I had a sobering talk with my brother last night.

He is a professional political organizer in Denver.

Like me, he is a leftist enraged at the abdication of duty by Pelosi, Schumer and Obama.

He tells me D voters on the ground are emotionally exhausted by Trump & the pandemic.

When my brother talks to pollsters, canvassers, other operatives, and plain D party citizens, he gets the same basic message:

Voters just want Trump and the pandemic to go away. Like it or not, that's their psychology. They're not in a mindset to think about big policy or reform

. @andrewperezdc & @playerinthgame have made strong+accurate critiques about the many ways Bernie failed to make his case.

Yet, the more I talk to people, the more I think Bernie could have run a far better campaign yet still not prevented the "fall in line" process on Super Tues

None of what my brother told me -- or what I am saying here -- removes or erases the fact that Bernie f***ed up in a few key ways.

However:

One needs to understand a few core realities about the 2020 primary and what they mean for leftists in the future.

Whether you love him or hate him, it's a plain fact that Bernie regards himself as a teacher focused on policy. He focuses on a specific set of issues and tries to drive home how important those issues are. That's who he is, and we know it's his great strength AND his great flaw.

The 2020 D primary, like it or not, was not decided by "the issues" or policy.

D voters wanted what *they* thought was the safest choice v Trump, and they wanted the primary to end quickly.
That's why Super Tuesday unfolded as it did, and there really should be no debate on that

One can criticize Bernie 4 going soft on Biden, which showed he quite literally was not willing to do *everything* it took to win, which is a significant failure for a self-styled movement leader.

Yet, the primary was decided by voters' conceptions of "electability," not policy.

Running a campaign based on electability is tantamount to running a campaign in accordance with trying to satisfy TV's horse-race coverage, & pundits' horse-race mindsets, & citizens' obsession w horse-race coverage.
It is a policy-free message, the antithesis of how Bernie rolls

Bernie thought the primary would be decided based on policy.

Recently, 88% of Democrats polled say they support Bernie's signature 2020 primary campaign policy, #MedicareForAll

88 PERCENT!
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/25/poll-shows-nearly-90-democratic-support-biden-told-hostility-medicare-all-no-longer

YET THEY DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM, NOT EVEN AFTER THE PANDEMIC SET IN

One can fault Bernie for a lot of things, but we're living in upside-down land when 88% of the people in your party support your NUMBER ONE POLICY PROPOSAL... and you get wiped out by a man who barely campaigned in a number of states he won.

I return to my brother's points.

Throughout my lifetime, I have seen Democratic Party politicians be more concerned with how Republicans think than with how leftists think.

To be sure, a lot of this flows from the reality of corporate control of the Democratic Party, esp. since Bill Clinton & Ron Brown in 1992.

But let's be honest: While D party politicians are increasingly controlled by big $, D voters don't have 2 go along with that.
D voters in South Carolina aren't controlled by big money... but when it was their choice to vote, they voted based on what they FELT Republicans thought