Stephen Miller devotes a National Review Online column to Bernie Sanders‘ growing support among likely Democratic Party presidential primary voters.
Sanders was never meant to be anything more than a disgruntled tomato can on the path to the coronation of Queen BAE Hillary, a useful sparring partner whose job was to jab her just enough without hurting her in preparation for the actual main event. The only problem for Hillary and the DNC is that Sanders’s special brand of Grampa Simpson relativism is catching on, and Hillary hasn’t been too great at dodging punches.?
Sanders is that guy you’ve gone out of your way to avoid a hundred times stepping off a city bus, who looks like he’s desperately on the verge of spilling the contents of the loose-leaf folders under his arms while sweating through the same bedraggled blazer he’s been wearing for 25 years. He’s the kind of politician that needs a person playing a tuba following him wherever he goes. We all know someone like him. He’s the guy who runs for HOA president because he’s tired of getting those damn mailers from Domino’s Pizza in his mailbox that are addressed to his neighbors, and he will stop at nothing to fix it (Comrade! The Garlic Knots coupons must be spread equally amongst the people). He’s the Larry David of Washington, unable to turn the other cheek to a pig parker or someone in line ahead of him at Pinkberry taking her sweet time sampling every flavor.
He’s just common enough for people to ignore his status as a congressional insider for the past thirty years.
And that’s exactly what makes him so politically dangerous. It’s why his legions of Internet fans on Facebook and Reddit are willing to overlook his underreported kooky theories on why women fantasize about being sexually assaulted and the causes of cervical cancer (lack of orgasms — science!). Sanders is echoing the populist, anti-corporatist sentiment that has made Chief Elizabeth Warren, a senator for barely two years, a kingmaker of her party. Sanders’s socialist diatribes have pushed even the limits of what Barack Obama knew he could get away with in 2008. But this isn’t 2008 anymore and our ears have grown accustomed to populist theatrics masquerading as policy solutions to a middle class who sees their income shrinking.
