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Notes -
I have 2 hypotheticals:
I ask because Sanders appealed very strongly to many Trump voters, doing great in e.g. West Virginia but lacking e.g. black support (which the democratic primaries overfocus on. Besides Wasserman-Schultz et al.'s machinations.) His approach was not based on identity politics etc. I'm curious how people think his "movement" or time in office would have turned out.
Sanders is a populist grievance mongerer similar to Trump so it's not too surprising there is across appeal. I have a theory that's been kicking around in my head for a bit that the parties seem to be realigning as a low information populist Republican party and an establishment technocratic Democrat party. People willing to sling conspiracy theories about how the jews, elites, billionaires or whomever with very little actual support have long been able to garner some support but in the social media age now that the lowest common denominator is able to have their voices amplified it seems inevitable that this is catered to. I may be coping in my hope that only one party falls to this type of rhetoric.
There aren't enough intelligent, thoughtful people in the country for a viable party to get away with only making valid arguments and espousing only reasonable policy positions. If you don't make a serious play for the stupid vote you just get creamed, and that means both parties end up making stupid arguments for stupid positions.
I think the equilibrium would be found where the things being said by the populist side would be so obviously stupid and ruinous that even the median voting American would be like "uh, I dunno, all the state run raw milk distribution centers are losing money, do we really want to nationalize coffee shops?"
But if they're state-run, people won't notice if they're losing money! Medicare/medicaid are massive money pits, and yet Trump became dominant not despite but because of his comittment to not cutting them.
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