Why The “Unelectables” Are The Right Choice

Zohran Mamdani was unelectable.

Everybody knew it.

“Nearly everything about Mamdani’s candidacy, from his apparent antisemitism to his antagonism toward law enforcement, is appalling,” read an opinion piece before his election, in The Hill.

“Zohran Mamdani is not a serious person,” it concluded.

Others chimed in that he was ‘Unrealistic.’ ‘A gimmick.’ ‘He’ll get chewed up and spat out by the bureaucracy.’

He won, of course. He beat a former governor, even though he was outspent three to one, and did it running on things people actually cared about: rent freezes, universal childcare, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030.

Sometimes, the Consultant Class does not do America any favours.

The most grievous “unelectable” pronouncement to me personally, was the one that said Bernie Sanders could not beat Donald Trump back in 2015. People were told that they had to put Hilary Clinton up against Trump; Hillary was ‘electable’.

Yes, I know, ancient history, I should just let it go…but it is at the heart of our problems today.

A person is certainly not ‘electable’ if they can’t get over that first hurdle of professional opinion proclaiming that they can’t win.

The professional judgement is usually based on the views from a line of warriors hired by the vested interests, who would be horrified if anything really changed in the economy - if people actually started getting equal incomes.

But let’s cast our minds back to the situation before the Clinton-Trump debacle.

A national survey conducted before the election, found that Sanders would have received 56 percent of the vote while Trump would have won 44 percent. The last election result that decisive was Ronald Reagan’s victory over Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984.

The vast majority of polls mistakenly predicted a Clinton victory in Tuesday’s election.

I did not fall for that, personally. I knew Trump would win, based on the polling that I followed.

“As we contemplate the dark days ahead, and then as we suffer through them, we Democrats should remember that it could have been entirely different. All we had to do was to elect a Progressive as President ― just as a large majority of Americans really wanted,” said Florida Congressman Alan Grayson.

Crunching down on the idea of a progressive as candidate is the weight of business-friendly ‘centrists’ who want little if any change. Why would they? They have enough wealth to keep them comfortably invested in winning stocks.

But that feeling does not carry down to the people.

The election of 2016 was no ordinary election: Clinton and Trump were two of the most unpopular candidates US voters have ever been told to choose between.

That dislike seemed to endure right up to the end of election season.

That feeling did not, however, carry over to Bernie Sanders.

He was liked, trusted, and had a progressive platform that people desired.

Polls released before the election showed that Sanders had a lead over Trump of some 15%.

Hillary never used the actual word “unelectable” to describe Bernie, but she did state that Bernie Sanders’ policy proposals were unrealistic, that he hadn’t done his homework, and that he was not qualified to execute his promises. Later, in January 2020, Clinton reignited tensions in her Hulu documentary Hillary, stating that “nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done”.

The Clinton campaign argued that Sanders’ ambitious proposals, such as “Medicare for All” and free college tuition, amounted to “magic abs” promises that could not realistically pass Congress.

In fact Sanders is one of the most ‘liked’ politicians in Congress, and he works well with others to get legislation actually passed. But I’m quibbling.

Hillary reached the required delegate threshold for the 2016 presidential candidacy through a mix of pledged delegates and superdelegates; in a sense, it can be argued that she and the Democratic machine bought the position. Hillary was a creature of the machine.

It was a triumph of the governing class over the voting class.

And, of course, it went horribly wrong.

I can still see the smug expression on George Clooney’s face when he told an audience at the Cannes Film Festival that a President Trump “is never going to happen”.

Well, if you convince yourself that a populist candidate is ‘unelectable’, that is exactly what will happen: life listens to the people, not the prophets.

That is certainly still true today.

In Wisconsin, the candidate that the Democratic old guard preferred was moderate David Crowley. He did go on to beat the populist candidate Francesca Hong, by a razor’s edge. A big part of his argument was that she was unelectable.

But the Republican opposition was more terrified of Hong. They knew she was the most threatening of the two. An internal Republican memo said she would be “uniquely dangerous in the general election” and that her “general election strengths are formidable.”

Hong’s platform, they said, is “broadly popular and difficult to counter.” Her agenda “is built around kitchen-table issues that poll strongly with independents, working families, and even some rural voters.”

I have nothing against Crowley, and I wish him well in the November election, but I wonder what life would have been like if that pressure had not been applied against Hong’s campaign by the Democratic Ruling Class.

Generally, if the Old Guard is against it, it must be right.

The interesting thing now is that the general trend towards progressive candidates continues to build, despite the Old Guard.

Back in the day of the Clinton-Trump fight, the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the country (though not a political party), could claim fewer than 7,000 members – and most of them were inactive. By last month their numbers surpassed 120,000, overtaking the peak membership numbers of the historical Socialist Party of America led by Eugene Debs. Members are distributed across more than 220 local chapters nationwide covering all 50 states, alongside its student wing, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA).

They do not claim to be a Party; they are “a political and activist organization.”

There are of course many worthy candidates who are not in the full socialist ranks, and they are all electable if they are going in a progressive direction.

Today those candidates will look much less like the traditional political pro anyway. America’s racial profile is changing, with fewer White politicians and more from other races, religions and regions. These people tend to enter the Democratic fold, so I forecast a steady climb in Democratic power. The Republicans have to do a complete policy flip in order to maintain their hold…something I doubt that they are capable of doing.

Today’s Congress is the high point of Republican power. And of course it is dissolving in the usual chaos of Republican mismanagement, directional disagreement and displeasure with The Leader.

Speaking of “Progressive”, Yale University has released a new study confirming that the Medicare for All legislation recently introduced by Bernie Sanders would save 114,000 lives. Those lives would include 33,232 Americans who are currently uninsured, 29,631 Americans who cannot afford care, 20,111 Americans who would no longer lose their health insurance as a result of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill, 18,200 seniors who are currently unable to afford their prescription drugs, and 13,000 seniors who would receive quality care in nursing homes.

It would also reduce healthcare spending by more than $1 trillion a year.

At that rate, it could pay off the deficit that Trump has added to America within eight years.

Some things are not radical. Some things are the only possible solutions.

And those solutions are unlikely to come from “comfortable” political positions.

They are likely to emerge from the ranks of the “unelectable”.

We can ask Mamdani’s voters how that is working out for them – and 81% today will give you a “thumbs up”. He is America’s 8^th most popular politician.

Not bad for a guy who the experts dismissed as a ‘gimmick’.

The required lesson? Give the unelectables a chance. In the big scheme of things, how much worse could they be?

Thank you for following Barry’s Substack, focusing on the meaning behind the headlines. A regular summary of a topical book will provide more depth to enable full subscribers to stay ahead of the conversation.

In the coming weeks we will look at WHAT IF THE PRESIDENT IS AN IDIOT – Trump, power and the death of serious politics – How a reality show became a presidency.

PS - If you have enjoyed this article, please consider buying me a Coffee!