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Thread: The claim I and many others made was that *if Bernie Sanders became the Democratic nominee* this would be a political earthquake that would change all kinds of things, including plausibly inspiring increased turnout in the general election.
A claim I never made, and that I literally never once saw anyone else make, is that the mere presence of Sanders in the race as a long-shot primary challenger would have any such effect. There was never any reason to think *that* would change the composition of the electorate.
My claim, and the claim I kept seeing from other lefties, was a conditional. The consequent (increased turnout) depended on the antecedent (Sanders being the nominee).
It's frustrating to see an endless parade of liberal analyses taking the outcome of the primary to refute the claim I never saw anyone making. Granted, maybe my experience was atypical and someone somewhere *was* making this claim. But.
One thing I've noticed after reading about a thousand of these articles is that none of them ever--and I mean *ever*--quote anyone making it.
What they do--a lot!--is quote or link to other examples of non-Bernie people *saying* w/o evidence that Bernie people said this.
Take this article in the Washington Monthly. It contains not only no quote in which anyone says Sanders presence in the primary would increase turnout in the primary but no link to anywhere that anyone even *allegedly* says this. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/04/11/leftist-policy-didnt-lose-marxist-electoral-theory-did/
It does, however, contain a link to this Vox story harping on the same theme: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/10/21214970/bernie-sanders-2020-lost-class-socialism
The Vox story doesn't contain any quotes from anyone saying anything of the kind but it does include a link to a Jacobin piece by @karpmj in which Karp allegedly says it.
Spoiler: He doesn't!
Spoiler: He doesn't!
In fact, his article is about long-term trends over the course of decades. (You should read it. It's good.) Far from the Vox summary, being accurate, here's how it ends:
"Bernie Sanders, all by himself, will hardly bring about the movement we need. But unlike every other Democrat in the field, at least he points in the right direction."
So please, liberals, if you want to keep repeating this idea that Bernie backers had this theory of *turnout in 2020 primaries*, find me some quotes of someone somewhere actually saying this so I at least know who the hell your argument is supposed to be directed against!
