Bernie Sanders Shouldn’t run for President in 2020

It would be a mistake for Bernie Sanders to run for president again in 2020. Like the last time the Democratic Party will make sure that he does not win the nomination. Additionally, he won’t be running against the most unpopular Democratic politician in American history. And by running a failed campaign he will be leading his supporters into a wild goose chase. Bernie should’ve have been leading a third party movement after 2016 rather than wasting his efforts transforming the Democratic Party. Sanders is an Independent, why not act accordingly. If he does decide to run then it should as a part of third party ticket. In the process Bernie will help build a movement. But he won’t do that. Sanders prefers a fanciful dream of becoming president rather doing the glamorous work of creating a true revolution in America.

Here is a local perspective:

Sen. Bernie Sanders is widely considered a top contender for the Democratic Party nomination in 2020, but he doesn’t have the backing of what some politicians rely on as a close ally: his home state paper.

“Bernie Sanders should not run for president. In fact, we beg him not to,” the editorial board of the Barre Montpelier Times Argus writes in a piece published Monday.

The paper dings Sanders for missing “dozens of votes that likely would have helped Vermonters” during his 2016 primary run against eventual nominee Hillary Clinton.

It hammers the Green Mountain State independent for favoring the national media circuit — Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, CNN hits and spots on MSNBC — over talking to local reporters.

Some who supported in 2016 are not willing to commit to Bernie this time around:

Acknowledging the stark differences between the 2016 and 2020 fields, Hollywood star Danny Glover, who campaigned alongside Sanders in 2016, would not commit to a second Sanders’ candidacy when asked this weekend.

“I don’t know what 2020 looks like right now,” Glover said before taking a front-row seat for Sanders’ opening remarks. “I’m going to support who I feel to be the most progressive choice.”

One of Sanders’ chief supporters from neighboring New Hampshire, former state senate majority leader Burt Cohen, acknowledged that some people worry Sanders is too old for a second run, although that’s not a major concern of his. Like Glover, he’s not sure if he’ll join Sanders a second time.

“There are other people picking up the flag and holding it high, and you know, it could be Bernie, but I think there are other people as well,” said Cohen, who did not attend the Vermont summit. “It’s not ‘Bernie or bust.’ That’s certainly not the case.”

Another high-profile Sanders supporter who was in attendance, Cornel West, described the Vermont senator as “the most consistently progressive one out there,” suggesting that some would-be 2020 candidates have adopted Sanders’ words, but maintained ties to Wall Street and “militarism.”

Still, West conceded that none of likely 2020 candidates “have as much baggage” as Clinton did.

The problem is Sanders isn’t the only game in town this time around:

Bernie Sanders has a problem as he decides whether to run in 2020: Many of his former staffers are looking elsewhere.

With the Vermont senator kicking off a nine-state tour on Friday with stops in Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada and California, a sizable contingent of the people who helped build his insurgent 2016 campaign is ambivalent about a second run, according to interviews with more than a dozen former staffers. Many of them are looking for a different progressive champion to finish what Sanders started.

Then there is this argument

Okay, he didn’t win. Fine. Here we are, getting ready for the next election. This is, I would argue, the most promising political landscape for the left in my lifetime. Shit is so fucked up that people are ready to try some wild shit. They even tried Donald fucking Trump. That, obviously, is and will continue to be a disaster. Now the time is ripe for us to try left wing solutions that mainstream pundits normally dismiss as being out of bounds. Universal health care? Free college? Stronger regulation of Wall Street? Forceful downward redistribution of wealth? A true “Green New Deal?” None of these things are implausible now. And all of them are ideas that Bernie Sanders stands for. So what is the best way for him to contribute to the possibility of bringing them into reality?

BY NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. Bernie, you’re old as hell man. Too old I’m afraid. In eight years there is a distinct possibility that you will have declined into a lurching, vacant-eyed Ronald Reagan character. We don’t need that. It’s not the time for an 80 year-old president. The movement needs young blood. A new generation of political leadership is already bursting forth. Bernie, you can take satisfaction in the knowledge that you played a leading role in pulling these left wing ideas into the mainstream. You will not be president, though. And that is fine.

A second campaign would not come without some baggage. Questions about Sanders’ management style would come into question, if not worse:

Over the past week, a string of stories in the New York Times and Politico have included allegations from former female staff of incidents of serious misconduct ranging from sexual assault to sexual harassment and gender disparity perpetrated by a select few male members of Sanders former campaign team.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday, after a story broke involving a senior member of Sanders’ former 2016 campaign, the senator said, “The allegations that I have heard, that you have heard, speak to unacceptable behavior that must not be tolerated in any campaign, or in any workplace in our country. To the women in our campaign who were harassed or mistreated, I apologize… Our standards, our procedures, out safeguards were clearly inadequate.”

For my part, I am offended that Bernie Sanders did not personally endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Congressional race. He never came to NY. He instead stayed away so that he could curry favor with the 4th ranking House Democrat whom AOC defeated. Right after Alexandria won her primary Sanders traveled with the newly elected New Yorker on a national tour. Very cynical. Unacceptable.