One Night in Short Bus Nation

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

"Young voters cheer Bernie Sanders' anti-establishment message. They turn out in throngs at his rallies. And they form the core of his grassroots efforts to win the Democratic presidential nomination.But their fiery passion did not translate into the robust turnout he needed on Super Tuesday to win a number of key states..." - Ledyard King, USA TODAY 3/4/20

We need to start teaching Civics in school again. After last night, there's no way around it. 

    It's a maddening inconsistency and study in contrasts that hundreds of thousands of young people in the 17-29 age demographic, especially Generation Z, will gladly spend vast sums of money attending a concert by their favorite pop star, including money on music downloads and all the related, corporately-driven merchandise but can't be bothered to show up at their polling places for the brief, and free, ritual of voting.
   The exit polls are just starting to come in and, after looking at the individual states that essentially tell the same story with minor variations, I've come to the conclusion that the blame for Bernie Sanders winning just four states instead of the nine he was polled to win on Super Tuesday can be squarely laid at the Birkenstock and Nike-shod feet of Generation Z and Millennials.
    Let's take a quick snapshot of what happened in five southern states: In Alabama, only 11% were in the 17-29 age demographic. South Carolina, 11% again. Tennessee: 11% yet again. North Carolina wasn't much better at 14%. Virginia, a state that saw a 500,000 greater voter turnout than in 2016, betrayed that just 13% of them were young voters. 55% of those votes went to Sanders but 69% of that age group voted for him in '16.
   The exhaustive breakdown in polling demographics compiled by CNN today tells the tale of the tape of just how deeply divided Sanders and Biden voters are in many categories. Aside from age (younger voters tend to go for Bernie, older ones for Biden), many of them are distinguished in specific categories. Let's take a pretty representative split, the results in California, the only big state in which Bernie won:
    Sanders 17-24 65%  25-29 58%  30-39 62%  40-49 43%  50-64 23%   
   In the age breakdown, the results were pretty consistent with the rest of the nation. In that last demographic, Biden did best, polling at 28% in what is generally (and generously) regarded as the most liberal state in the country.
     But a deeper breakdown shows other divisions along religious, ideological and other lines. Those with Associates, Bachelor's or Advanced degrees generally went for Sanders while Biden's numbers were noticeably lower. Overall, a third of college graduates in California last night went for Bernie as opposed to only 20% for Biden.
     Nearly half of Independents, 46%, voted for Bernie in the Golden State, whereas only 15% went for Biden. In light of this fact, it's surprising that Bernie lost my home state Massachusetts. considering we're just a few hours drive from Vermont and that 52% of our electorate is Independent.
    Half of those in California that identify as "very liberal" voted for Bernie, another 34% who identified as "somewhat liberal" voted for him, too. By contrast, 36% of "moderates" went for Biden and not very surprising 27% of them who identify as "conservative" went for Old Joe, too. People who don't put a premium on religion went with Bernie whereas those who regularly attended religious services overwhelmingly voted for Biden.
    And, perhaps the most telling demographic to come out of California last night, a full half of voters who voted for Bernie thought he "cared about people like me" while a very misguided 40% of Biden voters thought he would unite the country. Obviously, that 40% doesn't spend much time on Twitter. Most astonishingly, a full two thirds of California's voters thought Biden was the guy to beat Trump whereas only 10% thought the same about Sanders.
     By all this, we can infer wealthier, poorly-educated older white people who don't use social media much if at all and identify as conservative will go for Biden. It's essentially the same demographic as the one that went for Hillary four years ago. If you need reminding how well that worked out, backing an aging, snarling centrist, I'll be right here if you need me.

A Comeback? No, It Was a Reanimation

It seems those most cognizant of the issues and of the faults and virtues of the candidates are understood by those less likely to vote than those that don't grasp them as well. In other words, the wrong people are voting and the right people couldn't be bothered to engage outside of a Twitter flame war.
   But the lack of the youth vote last night in the 14 primary states is only one factor in why Bernie had won just four states (with Maine still being too close to call although it looks as if Biden may pull that one out, too). There was also the same old duplicitous rat fuckery going on behind the scenes in the smoke-filled back rooms to which Obama had allegedly put an end in 2008.
   The suspicion that Obama and the Clintons made some strategic phone calls to party operatives and several of the candidates are circulating through social media like a barely-detected septic tank leak. It's no secret that Obama was entertaining party insiders and power brokers in his hidey hole in Georgetown and discouraging donors from contributing to Sanders and instead pushing Elizabeth Warren. The suspicion that Massachusetts' senior senator was "allowed" to stay in the race to act as a spoiler and split the progressive vote last night is even more rife.
   But the fact was, Warren not only didn't win in her adopted state, she didn't even place. She showed in a distant third place, making her stubborn candidacy even more of a malicious, bad joke. At least Bernie beat the shit out of the entire field in his own adopted state of Vermont. Warren barely managed to remain viable with 21.4% of the vote and eked out 23 delegates out of the Commonwealth's 91.
    But the Democrat Party couldn't have possibly made the fix any more transparent than it did on Monday night, the day before Super Tuesday, by trotting out three also-rans, the recently departed Klobuchar, Buttigieg and the almost totally forgotten Beto O'Rourke to pimp for Biden in Dallas. It was a state that Bernie was polled to win, yet, despite an early lead, slowly lost momentum until "losing" by 4.5%. Considering the level of duplicity, it was a wonder Bernie was even allowed to win California, the biggest prize of the night.
     And, thanks to the shadowy Herbert Wests of the Democrat Party, Biden's campaign, a rotting corpse before South Carolina, has been reanimated to the point that he now has a 65 delegate lead over Bernie. Not insurmountable by any means but the Democrats really don't care if Biden gets the minimum 1991 delegates by the first ballot because they know they can always count on the right wingers in the dirty Super Delegate pool to weigh in with their input on the second ballot. The idea isn't to get Biden the necessary majority of 1991- The idea is to keep Bernie from reaching that number.
     And now, with Bloomberg out and, naturally, throwing his support behind the other white 77 year-old right winger, that virtually assures that Bernie will not reach that magic number by the first ballot in Milwaukee unless Biden does us all a favor and walks into an open manhole.