Bernie started a revolution: that’s where he went wrong

I knew of Bernie Sanders in 2016, though I wasn’t really old enough to be engaged in American politics back then so I couldn’t offer an opinion. In February 2020, I was throwing my weight behind him. Pictures of massive rallies full of people – Americans – supporting democratic socialist policies filled me with hope. He was America’s chance for healthcare that made sense, for university that didn’t throw people into hundreds of thousands of dollars of private debt, and for real action on climate change. It was the first time in my lifetime where I thought “Oh my god, things could really change in America”.

That’s kind of the problem with Bernie, too. Not the policy, but the messaging. He hit the nail on the head when it came to young progressives like me and many others – anger at the system which translated into radical, transformative change. That’s why I was so passionate and hopeful. Throw the same messaging at the lower middle class in the rust belt, and you’ll probably find that people working in car manufacturing who have just barely got health insurance won’t respond too fondly to the rhetoric of “let’s rip up the system”.

A middle ground is hard to find. My idea of the best middle ground is keep the anger, but don’t direct the anger at capitalism or cars or an abstract “the system”. Direct it at not doing the common sense thing. Keep the anger for the young progressives, but don’t talk about healthcare as some kind of revolution. Talk about healthcare in familiar terms. In practice, this means straying away from “We must defeat them” language (which I just copy and pasted directly from Bernie’s website), and towards “It’s common sense – we can fully insure everyone at half the cost.” Everyone knows common sense, and Americans are familiar with being fully insured.

Bernie had the right ideas. American health care makes no sense. It’s high cost at about 2x what most other MEDCs spend per capita, low efficiency given the bureacracy, and doesn’t produce great outcomes with a lower life expectancy than the UK, Germany, France, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and 33 other nations. Based on WHO data the US is 40th in life expectancy – the UN Development Programme puts it 37th, and the CIA’s World Factbook places America at number 54. When it comes to spending it’s more shocking – in 2019, the UK spent $4,653 on healthcare per capita. The United States? $11,072.

I could talk for hours about why healthcare makes no sense in America, but that’s not the point of this. A quick look at a bar chart shows it doesn’t make sense. The problem is why Bernie couldn’t get this message to cut through. Policy doesn’t need to change, messaging does. The UK faces a similar problem with Labour although it’s not compounded by the Electoral College – Keir Starmer is criticised for speaking in front of a flag of the country he wants to lead, despite the fact that Bernie Sanders did this consistently with little criticism from the left. If the Democrats (and Labour) want to win in 2024, they need someone who can win the hearts of the young and the common sense of the swing voters. Anger and common sense aren’t mutually exclusive.