Bernie Sanders is Now Donald Trump's Best Friend

By Justin Wax Jacobs

Bernie Sanders just became Donald Trump’s best friend. Strange as it may be that a humble rural Vermont socialist would have anything in common with an over the top New York City real estate tycoon/demagogue billionaire, but the two candidates’ path to the Presidency are now intertwined. And that path runs straight through Hillary Clinton.

With the results from “separation Tuesday” in, the political landscape has become much clearer. Clinton has a sizeable lead against Sanders amongst delegates with 1,139 pledged and 467 superdelegates promised. According to FiveThirtyEight, Clinton has over performed on her electoral targets racking up 108% of the delegates she’s needed to win the Democratic nomination thus far. Comparatively, Sanders has underperformed winning only 83% of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. As Nate Silver points out Sanders needs to not only win in states like New York, Pennsylvania, and California but he needs to win by sufficient margins to have any chance at the nomination.

Mathematically Sanders hasn’t been eliminated from the competition but Tuesday’s results have made his path to the nomination improbable if not precarious. While his continued presence in the race will do little to help the viability of his own candidacy it does clearly benefit the leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

Although Sanders claims that he has never engaged in a direct personal attack on Secretary Clinton, the continuing barrage of indirect attacks implying deficiencies of character and her untrustworthiness have eroded support and enthusiasm of Clinton’s candidacy on the far left and within the Democratic base.

Evidence of this attrition can be seen in the growing “Bernieor Bust” movement whose subscribers have pledged their support to Bernie Sanders, and only Bernie Sanders, vowing not to vote for anyone but him. The members of this movement tend to be younger voters who serve as a key demographic for any Democratic White House hopeful.  They would also represent an important and significant plurality of any anti-Trump coalition that may emerge in the fall. Their opposition to Clinton may undermine her electability creating an electoral opening for the probable Republican nominee.   

But Sanders’ inadvertent support for Trump doesn’t end with questions of character and trust. Instead it continues into the realm of substantive policy and issues ubiquitous among the two campaigns.

As I mentioned earlier it may be hard to imagine that two men from polar opposite points along the political spectrum would have anything in common. This understanding is based on a conceptualization of the American political spectrum as a straight line infinitely continuing in opposite directions that never meet. However, the American political arena is more akin to a circle which meets at two distinct points, one in moderation and the other in radicalization. The further to the radical right or left one moves the closer that person gets to their political counterparts on the other side. A point illustrated earlier this month when Conservative stalwart and billionaire Charles Koch penned an op-ed supporting many of Bernie Sanders’ political positions.  

Trump and Sanders share many common positions including their mutual disdain for the current political establishment in their respective parties (or adoptive parties), their disapproval of the current state of campaign finance, and their fierce opposition to free trade deals. It’s their shared position on the latter issue where Trump stands to benefit the most.

Throughout the campaign both candidates have continuously bemoaned the loss of American jobs to competing markets overseas. And both candidates have pointed the blame squarely at the various Free Trade Agreements the United States has entered into.

In Michigan, Sanders channeled the residual resentment to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which many blame for the decrepit condition of that state’s economy, to propel him to an upset victory over Clinton. His campaign’s ability to tie Clinton’s past support of NAFTA and tacit support of the Trans Pacific Partnership (a new free trade agreement currently being negotiated by the United States) proved effective in detracting voters from casting a ballot for the former Secretary of State. 

Although the message wasn't as successful in Ohio, where Clinton beat Sanders by 13 percentage points, it is clear that the Sanders campaign intends to take that message to Wisconsin which holds its primary election in early April. 

Bernie Sanders' target audience in the Midwest, unemployed and underemployed white voters, is the same target population for Trump nationally. Sanders' primary message in the Midwest, an anti free trade agenda, plays straight into Trumps protectionist trade rhetoric. If Sanders fails to make it to the general election the residual affect of his primary campaign may be to irreversibly deter voters from supporting Clinton in a politically important geographic region. 

Along with the Northeast and Pacific Coast, the Midwest has long been a region which Democrats could rely on in Presidential contests.  Over the last 28 years Wisconsin and Minnesota have voted for the Democratic candidate in every Presidential election, Michigan and Illinois haven’t swung for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988, while Ohio is four for seven voting both times for Bill Clinton and Barak Obama in 92’, 96’, 08’, and 12’. Indiana, which is more conservative than its Great Lake brethren, is the lone outsider voting for a Democrat only once in that same time span.      

Constituting much of the rust belt, states like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota all sport strong manufacturing sectors with a large blue collar workforce that is often unionized. Fertile ground for Democratic Party support.

With fewer union jobs and an already declining economy hard hit by the 2008 recession, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin have experienced a rightward political shift in recent years. In all three states the Republicans constitute a majority in both houses of the state legislatures and occupy the state’s Governor’s mansion. Each state’s congressional delegation is dominated by Republicans (Wisconsin: 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats; Michigan: 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats; Ohio: 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats) while the Senate contingencies are split evenly with the exception of Michigan which has two Democrats serving in the upper chamber of the federal legislature.  

A Republican presidential candidate, like Trump, could exploit this political shift by focusing on the antagonism many voters will have towards candidates with any ties to free trade agreements. An antagonism based on a resentment whose groundwork has already been laid and established by the Sanders campaign. Were a Republican like Trump able to take advantage of that strategic opening it would have severe consequences for the outcome of the election. 

Together, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin represent 44 electoral votes which can sway the 2016 election one way or the other. Had Mitt Romney won these three states plus perennial swing state Florida he would have been President of the United States. 

It is not a stretch to say, but rather a fact, that Sanders' sustained attacks on Clinton over her support for free trade policies is doing nothing more than poisoning the well for Hillary's general election run. His advertisements and stump speeches reminding voters of the harm NAFTA brought to the manufacturing sector will continue to reverberate amongst the electorate long after the primaries end. 

As my pro-Bernie friends would undoubtedly point out, Clinton would be susceptible to the same attacks during the general election regardless of Sanders' current political messaging.

But that argument ignores the simple fact that Trump's messaging has a limited scope within the electorate which can be supplemented and expanded with Sanders' aid. Trump's attacks to date have mostly focused on the personal and rarely on the substantive. Instead of making poignant policy remarks, Trump relies on general and vague statements. On the other hand, Sanders articulates a practical message which can resonate and reach voters who would normally be outside of the scope of Trump's influence.

Without a clear path forward it may be time for Bernie Sanders to rethink his campaign and call it quits lest he hands the election to Donald J. Trump on a silver platter.