Grassroots: Election-Year Pessimism
Donald Trump is going to be re-elected. It doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate. Trump is going to win, because the Democrats are fragmenting and disintegrating, and the party’s more progressive base is going to be blamed.
We’ve seen this before, in 1972 (of course), but also in 2016. Democrats fight among themselves, turn on each other, and in the process leave the field to a more unified Republican Party. Then, as the smoke is clearing, party centrists and the party establishment look to their left for scapegoats.
Bernie Sanders already is being set up to take the blame if (when) Trump wins another term. The most high-profile effort comes from Hillary Clinton, who attacked Sanders in a recently released documentary and again in a podcast interview in January. Clinton, by virtue of her years as First Lady, Secretary of State, senator and party nominee, is seen as an elder stateswoman for the party, and her comments can be read as indicative of the party establishment’s thinking.