Bernie Sanders lost his last chance to take Joe Biden down
A stark contrast was on display on Sunday night, and both candidates on the Democratic debate stage knew it. Though Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders were united in their criticism of Donald Trump’s response to coronavirus, they clashed repeatedly on policy issues, and even their core messages on the virus were very different.
For Biden, coronavirus is an isolated “national emergency” that needs to be dealt with before moving on to issues like poverty, minimum wages and the reform of the health insurance system. For Sanders, these issues are inextricably tied to the coronavirus emergency, because they exacerbate the suffering that comes during an epidemic. Sanders believes the spread of the virus is exposing deep systemic problems in the United States: the homelessness crisis, the need for single payer free-at-point-of-use healthcare, the precariousness of employment and the lack of paid sick leave.
Sanders believes that coronavirus shows exactly why Medicare for All is so necessary: if Americans are having to worry about whether they have enough money to afford treatment, they won’t get the care they need, and more people will be put at risk. Biden rejected the argument entirely, saying: “You have a single payer system in Italy. It doesn’t work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all.” Now Biden was missing the point here: single-payer does not eliminate pandemics or give the medical system infinite treatment capacity, it reduces financial hardship and makes sure people aren’t going untreated who could be treated, and one might well prefer to be in Italy than the US during a large-scale medical crisis.
But while correct on the issue, Sanders did not make a sufficiently cogent case linking the present crisis to broader systemic problems, sometimes sounding as if he was trying to shoehorn in progressive politics to an “apolitical” crisis. That’s a shame, because Sanders’ policies are exactly what we need in an urgent moment.
On the whole, Sanders delivered the kind of performance that he needed to at this stage, with Biden now the favorite to win the nomination. He had to deal Biden a knockout blow – to do unto Biden as Elizabeth Warren did unto Michael Bloomberg. He didn’t. The exchanges between the two were often contentious. But while Sanders raised some concerns about whether Biden could inspire young voters to come to the polls in November, and had harsh words about Biden’s legislative record and climate change plans, there was no “game-changing” moment that exposed or humiliated Biden.
Sanders did, however, land some punches. When Biden claimed Sanders was supported by “Super Pacs,” Sanders challenged Biden to “name” them. Biden couldn’t, probably because Sanders isn’t supported by Super Pacs. In the night’s most memorable exchange, Sanders went after Biden mercilessly for having long signaled his openness to cutting social security benefits. Biden was evasive, refusing to admit something that is very well-documented, and Sanders wouldn’t let the issue go, telling viewers to go and look up the video clips of Biden saying precisely what he claims he never said.
But Biden, it has to be said, put in a solid performance. In order to come out ahead, he simply had to avoid losing, and he did that. Biden has had a number of embarrassing gaffes and slip-ups over the course of the campaign, that have even raised questions about whether he is fit to take on Donald Trump. There was none of that on Sunday night. He was prepared for most of what came at him. Whatever slip-ups there may have been were minor and were shared in equal measure by both candidates. (Biden accidentally called coronavirus “Sars” while Sanders called it “Ebola”.)
It didn’t hurt that Biden was willing to shamelessly mislead people about his own record. This is not an exaggeration: Biden claimed to have opposed the infamous bankruptcy bill he was an enthusiastic supporter of and even helped write. He also falsely claimed to have been duped by George Bush into supporting the Iraq war, and fudged his decidedly mixed record on abortion rights. After the debate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was scathing about Biden’s falsehoods on Twitter, saying “the truth matters”.
But just how much it matters remains to be seen. Biden has long been slippery with the truth, and pretended to have long been a progressive when he once bragged about being one of the most conservative senators. The moderators at this debate didn’t seem to care, and Democratic voters don’t really seem to either: current polls show Biden with a significant lead in almost all of the remaining contests. The Biden pitch is that he is the safe choice to take on Donald Trump, and all other considerations should be set aside in favor of “electability”. Tonight’s debate reinforced that idea.
Of course, it’s not clear that Biden is the more effective candidate to take on Trump, and Democrats might be walking into another disaster like 2016 by nominating a weak establishment politician with a long record of blunders Trump can seize on. When Biden suggests that Sanders supports authoritarian regimes, and when a Biden adviser compares Sanders to the “kind of protester who often shows up at campaign events”, it becomes more difficult to see how Biden will convince Sanders supporters that he empathizes with them enough to be worth voting for. It is likely that with tonight’s debate, Sanders lost his last shot to take Biden down. But Biden did show the many vulnerabilities that will inevitably become Trump-fodder in a general election. Democrats should take note and be warned.
