Bernie Sanders drops out of 2020 race leaving Joe Biden the presumptive nominee.

Bernie Sanders at a campaign stop in Iowa last year. NBC News/Bloomberg/Getty.

Senator Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the 2020 race leaving Joe Biden the presumptive nominee. NBC News. Sanders admitted he was 300 delegates behind Joe Biden and that there was not a path forward. He acknowledged that his supporters wanted him to continue to run but he could not in good conscience do so. Joe Biden praised Sanders and the two campaigns have been working with each other in an effort to beat President Donald Trump. Sanders had a strong run in the 2020 race, at times looking like the frontrunner. But he failed in South Carolina and could not match Joe Biden's momentum as his other opponents dropped out. Sanders did not do as well as he did in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and was never able to secure the critical Black vote. 

My Comment:

First of all, I think Sanders screwed over the state of Wisconsin. A lot of people would have stayed home on Tuesday if they knew Sanders was just going to drop out anyways. Had he done this before the election it's possible that a few people would have been spared catching the Coronavirus. 

With that out of the way, it's no surprise to me that Bernie Sanders lost. He always had an uphill battle against a party that pretty much openly hates him, regardless of all the nice messages he is getting today. Sanders was always a party outsider and isn't even in the Senate as a Democrat, so it's little wonder why the party heads rejected him. 

On the other hand though, how on earth did he lose to Joe Biden of all people? Joe Biden, the guy that has sex scandals and likes to sniff little kids hair. Joe Biden, the guy that talks about how black people liked his leg hair and how he threw down with some guy named Corn Pop. Joe Biden, the senile old man that talks about kids listening to record players and calls people "dog faced pony soldiers". Even if I despise Sanders platform, he has to be a better candidate then Biden right?

So why did Sanders lose? Let's take a look.

1. Much of Sanders' support in 2016 was due to how unlikable Hillary Clinton was. His 2020 opponents aren't anywhere near as hated and some of them were indeed progressive darlings for much of the race. With no lightning rod in the party this time around (except for Michael Bloomberg), Sanders ended up being the one that a lot of people disliked. 

2. Many of Hillary Clinton's 2016 supporters blamed Sanders and his supporters for losing against Donald Trump. I think this is pretty unfair as Clinton did little to keep Sanders voters happy and just assumed that they would all go for her in 2016, but I think that is the mindset of a lot of her voters. They weren't going to support Sanders this time either.

3. Many of Bernie Sanders supporters didn't back him in 2020 after the bowed down to the same DNC that screwed him over. A lot of them thought, correctly in my opinion, that Sanders was cowardly to back down on the DNC screwing him by giving Clinton the debate questions and other actions they took against him. Endorsing and campaigning for the very person who cheated him out of a nomination that he may very well have won otherwise was a move that a lot of people couldn't stomach. If he had gone 3rd party or told Hillary Clinton to pound sand he would have kept more of his voters and retained a decent amount of respect. 

4. Sanders moved to the left on a few crucial issues that ruined any possible support from GOP voters. I myself had considered voting for Sanders in the Primary since President Trump is unopposed but I just couldn't do it. Back in 2015 and 2016 I had some respect for Sanders as he was much more sane on both gun rights and immigration than he is now. But with Sanders adopting the same open borders/gun confiscation platform as Biden, I just voted for Trump instead in a meaningless primary. Sanders also became a lot more "woke" this time around, talking a lot more about racial issues that turned a lot of more moderate voters off. If it was 2015 Sanders, I probably would have voted for him last Tuesday, and not only because he might have been easier for Trump to beat. But under his current platform? No way. 

5. He got screwed by the Democrats. Again. There was some obvious collusion going on right after Joe Biden won South Carolina. Just before Super Tuesday, Pete Buttgieg and Amy Klobucher dropped out of the race, which meant that most of their votes went to Joe Biden instead. This destroyed Sanders chances on Super Tuesday as he was relying on a split vote. 

Bernie Sanders is OUT! Thank you to Elizabeth Warren. If not for her, Bernie would have won almost every state on Super Tuesday! This ended just like the Democrats & the DNC wanted, same as the Crooked Hillary fiasco. The Bernie people should come to the Republican Party, TRADE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020

6. Elizabeth Warren screwed Sanders most of all. She (presumably) falsely accused him of saying that a woman couldn't win in 2020, which turned out to be correct, and blasted him in the media as some kind of sexist.

That attack seemed to land flat as most of his supporters and even the general public saw through it, but Warren's other attack devastated Sanders. Unlike Buttgieg and Klobucher, Warren stayed in the race past Super Tuesday, for no real reason other than to screw over Bernie Sanders. She didn't win a single state but if her voters had gone to Sanders, he might have won a few states as well.

7. Bernie Sanders could never appeal to African Americans. Part of that is their somewhat puzzling dedication to Joe Biden, which is probably just leftover respect from him being Barack Obama's VP (which is in itself puzzling as Obama was a terrible president for Black Americans).

But I think it was his platform that didn't help him much with them. Sanders platform of free college and free healthcare is tailored to upper and middle class whites. Lower and middle class blacks generally don't have to pay for college due to scholarships and other affirmative action programs and then are much more likely to get public benefits like Medicaid. Why would they want these things to be free when they are basically free for poor and lower middle class African Americans in the first place?

It also didn't help that Sanders supporters were somewhat racist against blacks. I personally saw quite a few people who were furious after South Carolina, saying that "blacks were voting against their own interests" which is hugely insulting as it implies that Black people aren't capable of figuring out what their interests are. And there was even some open racism after Sanders lost elections, which I don't need repeat here.

8. Sanders political message fell flat on it's face due to the circumstances. Before the Coronavirus crash happened, the economy was firing on all cylinders and doing very well. People had little reason to want free healthcare or college when they could easily afford it due to the economy doing so well. The virus might have provided an opportunity but it came way too late for Sanders.

9. The Coronavirus destroyed whatever remaining chance Sanders had. Nobody cared about his campaign anymore when everyone was worried about what was going to happen. It kept him off the campaign trail and kept the media spotlight off of Joe Biden despite his obvious decline in mental health and the Tara Reade sex scandal, either of which might have helped Sanders.

10. The American people just don't like socialism. It's a fringe position at best and has been proven that it can't win. Even the far left Democrats don't want to go that far. America isn't Europe, we actually have centrist and right wing voters here. And they do not want socialism to say the least!

So what's next for Sanders? Hard to tell. With the Coronavirus being a black swan event and Joe Biden's health in question, it's very possible that Sanders could jump back in. At the very least he's encouraging his voters to keep voting for him in primaries so he can secure more delegates and have some say in the 2020 Democrats platform.

But I think, barring some huge change, Sanders career as a Presidential candidate is over. Sanders is 78 and he would be 82 in 2024. There's basically no way he runs again if he even manages to survive until 2024. We won't see him in a presidential race again, barring some kind of massive upset.

As for Joe Biden, he must feel like the luckiest man in the world right now. His last major political opponent is done and all he has to do is beat Donald Trump. The spotlight is off of him right now and he no longer has to worry about campaigning anymore.

But I still don't think he has a chance to win. He might not even be the candidate as his mental decline is getting pretty obvious. There is a real movement to replace him at the convention, either by Andrew Cuomo or, ugh, Hillary Clinton. And President Trump has been handling the Coronavirus crisis well, with his approval as high as it has ever been. There is still a lot of time between now and November and a lot can happen but if things go well I think President Trump has 2020 locked up...