Bernie Sanders did the right thing in throwing in the towel on his bid for the Democratic nomination: Like it or not, the race was effectively over weeks ago, and the coronavirus crisis left him without even a Hail Mary strategy for turning things around.
Though he seemed the frontrunner for a week or three early this year, Sanders has had no path to win since losing Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi and Idaho in one night four weeks ago.
And with the nation focused on either the virus news or “Tiger King” and other distractions, he couldn’t even get any play for his socialist message. Even presumptive nominee Joe Biden is a barely-remembered ghost right now.
But more than bad luck doomed Bernie: He never won the percentages this time ’round that he did in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. It’s now clear that his success then was more about being the only alternative to her — the only practical protest vote against her coronation — than about the appeal of his blame-the-rich, grow-the-government message.
Still, the most successful socialist and Jewish candidate for president in US history has made his mark. He’s not even a Democrat, but his two candidacies have changed the party — perhaps irrevocably.
Yes, the Democratic Party has been moving left for a long time now — President Barack Obama marked a huge shift in that direction, even if he’s now seen as aligned with the “moderate” establishment.
But where Obama ran in 2008 promising to cut taxes overall by nearly $3 trillion in a decade (while raising them on the rich, yes), Clinton in 2016 proposed to raise them by $1.4 trillion, and all the candidates this year called for even bigger tax hikes. Biden, last we noticed, wants $3.4 trillion — half to go for the loony-tunes Green New Deal.
But those debates seem irrelevant when people are worried about putting food on the table and whether their jobs will return when the virus retreats.
In all, Bernie Sanders now seems like a character from another era — and that, more than anything else, is why he was wise to hang up his hat.
