
Why Trump Fears Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on Bernie Sanders show that he’s starting to realize something that still escapes most pundits: Sanders would be his toughest opponent to beat in November.
Luke Savage is the author of The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After the End of History and a writer on Substack.

Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on Bernie Sanders show that he’s starting to realize something that still escapes most pundits: Sanders would be his toughest opponent to beat in November.

Listening to Joe Biden at last night’s Democratic debate, you would’ve thought he was a staunch antiwar activist in the lead-up to the Iraq war. But don’t let Biden rewrite history: he was one of the invasion’s biggest backers.

Mainstream pundits have recently realized what the rest of us have known all along: Bernie Sanders could actually win this thing. Don’t be surprised that every institution invested in the status quo will soon do everything possible to prevent both a Bernie Sanders nomination and a general election victory.

The much mythologized Republican resistance to Donald Trump is, and has always been, a media creation. Its only purpose is to perpetuate Beltway fairy tales of American exceptionalism and high-minded bipartisanship.

Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign isn’t just an obnoxious distraction — it’s a case study for the danger that billionaires pose to democracy.

To make the case against socialism, David Brooks reached into his timeworn bag of anti-radical clichés: humanity is too flawed, bureaucrats can’t get anything right, and the market’s efficiency is unmatched. Has he paid any attention to the last 30 years of neoliberalism?

Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar has been crowned by mainstream pundits as a Highly Electable Candidate. There’s only one problem — people hate her platform and no one wants to vote for her.

Every time you hear a Democratic politician bashing Medicare for All, just remember: health insurance hacks are directly supplying politicians with anti-single-payer talking points so they can protect their enormous profits.

Barack Obama is using his post-presidency to attack the Left and protect the status quo. The historical myth believed by so many liberals that Obama was a progressive leader who was hemmed in by the presidency’s political constraints is collapsing fast.

Barack Obama’s call for Democrats to stay grounded in “reality” has it backward — it’s centrist liberals who are living in a fantasy world.

The Democratic presidential candidates’ debate last night was overcrowded, light on substance, and somehow both hyperpartisan and boring as hell. Is this what we have to keep suffering through for the rest of the primary?

A new report offers hard evidence for what you already suspected: MSNBC is riding hard against Bernie.

Michael Bloomberg’s rumored run for the Democratic nomination is about as cartoonish an indictment of America’s two-party system as can possibly be imagined.

Bill Gates has managed to craft a reputation as a billionaire with a social conscience. But his recent comments on proposals for a wealth tax leave no room for doubt about whose side he’s on.

In less than six months, Beto O’Rourke made the journey from national celebrity to forgettable centrist. We won’t miss him, and neither should you.

The latest liberal parlor game is pretending there’s no such thing as neoliberalism. The game’s very popularity highlights neoliberalism’s enduring hegemony.

Despite a disappointing result in Monday’s elections, the NDP has embraced its most socialist program in a generation. To recover and to win, it must continue to offer Canadians an alternative to neoliberalism.

Justin Trudeau may be decisively rejected in today’s Canadian election. The race has been shaken up by a surge in support for Jagmeet Singh and his social-democratic NDP, whose left-wing program is what many Canadians thought they were getting when they voted for Trudeau four years ago.

In theory, punditry is supposed to offer a forum for political analysis and debate from a range of perspectives. In practice, it’s little more than an exercise in defending the self-serving orthodoxies of a privileged few.

Runaway inequality, regressive taxes, rampant labor exploitation. It’s often said the US economy “isn’t working,” but the truth is that capitalism is a class system that’s working exactly as intended.