How to Win Bernie Supporters and Encourage Them to Vote Biden
I want to start by popping one myth: Bernie Bros. Bernie Bros succinctly dismisses that the majority of Bernie’s supporters are women, and many are minorities. “Bros” erases that and situates them as nameless white males. So you aren’t going to win friends and influence people peddling that.
There are many leftist friends out there who do not want to support Biden because of laws Biden has either supported, promulgated, or even created on his own — though in one case he is lucky it never got out of committee.
We who already support Biden gladly are not going to win over our friends to do the same if we don’t take their point of view seriously. Biden came to office in the late 70s, endured and even flourished through the 80s and 90s, and obviously became Obama’s VP.
Here’s Joe Biden on his history a deficit hawk:
I am one of those Democrats who voted for the constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I have introduced, on four occasions — four occasions! — entire plans to balance the budget, knowing I’m not president, and I’m not the leader, for illustrative purposes. I tried with Senator Grassley back in the ’80s to freeze all government spending, including Social Security. Including everything. And the truth is, the last election did one thing. I don’t know if it made you guys the majority party for long, I don’t know. We’ll find out. But I know one thing it did. It made sure that there was nobody left in the left of my party who said, in fact, we don’t care about moving the budget toward balance. [slate.com]
Balancing the budget meant raising the retirement age. At several points in Biden’s career he has supported further rollbacks of Social Security. He has lots of quotes on this, it’s not hard to find more.
Biden tries to represent the people that voted him in; I believe that is true. So when the zeitgeist was Reaganism and his own state’s voters were into it, he went with that spirit. It was a strange zeitgeist because it involved cutting taxes for wealthy people, rapidly spending more on the military, and cutting social safety nets. Deficits rose but the only spending that seemed to matter was the spending on social programs. It’s some b******* and yeah Biden was involved.
The point of this is not to demonize Biden but to illustrate that voters have legitimate gripes. The truth is that Democrats were not good stewards of the social safety net in the 80s and 90s. We spent two decades in retreat on social programs, meanwhile we dumped military equipment on our police forces. What a colossal mistake that all is. We were on the defensive, no other way to explain it. It wasn’t until the Affordable Care Act that Democrats finally clawed out the trenches and moved important social safety net legislation forward — and to do so right after G W Bush, while still in prime-Reaganism, was quite a feat.
Here’s the deal: by not acknowledging these issues and talking to our left-most friends about it — and validating their concerns — we aren’t going to get their pivotal support.
Here’s is what Pennsylvania State Rep Summer Lee says (on Twitter):
Self righteousness (vote shaming), esp. from white, middle class, loyal liberal voters is NOT an effective voter turnout and engagement strategy! And I’m tired. I beg your patience as I repeat why it’s unproductive and frankly, just damn exhausting.
Why Im upset? Bc while on ur perch dismissing validity of any concerns, you’re making it harder for those of us who actually DO the work of engaging real marginalized, disenfranchised, disregarded, discouraged potential voters. Blk voters. Disabled voters. Undervalued voters.
These are voters who have legitimate concerns and grievances about the system &processes. They’ve been used, deceived & disappointed over&over again. They have reason to give up. It’s a delicate balancing act 2affirm those frustrations, but still empower them 2participate [twitter]
Vote Shaming is what “if you don’t vote for X and allow Y to happen you’re part of the problem” is called. Trying to shame people into voting for your candidate. Vote Shaming only works on people who already support Biden but are too lazy to vote.
Biden has integrity — that is not some issue people have with Biden. He does what he says and he has done that for a long time. We need to highlight Biden’s very progressive agenda in the present and show that when Biden says thing he means it. We can do this by showing how he ran on the platform he’d advertised and acted the part as a Senator.
Now he’s advertising the most liberal agenda ever put forth by a major ticket candidate.
Biden became a deficit hawk because that was not only the spirit of the time but also the common will of voters in Delaware while he was a Senator. We need to reiterate in a friendly manner why Biden will not be the programs-slashing budget hawk of the past.
- Nobody cares about the deficit; in fact there are economic theories that say government deficits are the bedrock of interest rates and are actually good. This is actually old knowledge but fell upon uninterested ears in the time of Reaganism. Reaganism is dying right now and it’s ugly to watch.
- Biden does what he says and he is right now pushing the most leftist presidential campaign in history.
- Biden is pushing to strengthen Social Security, the VA, Medicare, Medicade, and expand the ACA into “Medicare for All Who Want It.” He has historically stood by his platform. He doesn’t ever have a secret agenda.
- Biden is working hard with the most leftist parts of the political spectrum. His economic plan is the Biden-Bernie economic plan. He has adopted positions from Elizabeth Warren.
Getting your most leftist friends to vote for Biden isn’t only about Biden. I don’t mean “a vote against the incumbent” either.
- Imagine a democratic White House, Senate and House. Imagine a Senate as thoroughly done with decorum as the current one. The barriers will be gone.
- Talk about key figures in key places. Democratic Super-Friends. Bernie has a role so far, and there will be more to come.
- Imagine someone with the prosecutorial experience that Harris has, sifting through the ashes of the current administration. Schadenfreude feels good.
Please read this article to gain more concrete advice on specifics:
More than anything: do not demonize disengaged leftist voters — even while they may demonize your candidate. You can still win them over but it takes listening and friendliness.
