Opinion: Why Pundits Can't Comprehend Bernie Sanders

[Uncle Joe]

Bernie Sanders marching with supporters to early voting at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. Brian Blanco / Getty Images

If you were watching cable TV on the night of the Nevada caucuses, you might have heard Chris Matthews compare Bernie Sanders’ electoral victory there to the rise of the Third Reich. While Matthews has since apologized, it was an astounding and unconscionable moment: one of the country’s most prominent political commentators disparaging the campaign of a man who could very well be America’s first Jewish president. And it revealed something powerful.

A few hours earlier, one of America’s most celebrated Democratic strategists, James Carville, went on air to say the winners in Nevada were Sanders and Vladimir Putin. As I watched, I realized these weren’t just random or offhand comments; they’re the last gasp of a political elite that’s been radically out of touch with the lives of normal people for most of the 21st century, increasingly inept at explaining the enormous pain and discontent felt by the working- and middle-class voters who make up the base of the Democratic Party.

(snip)

Simply put, this is why people are drawn to Bernie. They’re looking for new leaders who either didn’t contribute to those crises or — even better — have spent their entire careers opposing the policies that led to them. They are looking for leaders whose solutions actually scale up to the problems facing our society, because they understand there’s an entire generation of politicians who were on the wrong side of some of the defining fights of our lives, and Joe Biden embodies them.

And yet, it’s clear that few of the people you see discussing politics on cable TV understand that. They insist Biden’s poor showing has been the fault of lackluster debate performances. Just as they failed to understand Trump’s rise, they fail to see that their theories have been discredited. And they’ve all but called Democratic voters stupid, because these talking heads are unable to grapple with the obvious: Sanders is winning by speaking to the hopes and fears of a rising generation of Democrats who look and think a lot more like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than Joe Biden.

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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/waleedshahid/why-msnbc-cant-comprehend-bernie-sanders

[msongs]

1. hmm bernie looks like joe biden more than AOC lol nt

[4bucksagallon]

2. Trump voters voted to shake up the system now it's Bernie's turn to show them how to do it right.

[Kurt V.]

3. this is quite profound. this progressive surge, albeit temporary or sustainable is something

to behold.

[brush]

4. Premature. See SC poll results overwhelmingly favoring Biden.

[Kurt V.]

5. i have this feeling that if Biden wins the msm is going to pretend the 1st 3 primarys

Didn't happen. :/

[Moderateguy]

6. Of course there's a new "inevitable" candidate every week

[brush]

7. Oh, you mean how they pretend the 1st two, tiny nearly all-white states...

represent the make up of the party?

[Kurt V.]

8. yes