If Bernie Ever Really Had a Shot, His Movement Would Have Died

The best thing that ever happened to Bernie Sanders campaign, if you believe in his positions and policy statements more than the person himself, is Hillary Clinton. The front-runner has been the subject of virtually everyone's negative attacks, from Bernie to the Republicans, and through the media. Her relative strength has sucked the oxygen out of the room, and basically allowed Bernie Sanders to exist, and build a movement. As one could predict, that movement grew and grew, and made people believe it had a shot to win, but it was just a little too late.

Had anyone in the media, political establishment of either party, or the public actually believed that Bernie Sanders ever had a real shot to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, we would not be here right now. Bernie's proposals to make college free for all, expand Medicare to the entire public, destroy the banking sector as we know it, end the private financing of elections, and raise taxes dramatically would all be undergoing a deeper vetting than what they have. It would be the New York Daily News interview on steroids. Bernie the person would have undergone much more expansive vetting, in bigger ways than just his personal taxes. Beyond just looking at these things, Bernie would be taking negative advertisements from all sides if he were in the hunt to win the election. Thanks to Donald Trump's antics and Hillary Clinton's seeming inevitability, Bernie Sanders has not been the object of scrutiny in this race. He and his ideas are fortunate for that.

Under the cover of not having a shot, Bernie Sanders spent the opening year plus of his campaign building a movement and selling his ideas to younger supporters who will vote in the decades to come. That's much easier to do when you are not taking incoming fire from both sides of the aisle. The good news for Bernie supporters is that this makes the next "Bernie candidate" for President slightly more likely to win, but the bad news is that he can't win as a result.

It's important to remember that when you hear someone say that Bernie and John Kasich are popular, part of why they are popular is that they can't win. No one is attacking candidates who won't be the nominees with television ads. No one is digging through the details of their plans, since they will never actually come to pass. Actual governing is not popular in the moment, and the fact that Bernie won't be doing it is helping him build an enduring movement that might.