By Kira Bruce
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, won the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday. Followed by Pete Buttigieg, Bernie is now the leading democrat in the race.
After a confusing and narrow loss in Iowa’s caucuses, Sanders has officially won a primary election. He’s only 1 delegate behind Buttigieg and people are pretty surprised.
Having the title of socialist attached to your name is not usually beneficial in the United States. For years republicans have used the term as derogatory remark against their democrat rivals, but this doesn’t stop Sanders.
Sanders has referred to himself as a socialist for quite some time and he doesn’t plan to stop. Enough democrats in New Hampshire seem to not be scared away by socialism and it gives his campaign a sense of hope with the overwhelming victory.
Bernie currently has 21 delegates, putting him and Pete Buttigieg at the fore-front of the democratic candidacy, and people have a lot to say about that.
Many media sources have said that Bernie can’t win the presidency if he is nominated. But if he continues this winning streak, moderate democrats will have to ask themselves if they would rather have Trump in office.
The question of electability is big in the media right now. Voters are debating with themselves whether they should vote with the candidate they actually agree with or if they should compromise and go with a candidate they think is most likely to win.
So, questioning Sanders electability because he is too far left is losing it’s traction. Obviously democratic voters don’t think he’s too far left as he’s one of the leading democrats in the race. He’s showing everyone right now that he is in fact electable.
Biden, who everyone thought would be winning the primaries, doesn’t have a single delegate. Instead of worrying about electability I think people should vote for the candidate they want to see in office.
After all, the mainstream media are the people who are least likely to gain from the system changing. But, it has to change. The fact that people are voting for candidates they don’t actually agree with has to change.
Since the United States has a winner-takes-all system of election, it’s less democratic. The amount of times that the popular vote basically gets thrown out the window is proof of this.
Trump won the presidential election in 2016 with only 46.1% of the popular vote. That is not the majority. That is not a democratic system of election.
With Bernie Sanders as president, we could open up the floor for this discussion. If he gets elected it means that the American public wants to change the way that things are run in this country because they are not happy with how it’s going now.
It will take a lot to convince moderate democrats that Sanders has the electability to go head to head with Trump. If his winning streak continues in Nevada and South Carolina though, it might be enough to show them.