar hesitation to criticize the despotic regimes of self-proclaimed socialists around the globe has he shown any sign of wavering in his support for democracy.) Yet there is a reason that left-wing political movements have so often taken the path of political violence and dictatorship. Absolutism, certainty, and a sense of self-righteousness, along with a distaste for the tawdry and transactional character of retail politics, have tempted many to consider themselves a vanguard entitled to dispense with democratic niceties.

This wasn't Bernie Sanders' way, but neither was the path of pragmatism. That left purity in defeat as the only remaining option. Here's to hoping the leaders to follow him on the left prove as decent — or more willing to play the democratic game to win.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Sherelle Jacobs in The Daily Telegraph

on political metaphors

Enough war bluster about beating coronavirus – let's steel ourselves to live with it instead

“Time to ditch the military analogies. Coronavirus may be something we must simply learn to live with. Such a message may be against the better nature of centrist politicians who have spent the last 30 years protecting us from the Other (Saddam Hussein) and ourselves (nativist populism). But they can yet change their attitude, and compellingly sell the truth of the matter to the public.”

2. Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian

on what really matters

Coronavirus crisis has transformed our view of what’s important

“Our public life has also been stripped to its essentials. We’ve come to see what’s indispensable and what is not. It turns out that we can function without celebrities or star athletes, but we really cannot function without nurses, doctors, care workers, delivery drivers, the stackers of supermarket shelves or, perhaps unexpectedly, good neighbours. If you didn’t value those people before – some of those belatedly recognised as key workers are among the lowest paid – you surely value them now.”

3. David Aaronovitch in The Times

on miracle cures

Don’t let fake news infect the war on Covid-19

“Many people for obvious and often noble reasons worry about the effects of a lockdown and argue that the game is not worth the candle. I think they’re wrong though I respect their motives. But for a section of the populist right, including pro-Trump websites, journals and news stations, this has become another part of their battle with the liberal establishment. And the championing of get-out-of-jail cures for the pandemic is the current go-to cause.”

4. Holly Baxter in The Independent

on the US presidential race

Coronavirus killed Bernie Sanders' campaign — but if he made a deal with Biden, we might see him in the White House yet

“Bernie’s soft-socialist, collectivist ideas are well-suited to the recession we will now have to weather. The age of unfettered American capitalism is over. A Republican White House sending out $1,200 checks to every US taxpayer would have been unthinkable just weeks ago; now that White House may be forced to bring in policies that some Democrats would have balked at in normal times.”

5. Financial Times Editorial Board

on an existential moment for the EU

Eurozone ministers must strike coronavirus deal

“For the survival of the eurozone and the entire post-1945 project of European unity, it is of paramount importance that ministers do not waste their second bite at the cherry. The issues at stake are politically divisive, at national and European level, and they raise genuine matters of principle for many governments. However, a second signal of high-level disagreement in less than a week would sow serious doubts in financial markets and around the world about Europe’s ability to get its act together.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had made a few phone calls to the last administration before making his big dropout decision.

Sanders suspended his 2020 run on Wednesday, saying his "path toward victory is virtually impossible" but pledging to stay on primary ballots through the Democratic National Convention to gain influence in the party. And shortly after making that announcement, Sanders reportedly made a call to Joe Biden, who he left as the presumptive Democratic nominee, CBS News reports.

Sanders also consulted former President Barack Obama "several times" before making his decision, NBC News reports. Obama reportedly still isn't ready to hop into the 2020 fray just yet, but Sanders' suspension surely makes it easier for him to do so.

Hillary Clinton, 2016's Democratic nominee, meanwhile had no comment on Sanders' exit. Kathryn Krawczyk

For a few weeks, it seemed as though Bernie Sanders was really going to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. He won the most votes in all three of the first states, and was leading national polls. Opinion surveys showed that he was broadly popular among the Democratic electorate, and majorities of primary voters supported his signature ideas like Medicare-for-all.

But in a space of about three days, it all went sideways. Joe Biden won a smashing victory in South Carolina, all the other moderate candidates dropped out and endorsed him, and he went on to win convincingly across most Super Tuesday states. Sanders was set far back in the delegate race, and now, a little over a month later, he is suspending his campaign. The main reason he is not going all the way to the convention is surely the coronavirus pandemic, but the race was already effectively over anyway.

So what happened? A full campaign postmortem will of course have to wait for more detailed investigations and reporting. But there are a few factors that undoubtedly contributed to his loss — his age, lockstep opposition from the Democratic establishment, and a hostile mainstream media.

The most basic is age. Sanders would have been the oldest president ever inaugurated for a first term by a considerable margin. He also suffered a heart attack in October. The presidency is a demanding job, and all other things equal, of course voters will be hesitant to support an elderly candidate.

However, Sanders did not lose to some fresh-faced youngster. On the contrary, Joe Biden is only a year younger than Sanders, and has his own history of health problems, having suffered two brain aneurysms in the 1980s. What's more, unlike Sanders, Biden has very obviously shown signs of losing a step or two mentally. Interviews with him from just four years ago sound like a completely different person.

A second factor is Sanders' cranky loner personality. By his own admission he is not good at the personal side of politics. In an interview with The New York Times, he said, "I'm not good at backslapping. I'm not good at pleasantries … I take that as a little bit of a criticism, self-criticism. I have been amazed at how many people respond to, 'Happy Birthday!' 'Oh Bernie, thanks so much for calling.' It works. It’s just not my style." If he had been better at cultivating people, he just possibly could have gotten a few more endorsements — perhaps from Elizabeth Warren, who possibly doomed his candidacy by refusing to drop out and endorse him after South Carolina.

However, it's extremely dubious to think that being more chummy would have won over the key establishment figures, whose intervention was decisive. Exit polls show that the size of Biden's huge victory in South Carolina (he had previously been nearly tied with Sanders in some polls) was entirely because Rep. Jim Clyburn endorsed him right before the election. Then, after Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out and immediately endorsed before Super Tuesday, Biden's national support roughly tripled.

Some have argued that Sanders' lack of support among party leaders is because he refuses to join the party and because his dreaded online supporters have convinced party elites that he is a threat to their jobs and status. But the plain fact is that the Sanders candidacy actually was aimed like a torpedo directly at the corruption and policy orientation of the Democratic establishment. This is a party filled to bursting with former and aspiring corporate lobbyists, one that hands out contracts for things like running the Iowa caucus to incompetent insider dopes with a record of dismal failure. This is a party whose top staffers conduct secret meetings with Big Medical lobbyists to assure them that Sanders' Medicare-for-all plan will never happen.

The Democratic Party occasionally halfheartedly tries to pass policy that would put them on the center-right of most European countries. But it is also a gravy train of jobs and influence for people who never have to actually try to pass the things they say they support or face any consequences for screwing up. Sanders was an existential threat to that comfortable arrangement. Of course he couldn't get any elite support.

That brings me to the final factor: voters' pundit brain. As noted above, rank-and-file Democrats largely agreed with Sanders' platform. But their overwhelming priority was trying to divine who was likeliest to defeat Trump, and the party elite and the mainstream media, especially trusted nominally liberal outlets like NPR and MSNBC, blared forth a constant message that Sanders was an unelectable radical, and Biden the safe choice. Democrats trust their leaders and the mainstream media, and they believed the message.

Now, Sanders made mistakes, and in some ways he is a poor fit with the times. He is a stubborn, elderly loner at a time when a younger, FDR-style happy warrior might have done better. But he has gone further in American politics than any open socialist in history. And the fact that the party elite and the media managed to drag Biden's shambling campaign over the finish line demonstrates that any other candidate would have had just as hard a time, if not harder. Biden was popular as Obama's former vice president, but he barely bothered to campaign, and when he did, he produced a never-ending stream of embarrassing verbal flubs and gaffes. That's probably why in the early states where he had campaigned heavily, he generally got flattened — coming in fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, and a distant second in Nevada. He couldn't even raise that much money until he became the presumptive nominee. Conversely, on Super Tuesday he won several states where he had no field staff whatsoever.

Yet none of the other moderates could beat him. Elizabeth Warren tried to thread the needle by pushing lefty policy while catering to insiders, and failed much worse than Sanders did. So long as the Democratic establishment and its allied media maintain an iron grip over the party's voters, they will continue to exercise veto power over its presidential nominees.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday officially conceded the Democratic presidential primary to former Vice President Joe Biden but said he will still stay on the ballot and continue to gather delegates through the party's convention.

After suspending his campaign for president, Sanders addressed supporters in a live stream, describing his decision to exit as "very difficult and painful." But he admitted it has become "virtually impossible" for him to win the Democratic nomination and he "cannot in good conscience continue" running, especially in light of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

"If I believed that we had a feasible path to the nomination, I would certainly continue the campaign, but it's just not there," Sanders said.

Sanders also congratulated Biden, who is now the only Democratic candidate left in the race, describing him as a "very decent man." At the same time, Sanders said he will remain on the ballot in all remaining states and not stop gathering delegates.

"While Vice President Biden will be the nominee, we must continue working to assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic convention, where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions," Sanders said.

Biden in a lengthy statement on Wednesday praised Sanders and told his supporters, "I see you, I hear you. and I understand the urgency of what it is we have to get done in this country. I hope you will join us." Brendan Morrow

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reportedly often agonizes over big decisions, and one Democrat who has known the senator for years told Politico he's likely "in his rumination phase" which will soon result in a decision about the future of his presidential candidacy.

Sanders has reportedly been encouraged by a small group of his top aides and allies — including his campaign manager Faiz Shakir and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) — to consider dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary, as it looks more likely his competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, will emerge as the nominee. Those who support suspending the campaign reportedly believe if he exits on good terms with Biden, he'll have more leverage agenda-wise over the long haul.

But others reportedly think he has a chance to mount a comeback, especially as the country reels from the novel coronavirus pandemic. That's contrary to popular wisdom, which points to the pandemic putting the primary on the back burner, freezing it in place and allowing Biden to maintain his commanding lead. But, per Politico and The Washington Post, the fact that moderates and conservatives are considering ideas like free coronavirus treatment gives some Sanders supporters hope that his Medicare-for-all proposal will come back into the spotlight. The Post also notes the virus has delayed many primaries, temporarily sparing him more defeats, and perhaps buying some time to rally.

At the end of the day, though, the polls suggest that's likely wishful thinking — Biden's lead still looks quite comfortable, and one source told the Post that Sanders himself has warmed to the idea of bowing out. Read more at The Washington Post and Politico.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is looking ahead to the next few steps in the coronavirus pandemic response.

On Friday, Sanders unveiled his "Priorities for the Next Coronavirus Relief Package," proposing a number of relief measures from guaranteeing paid medical and sick leave to all workers to expanding food programs like Meals on Wheels.

The proposal unsurprisingly includes a major expansion of Medicare. "We were facing a catastrophic health care crisis before the pandemic, and now that crisis has become much, much worse," writes Sanders. The legislation would use Medicare to cover all health care expenses, notably including anyone who is sick, "regardless of immigration status."

In addition to further invoking the Defense Production Act, Sanders says payment on all rent, mortgage payments, and forms of debt should be suspended entirely, not just deferred during the pandemic only to cause "financial ruin" once they become due. Building on the one-time $1,200 payments, Sanders calls for monthly $2,000 payments.

The entire plan fits alongside policy ideas Sanders has touted throughout his presidential bid, but are ramped up in both scale and urgency now that the COVID-19 pandemic has quickly exploded to affect millions of Americans both medically and economically. This week's jobs reports showed that likely 3.5 million Americans have lost employer-provided health insurance since the pandemic began.

Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal noted the similarities between Sanders' presidential platform and his latest proposal to Congress, but argued the ideas now sound remarkably "un-radical." The suggestions are "obviously on par with the scale of this crisis," says Weisenthal, and in line with the $2.2 trillion relief package Congress previously passed, "except on a sufficient scale to really counteract the damage."

"To prevent the collapse of the economy is far more humane and cost effective than rebuilding the economy after it collapses," Sanders told MSNBC. See Sanders' proposal, which does not yet have a budget estimate, here.

In the eternity since former Vice President Joe Biden turned his presidential campaign around by winning the South Carolina primary in a blowout — it was actually just a month ago — a lot of things have changed.

A pandemic has been declared. Deaths from the novel coronavirus have surged to more than 30,000 around the world and nearly 2,500 at home. The stock market has crashed, with the Dow dropping thousands of points. Much of the economy has been put through a sudden stop as millions of Americans have been asking to abide by public-health measures designed to slow the spread of the virus. Weekly unemployment claims have spiked to levels that dwarf numbers seen during the great recession of 2008-2009 and that could well augur a global depression to come. In response, Congress has passed the largest aid package in American history ($2 trillion) to soften the economic shock of it all.

It's been a momentous few weeks, but one thing has not changed: Biden is still overwhelmingly likely to become the Democratic Party's nominee for president, and he's still better positioned than any other candidate to defeat President Trump in November.

That's something that needs to be repeated over and over again — for several reasons.

For one thing, Democrats are worriers in the best of times, and a pandemic and economic collapse during the Trump administration is among the very worst of times. For another, the kinds of people who write about politics for a living tend not to be especially impressed by the verbally challenged, unideological, gaffe-prone septuagenarian pragmatist from Delaware, and their analysis of the race reflects their incredulity about his prospects. For yet another, over the last two presidential election cycles the party has been rocked by a rebellion on its leftward flank led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a lifelong democratic socialist, who has little chance of catching Biden in the delegate count but who is refusing to bow out of the race, leaving the frontrunner looking more vulnerable than he actually is.

Now mix all of these factors with the oddly apocalyptic holding pattern in which we find ourselves — most of the primaries scheduled for late March and April have been postponed to May and June — and we have a situation perfectly designed to provoke a freak out. This is exactly what we've been seeing over the last week or so.

First people asked where Biden had gone. With Trump giving daily briefings to the media about COVID-19, why was the presumptive Democratic nominee keeping such a low profile after his decisive primary victories in Michigan, Florida, and several other delegate-rich states? Then, when Biden started making his own somewhat low-tech statements from the basement of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, others worried that he looked small and sounded smaller — an impression that worsened when he began lapsing into verbal and cognitive chaos in televised interviews.

Then came the polls showing Biden leading Trump by as little as two points nationally — and inspiring maximal excitement in only 24 percent of those planning to vote for him, which might turn out to be a sign of the same kind of weakness that hobbled Hillary Clinton's campaign four years ago. (These concerns are intensified for some by contrasting these measures of enthusiasm with the much greater excitement among Republicans to vote for Trump's re-election.)

Finally, there's the new accusation that Biden sexually assaulted a Senate aide back in 1993. The story is circulating on numerous news sites but has yet to break into the prestige media. When and if it does, Biden will be thrust into a firestorm of scandal that could fatally damage him.

All of these perceived vulnerabilities are leading Sanders to stay in the race through this extended lull in the voting, ready to pounce as soon as Biden implodes, and also encouraging fantasies of some mysterious alternative mainstream candidate magically swooping in to take Biden's place. Over the past week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been the object of these daydreams, with his strong performance in his daily briefings about the coronavirus supposedly making for a stronger contrast to Trump than Biden's wan media appearances.

It sounds bad. Except for the fact that Biden remains, and is quite likely to remain, a very formidable candidate — and more formidable than any other Democrat around.

More than two dozen Democrats ran for president in this election cycle. Biden has dispatched them all, including Sanders. The Vermont senator may be refusing to formally bow out, but in their head-to-head competitions over the past month, Biden has bested him over and over again. Sanders wins the youth vote, and he does well among Latino voters out west, but that's about it. Biden wins African Americans and working-class whites and suburban voters by such wide margins that he has surpassed Clinton's 2016 showing against Sanders almost everywhere.

Nowhere has this been more obvious than in Michigan. Sanders famously beat Clinton there (very narrowly) four years ago. Yet Biden beat Sanders this year in the state by more than 16 percentage points — and also managed to best him in every single county in the state. (Biden accomplished the same feat in Florida.) That makes Biden a very strong candidate, and certainly a stronger one than Clinton was.

It may well be true that Biden himself inspires only mild levels of enthusiasm among voters when pollsters ask them about it in the abstract. But in reality, when faced with a choice between Biden and Sanders, voters have showed up in states across the country to express their support for the former vice president. That's a very good sign that they will do the same when his opponent is the far more widely loathed Republican in the White House. It's also important to keep in mind that Trump is benefitting at the moment from a rally-round-the-president effect from the coronavirus crisis. That bump, along with a few mildly scary head-to-head polls, is unlikely to persist through the next seven months. (And even now Biden still leads Trump in aggregate head-to-head polling by 5.8 points.)

As for the possibility of the Biden candidacy being consumed by a sexual scandal, it will depend on whether the alleged victim can offer any kind of corroboration to back up her claims about an event 27 years in the past — and if anyone else comes forward with similar accusations. If the latter happens, Biden could be in trouble. But if not, a single unsubstantiated claim from nearly three decades ago is unlikely to wound a candidate running against a flagrant misogynist who brags about his own serial assaults on women.

Biden might not be any Democrat's idea of a perfect candidate. But more factions of the fractious party like him than anyone else around. That makes Biden something very close to a generic Democrat with the broadest possible appeal — which could make him a fearsome opponent to take on a president as polarizing and deeply disliked as Donald Trump.

At a time when there's so much to be worried about, Democrats would be well advised to relax about Joe Biden.

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It's been real, hasn't it? After 13 months of campaigning, during which time he was briefly but almost unanimously considered the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, it looks as if Bernie Sanders is finally calling it quits. On Wednesday afternoon his staff shot down an erroneous report that he had formally dropped out; it looks as if he'll wait to make that announcement sometime before the next primaries three weeks from now. To many observers it has been unclear why the junior senator from Vermont remained in the race after losing Michigan and Washington state two weeks ago, a defeat he followed with kind words about his fellow candidates and half-hearted conciliatory gestures towards the DNC.

The math for Sanders has looked all but impossible for a long time. The only hope that remained was some kind of mythical 1920s barnstorming campaign across the country — a final quixotic assault on the fortresses of the Democratic establishment. With this now out of the question and his only opportunities for shoring up his base and attempting to poach uneasy Biden supporters limited to YouTube, it is easy to understand why would finally give up. It is impossible to imagine terms more favorable to Sanders' only remaining opponent than a nation-wide ban on public appearances coupled with the directive that persons over the age of 60 keep to themselves.

Plenty of words (though almost certainly not as many as there might have been if the de facto end of the primary season had not coincided with the coronavirus pandemic) will be written about Sanders's brief rise and more or less instantaneous fall. Some observers will insist that Sanders lost largely because party insiders conspired against him, something that is belied by his poor showing even in states that he won, in some cases handily, in 2016. Others will give the credit to coronavirus, even though Biden's post-Nevada comeback had been secured long before this disease had established itself at the forefront of the American public imagination.

This is not to suggest that at the margins the DNC did not do everything in its power to prevent a Sanders nomination. The virtually unprecedented speed with which the remains of the largest field of technically plausible candidates in the history of these contests dropped out and endorsed Biden tells us everything we need to know about whom the party wanted at the top of the ticket. But this consolidation would not have taken place if the will of core Democratic primary voters, not just in the South but in states as far ranging as Massachusetts and Idaho, had not already been made clear.

What will become of Sanders' movement now that his presidential aspirations have been forestalled once again? Does he really represent the future of the Democratic party? A somewhat lesser-noticed contest on Tuesday hints at an answer. Whatever her objections to the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-all, there is one issue that matters more to Nancy Pelosi than anything else: abortion. This was made clear on Tuesday when Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, an eight-term socially conservative Democratic incumbent and product of the old Chicago political machine, lost his primary race to Marie Newman, a progressive challenger endorsed by Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and numerous other high-profile left-wing politicians. There may not be much room for radical economic views in the Democratic Party, but in the coming realignment there is none at all for folks like Lipinski, who received virtually no support from his party's establishment. If progressives want to make inroads with the DNC, they must do what Sanders did not in 2016 (and did only half-heartedly in 2020) and put social issues at the forefront of their messaging.

This brings us to the other question about Sanders and his supporters: whether they will turn out for Biden in the fall. Here it is worth remembering that in some states (including Michigan) in 2016, the Green Party candidate Jill Stein won a share of the vote wider than Trump's eventual margin of victory. Sanders himself will almost certainly endorse Biden, just as he endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. Will this make a difference? Who knows.

November seems very remote, longer away, indeed, than it felt two months ago. While it is possible at this stage to talk about how the general election might go — the actual range of possibilities is not unlimited — there are more pressing questions to be answered. If the most pessimistic forecasts prove correct, it is likely that the political conventions scheduled by both of our major political parties for this summer will have to be canceled, postponed, or held in what would almost certainly be the largest, most feedback-laden video calls in the history of Google Hangouts. For this small unhoped-for mercy, Sanders' supporters should be grateful. The reality of Biden's victory will not be setting in for a while.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is still running for president, but he does not want to talk about his campaign right now.

Like many Americans, his primary focus is on the coronavirus pandemic, which he called the "unprecedented crisis of our lifetime," and things got testy when things veered off topic Wednesday.

While speaking with reporters, Sanders was asked if he had a timeframe in place for when he would make a decision about whether to drop out of the race after his competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, reaped the rewards of another strong night of primary voting Tuesday, helping him secure his place as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

Sanders wasn't having it.

CNN's Manu Raju, who asked the question, then pointed out that Sanders was a presidential candidate, to which the senator replied he didn't have time to think about such things.

Raju reported that things calmed down shortly after that, as Sanders returned to answering coronavirus questions.

Whether or not Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders suspends his campaign for president in the coming days, he is not going to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020.

That began to become clear two weeks ago, on the night of Super Tuesday, when Sanders was bested by former Vice President Joe Biden in Virginia, Minnesota, Texas, and several other delegate-rich states. It became even more likely a week later, when Sanders lost Michigan and Missouri by sizable margins. But it turned into a near certainty on Tuesday night with Sanders' nearly 40-point loss to Biden in Florida and his less humiliating but still substantial 23- and 13-point defeats in Illinois and Arizona, respectively.

Sanders' most fervent followers won't want to accept it. They'll say that the race is far from over. That plenty more states still need to vote. That even after Tuesday night's delegates are allocated, Biden will be hundreds away from clinching the nomination. That Sanders will only be a couple hundred or so behind.

All of that will be true, but none of it will matter. That's because Bernie failed to win the nomination in 2016 while running a far more electorally formidable campaign than he has this time around. When we compare his performance in these two cycles, we see a straightforward story of electoral decline and diminishing political momentum.

In 2016, Sanders prevailed in 23 contests in the primary season, winning a total of 43 percent of the vote. This time around, with more than half the states having voted, he's won eight. As for cumulative vote total, Sanders is currently at just under 31 percent — 12 points behind his tally four years ago.

In state after state, Sanders has underperformed in comparison with 2016. Four years ago, he won New Hampshire with 60.1 percent of the vote; this year he won it in a far more crowded field with just 25.6 percent. He won his home state of Vermont in 2016 with 85.7; this time he prevailed with 50.8. In 2016, he narrowly beat Hillary Clinton in Michigan with 49.7; this time he lost it to Joe Biden with 36.4. Last time he nearly won Missouri with 49.4 percent; this year he came up short with just 34.6. In 2016, Sanders lost Florida with 33.3 percent of the vote; Tuesday night he came in around 10 points behind that, with a little under 23 percent. In 2016, Sanders gave Clinton a run for her money in Illinois, coming in with 48.6 percent of the vote; this time he finished 11 points behind at roughly 36 percent.

In nearly every contest, Sanders is doing substantially worse than he did four years ago — when he nonetheless lost the race for the nomination.

The question is what accounts for the decline. Why is Sanders falling so much shorter this time around?

It may well be that the most significant factor in the answer is Hillary Clinton. Clinton was by no means universally loathed by Democratic voters, but she may have been strongly enough disliked by certain (working-class white) voters that they cast ballots for Sanders in the primaries as a kind of protest against the party's presumptive nominee. That could easily have been enough to raise Sanders' vote tally by 10 or so percentage points in comparison to this year, when his main competition (Biden) is much less widely disliked among the same demographic group that was repelled by Clinton.

Then there's the electability argument and the likelihood that significant numbers of primary voters this time around simply can't imagine that an outspoken socialist proposing tens of trillions of dollars of new spending will be capable of beating President Trump in November.

Finally, there's the gathering storm of the global pandemic that has turned American life upside down and inside out over the past two weeks. Any lingering chance of Sanders turning things around after Super Tuesday were almost certainly lost as epidemiological and economic fears have spread throughout the country, arousing a longing for the return of basic competence and a steady hand at the helm — a longing that a mainstream, veteran pol like Biden is perfectly situated to fulfill. Sanders and his most passionate supporters may be ready to fold the astonishing events of recent days into their narrative of a political, economic, and health-care system in need of revolution, but most Democrats (like most Americans) are not.

Sanders is and has always been a factional candidate of the left who isn't really a Democrat at all. That he performed as well as he did in the Democratic primaries two cycles in a row is a tribute to his skills as a politician and the appeal of his message to a certain segment of (overwhelmingly younger) voters. It was just possible to imagine that in a deeply divided field he might have reproduced Trump's hostile takeover of the Republican Party four years ago. But that would have required the near-perfect alignment of competing variables. For a brief period after the New Hampshire primary, and especially following the Nevada caucuses, it seemed like Sanders just might pull it off.

But that fleeting moment is now long gone. Things have returned to something close to political normal at a moment that is anything but. A life-long Democrat who's served as a senator for 35 years and vice president for eight is going to be the party's nominee. And the socialist insurgent is going to lose — regardless of whether he does the sensible thing and quickly bows out in response to reality.

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The United States is virtually certain to suffer the worst epidemic of novel coronavirus in the rich world, and maybe anywhere. We are far behind the measures South Korea has taken to control its outbreak, and not even particularly close to what Italy is doing, where the carnage is horrible and accelerating. The resulting disruptions are creating an incipient economic recession which looks to be just as bad as the one in 2008, if not worse.

There is one presidential candidate whose political proposals match the scale of this crisis: Senator Bernie Sanders.

This was clear in the Democratic debate on Sunday. Former Vice President Joe Biden scoffed at Sanders' talk of revolution, and insisted that Medicare-for-all would do nothing to address the crisis. "With all due respect to Medicare-for-all, you have a single-payer system in Italy. It doesn't work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare-for-all," he said. Instead, Biden insisted, the government should pay for any coronavirus testing and treatment only.

Sanders responded that this sort of jury-rigged Medicare-for-all-who-have-COVID-19 policy would be insufficient — suppose you need some treatment as a result of your family getting sick, but aren't infected yourself? — but he didn't go far enough. At bottom, it is absolutely the case that America's crap medical system is a major reason why we are so vulnerable to pandemics in the first place. Without universal coverage, it is very difficult to contain an incipient virus outbreak, because if it infects an uninsured or underinsured person, they may avoid getting tested or quarantined due to costs. One single person can create a "super-spreader" event that seeds an out-of-control epidemic. Biden's own insurance reform plan, by the way, does not even aim to achieve universal coverage. Ten million people will be left uninsured by his own estimate.

Biden was correct that once an outbreak gets out of hand, one needs an additional crash mobilization of medical resources. But that can't help but be built on top of the existing system — in the case of the U.S., a hideously expensive, dysfunctional, Kafkaesque bureaucratic tangle of ruthless insurance companies and profiteering medical providers. It would be far easier to coordinate an emergency outbreak response if we did not have to worry about basic payment for and access to medical care that other countries figured out 50-100 years ago.

Biden's goofy posture on universal health care was reflected in his general stance towards Sanders' proposed "political revolution." Biden said it was not necessary because the problems are too serious. "We have problems we have to solve now. Now." Er, what? That's like saying that because you have a broken leg, it would be unrealistic to go to the emergency room. He further breezily promised that his milquetoast public option plan would get through Congress, but as Eric Levitz notes at New York, there is little prospect that will be any easier to pass than Sanders' Medicare-for-all bill. Big Medical has already come out guns blazing against the Biden plan.

Moreover, Biden suggested that the United States may not be able to spend too much because the national debt is too high. "We've eaten a lot of our seed corn here. The ability for us to use levers that were available before have been used up by this godawful tax cut of $1.9 trillion." This is the logic that pushed the Obama administration into austerity in 2010, and it is categorically false. The government can borrow without limit so long as the economy is in recession — interest rates on government bonds are virtually zero at the moment. Biden seemingly has learned nothing from the past 12 years of economic history.

Sanders, by contrast, is not fussing about nonexistent deficit concerns in his coronavirus response plan, which would drastically expand testing, directly purchase additional medical equipment, prevent price-gouging from pharmaceutical companies, and more. The rest of his program includes many trillions of dollars in new programs: Medicare-for-all, paid family and sick leave, a Green New Deal to tackle climate change, increased disability and unemployment insurance, and much more. That's the kind of thing needed not just to stop the current pandemic, but also to make America much more resistant to the next one. As we are learning once again, gigantic crises and recessions are hugely wasteful — keeping the status quo would be more expensive in the long run than following the Sanders agenda.

Biden, however, is not the only 2020 candidate who is not taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously enough. President Trump, of course, horrifically botched the response, and continues to do so. He needed to be taking drastic action to limit the spread of infection starting in January at the latest, but he continues to bungle things to a jaw-dropping degree. As just one example, on Wednesday last week, in a scripted primetime address, Trump wrongly told Americans in Europe that they would be unable to get home starting Friday. Then he failed to boost up customs and security staffing, which created gigantic crowds of travelers — coming from infected countries, remember — trying to get back home at airports across the country. Every one of those was possibly a super-spreader event.

There will surely be whole books written on how Trump failed to even mitigate this epidemic. But while Biden's proposed response is head and shoulders above Trump's, he is still raising ridiculous fears about borrowing, and failing to understand that America's ratty safety net (which long pre-dates the current administration) is a huge vulnerability. At bottom, his instincts are conservative and timid.

It is troubling indeed that fading, washed-up leaders like this are the ones leading the country. It would be much wiser to follow the lead of a sensible policy expert like Bernie Sanders.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden are still set to debate Sunday evening, but don't expect too many sparks to fly with everyone's minds focused heavily on the novel coronavirus, Politico reports.

Sanders, for a while, was expected to go after Biden — who has emerged as the frontrunner — and try to expose his weak spots in an effort to regain some momentum, but now it sounds like he wants to avoid being too confrontational and instead wants to amplify Democrats' call for unity in a challenging time. "Bernie's going to be careful about not looking too political — too electoral — and being the guy who says, 'Well, I can get this many delegates and go on to the convention...' No. That's not where Americans' heads are at," a Sanders adviser told Politico. "People are worrying about their families. They're at the grocery store buying batteries."

That said, Sanders will reportedly try to take advantage of the fact that health care, which is always viewed as one of the most significant issues, will sit squarely at the center of the debate. Per Politico, he figures to press Biden on his opposition to Medicare-for-all, as well as why he advocated for cutting social security in the past. Still, the debate will likely remain grounded in policy rather than "an all-out assault," said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders. Read more at Politico.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph

on science funding

The West’s neglect of science has left us chillingly exposed to deadly pandemics

“The only way to defend ourselves from the ravages of unfettered globalism is massive science innovation. There is one vital insight about the scale of this world crisis, which elites are being very careful not to broadcast: it was categorically avoidable. After the SARS outbreak in 2002, research funding for investigating SARS-like viruses exploded; within three years it fizzled out. We lost 15 years, and because we didn’t do the groundwork, precious time is now being wasted testing drugs we use for other viruses and piloting experimental vaccines and combinations. As it stands, it will take until mid next year to find a vaccine. This timetable is (through no fault of the scientists) disgraceful in its slowness; all the more so if you consider that another virus variation or mutation could prove more deadly.”

2. Caitlin Dulany in NBC Think

on restoring faith in humanity

Harvey Weinstein sentencing allows victims like me to believe the world has changed

“So when the guilty verdict came in on that fateful Monday morning, I was wholly unprepared to hear the news. I was astounded — in shock and full of emotion all at the same time. All of a sudden it was real. This man who hurt me and so many others was actually going to jail. As tears began streaming down my face, I was immediately flooded with phone calls and texts. I did my best to stay focused, because I very much wanted to use my voice to let anyone who was listening know how important this verdict was for me, for the many other women Harvey had harmed and for survivors everywhere.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a weekly round-up of the best articles and columns from the UK and abroad, try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

3. Bill Scher in Politico

on the dying embers of an era

Reflections on a failed Democratic revolution

“How the near future will impact you, young democratic socialist Berniecrats, remains to be seen. Maybe President Joe Biden would find a way to pass progressive legislation with bipartisan Senate supermajorities, which might change the way you think about compromises. Or maybe he runs into a brick wall of Republican obstruction, further deepening your conviction that only congressional rule changes and a mobilized grassroots can change the system. Or maybe Donald Trump beats Biden, bolstering your argument that Washington insiders peddling bipartisan gruel can’t win elections.”

4. David Aaronovitch in The Times

on strongmen getting stronger

Populism has revived the president-for-life

“When I was a teenager a lot of the world was run by people who governed till they dropped. Franco in Spain, Tito in Yugoslavia, Marcos in the Philippines, Castro in Cuba and probably some Paraguayan I’ve forgotten. Then the Berlin Wall fell and the consequent democratic tide washed away the era of strongmen, leaving only relicts, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Thirty years on, however, and the president-for-life is making a comeback. In country after country populist rulers, faced with constitutional limitations on their periods in office, are responding to spontaneous calls from the masses demanding that they find some way of staying on.”

5. Julie Bindel in The Spectator

on inner turmoil

Why a trans woman thinks self-ID is a mistake

“I first met Claudia in 2003 shortly after she had sought legal advice to make a formal complaint about the way police officers had dealt with her report of a serious sexual assault. Claudia had been the victim of an attempted rape, but when she reported it, police undermined and ridiculed her because she was a trans woman. I wanted to write an article about the archaic, sexist diagnosis of ‘transsexual’, with the notion that it is possible to be ‘trapped in the wrong body’. I was not expecting Claudia to tell me, alongside the horrific story of her attack and police negligence, that she regretted undergoing a sex change all those years ago.”

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) former chief strategist thinks it might be time to hang up the campaign boots after former Vice President Joe Biden had another strong night, including winning the coveted Michigan primary Tuesday, The Atlantic reports.

Tad Devine, who is unaffiliated with the Sanders campaign this year, but served as a senior strategist for the senator's 2016 bid, said "there is no path to victory," especially considering Biden's base is turning out at higher rates. "It's just that simple," Devine said.

Sanders continued his ultimately unsuccessful run against Hillary Clinton in 2016 until June, but Devine believes sticking around that long again would be bad news for Democrats and Biden, who he says probably needs "the spring and the summer without Bernie." But Devine thinks the "smart" and "reasonable" Sanders will recognize that it's "irrational" to keep the campaign going precisely for that reason.

Sanders' chances are certainly dwindling, The Atlantic reports, but some folks do want him to stick around for the next debate against Biden on Sunday, where he may still have an opportunity to prove he's better suited to take on President Trump head-to-head. "The stampede toward Biden was remarkably fast," said Robert Reich, a liberal economist and former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. "That shows that his support is not absolutely steadfast, so it's at least possible that if his debate performance is very bad on Sunday, Bernie Sanders could have a renaissance." Read more at The Atlantic.