What if Bernie Sanders ran against Trump in 2016 instead of Clinton?
The News Agents discuss what kind of political shift could have been brought about if Sanders had become the Democratic Party nominee in the 2016 race against Trump.
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Read time: 5 mins
In brief…
- Sanders’ run was notable for breaking an unspoken rule of US politics, to speak openly about socialism – and it was winning him huge support.
- He eventually dropped out and urged supporters to back Clinton, with some claiming they would defect to Trump instead.
- The News Agents say that a Sanders win could have changed the current opinion of the Democrats as the establishment party, to one of populism.
What's the story?
When Donald Trump first became president, it was a shock to the world. It was even a shock to most people when he became the Republican nominee in 2016.
So it was a surprise to many that Hillary Clinton, who seemingly had all the odds stacked in her favour, was unable to outpace a property millionaire who swept into politics on a wave of misinformation and aggressive campaigning.
But could things have been different in the US if Bernie Sanders had never stepped down from his challenge to Hillary to become the Democratic Party nominee? When he dropped out and offered his support to Clinton’s campaign, his popularity was only growing in America.
“They ended up having a really pitched battle, which ran along lines that have become very familiar to us now, which is you have an establishment type candidate in Hillary Clinton running on electability, and Bernie Sanders running on an economically populist agenda,” says Lewis Goodall.
“This, in some ways, mirrors some of the themes that Donald Trump runs on, not just for the primary, but also in the presidential election.”
So could we be looking at a very different America today, if things had played out differently in 2016?
What led to Clinton’s selection?
Jon Sopel recalls thinking Hillary was a "shoe in" for the nomination at the time, not least because Bernie Sanders described himself as a socialist – a word Jon adds " no one in America who seriously wants office" would use.
"But Bernie Sanders did, and suddenly there are young people energised in a way that I couldn't quite believe," he says.
"He was rampaging up and down the country. In a lot of ways, he was a bloody awful orator. He couldn't speak. All he could do was shout in a very loud voice: 'I am against the 1% and they are doing destroying America.'"
Jon adds that for Clinton, it was “alarming” to watch her chance of nomination slip away, much as she did in 2008 when she was beaten by Barack Obama to represent the Dems.
But this all took a turn when, in 2016 at the Democratic National Convention, Sanders told his supporters to vote for Clinton, saying his goals were more likely to be achieved with her in The White House.
“I remember standing with the California delegation as they were saying: “There is no way I'm voting for Clinton in November. I am voting for Donald Trump’,” Jon recalls.
“Trump was brilliant in the way that he said; "It's so cruel, the way they've treated Bernie, so unfair’ – and that resonated.
“And there were people who found themselves thinking, You know what, I've got more in common with Trump, because they hated the Clinton's and they hated the machine that went with Clinton, this kind of steam roller that was going to roll over them.”
A lot like Trump, Sanders wanted tariffs imposed on imported goods, and to revive America's manufacturing industry.
How Sanders would have changed the 2016 election campaign
Lewis believes things would have been very different with Sanders running instead of Clinton – especially for the Republican.
“Trump would have had to fight a very different election,” he says.
“He would have not been able to be the populist, or at least he would not have been able to have a monopoly on populism.”
He says the financial crash of 2008 had left a lot of residual anger in the US, and that it was clear that voters were looking to channel that energy into their political choices.
“We now know it was going somewhere, and it would be a winning energy,” Lewis adds.
“What the Democrats did by nominating Hillary – and then Harris as well – is allow Trump to have a monopoly on that anger and that populism, and if Bernie had been in the race, he wouldn't have had the monopoly on it.
“Maybe Trump would have won anyway, but he would have had to fight a very different campaign than the one he fought against Hillary.”
What President Sanders might have looked like
Jon believes that even if Sanders had beaten Clinton for the nominee and Trump for the presidency, it would have spelled an "incredibly difficult" time for the country, due to its politics leaning naturally so far to the right.
"To a European, there was nothing that Bernie Sanders said that you thought was in any way remarkable," Jon says.
"He believes in socialized medicine. He believes in health care for all – things we take for granted.
"In America, they do not. They see that as – not just the slippery slope to communism – they see it as communism."
Lewis says that even having Sanders running against Trump, win or lose, could have changed the course of US politics, and resulted in a complete change in which party was seen as representing which side of the coin.
"We have had three elections in which Trump has been involved, and each time the Democrats have nominated someone from the establishment," Lewis says.
"The most economically populist of the three was Joe Biden, and Joe Biden wins. So it would have been truly fascinating to see a true economic populist, such as Sanders, go up against Trump.
"There could be a world in which the Republicans became the establishment party and the Democrats are the populace."