Noah Millman on Bernie Sanders

“Like father of the conservative movement Barry Goldwater, Sanders is a factional candidate of the true faith, the representative of those who believe his party has lost touch with its ideological moorings. His brand is consistency and sincerity, which wins him affection if not support even from some opponents. But those very same qualities make it easy for the opposition (both within and outside the party) to tar him as a radical and an extremist. Sen. Goldwater lost the 1964 presidential election badly — but he was running against Lyndon Johnson, a legislative titan whose approval rating was over 75 percent that February. And Goldwater transformed his party nonetheless. His opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act began the process of ideological realignment that turned the South solidly Republican, a key factor powering Ronald Reagan's victorious quest for the presidency in 1980 and Newt Gingrich's capture of the House of Representatives in 1994. How did Goldwater's thrashing ultimately lead to a Republican majority? The answer is both ideological and demographic. Goldwater realigned the Republican center toward the South and West, the fastest-growing regions of the country. Increasing dominance in these regions led to a substantial electoral college advantage that wasn't broken until 1992. Ideologically, meanwhile, he gave Republicans something to be for rather than merely against. That's why they were able to define a new political era when Reagan won. That's the promise that Sanders holds even if he loses: that he opens the door not only to a return to power, but a transformation of the terms of the debate, something neither Clinton nor Obama — nor Eisenhower, Nixon, or Bush — achieved, but that FDR, Johnson, and Reagan did. But what's the demographic basis of Sanders' rise? And could it actually point to a dominant coalition, whether it manifests in 2020 or a subsequent election?”

“Could Sanders be more than a harbinger, though, and achieve something like Ronald Reagan's breakthrough? There are tempting parallels. Reagan challenged the incumbent Gerald Ford for the nomination in 1976 and nearly took the nomination from him, much as Sanders gave Hillary Clinton a far tougher run for her money than anyone could have imagined. And like Reagan, Sanders has demonstrated the ability to be far more pragmatic in government than he is often given credit for, working within the system and demonstrating an admirable institutional conservatism with his support for the filibuster and opposition to court packing. His historic support for gun rights even has a parallel in Reagan's support for abortion rights as California governor.”

“Like Trump, Sanders comes from outside the institutional party he seeks to lead, and a substantial portion of his appeal rests precisely on that independence, and on pent up frustration with the party leadership. Like Trump, Sanders is leading a movement deeply bound up with his own persona, something hard to imagine sustaining itself in his absence. And like Trump, were Sanders to achieve victory, he could face persistent resistance within the party to promoting his agenda, and he would certainly have difficulty staffing his administration with people associated with his movement rather than the institutional party. That's a fact that will surely affect the actual course of policymaking in a Sanders administration as it has in Trump's. But there are two crucial differences between Sanders and Trump. First, Sanders is a sincere ideologue like Goldwater and Reagan, not an opportunist. He is running to transform his party ideologically rather than simply conquer it and make it his plaything. There's a reason why Trump has done so little to actually turn the GOP into a worker's party and to repudiate the wealth-favoring policies backed by its donors: Because he is not actually that interested in policy. Sanders is. That difference cuts both ways, however. It makes it easier for Sanders to get between Trump and his lies, and separate him from that portion of his supporters who believed he was a relative moderate in 2016. But it also makes it easier for Trump to retain the loyalty of his party's regulars, and to separate Sanders from the portion of his coalition that is worried about him not because he might lose but because he might win. Cynicism has its advantages as well as its drawbacks.”