What would a Bernie in 2016 Presidency look like?

[Bolt451]

Let's say Bernie beats Hilary (or she doesn't run and he beats a divided field ) and Beats the Donald.

With a hostile GOP and a not that friendly Democrats what kind of legislation do you think he manages to pass?

Also if anyone knows of any good TLs anywhere about a Bernie presidency let me know. I've found a few elsewhere and they aren't great or didnt last long

 

[AH Layard]

Hostile House and Senate will block anything like Medicare for All or immigration reform. But there would be a lot of executive orders, eg wiping out student debt, raising the minimum wage for federal employees, removing marijuana from the controlled substances list, banning offshore drilling and revoking permits for new pipelines (unlike Obama/Biden). Sanders will be in campaign mode and trying to undercut moderates in his own party.

The US would withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq earlier, but as OTL would attract some criticism for the return of the Taliban and rise in refugees. Sanders would not be as active in foreign policy although more supportive of climate change action. The Republicans would lean further into Covid conspiracy theories.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

There's a Republican Senate, meaning he has to have all of his cabinet picks approved by the GOP. He'd also have to deal with a Democratic party full of people resentful of him. OTL after 2008, the Clintons were less than kind to Obama even as he brought HRC into his administration.

 

[Visigoethe]

I could probably talk about this for hours but some basic outlines of where I see things going:
- Senate is likely 51 D-49 R with McGinty, Kander, and Feingold all floating above the line without being weighed down by Clinton on the top of the ticket. Mileage may vary on Deborah Ross in North Carolina where the race had significantly tightened due to the toxicity of the state GOP brand post-bathroom bill. It also depends on if Sanders is winning by a landslide like some polls showed or if the race tightens to something like Obama 2012 margins (probably the more plausible outcome). Sanders likely resigns in November and Peter Shumlin appoints a placeholder (extremely likely to be women since VT was yet to send a women to Congress) some names that come to mind are:

• Martha Abbot. One of Sanders' longest associates and the former chair of the Progressive Party. Might be too nakedly partisan as a capital-P Prog for Shumlin.
• Annie Noonan. Vermont Labor Commissioner and former longtime head of the VSEA, one of the most powerful labor unions in the state.
• Cassandra Gekas. Head of Vermont Health Connect, the state's Obamacare portal, not exactly a position filled with laurels, but Gekas is a young progressive associated with both Ds and Ps in the state.

- House is pretty impossible to swing with any 2016-Democratic coalition. The blue wave that flipped the House in 2018 required a major re-alignment with suburban white college-educated voters that the Sanders campaign, in particular, is not equipped to replicate in 2016. On the other hand, a Sanders nomination would probably come at the right time to save the Iowa state party along with local Democratic organizations in rural sections of Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota among other states. It is now clear to me that a Sanders victory wouldn't usher in a "le-wholesome white working class safe D West Virignia progressive revolution" as many of us on certain sections of the left felt would happen, but I do think that the OTL-2016 election sparked a death cycle among those Democratic organizations that they still haven't been able to recover. In this timeline things aren't safely D but those areas would hang around 40-45% D and the party is able to snag state legislative and occasional congressional seats and hold onto a healthy bench.

- A soft-D Senate allows Sanders to safely nominate cabinet positions, but otherwise things are going to be in legislative deadlock. Expect a lot of executive orders. I imagine criminal justice reform and decriminalizing marijuana would be priorities along with student debt. I imagine withdrawal from Afghanistan is on the table but I don't know what the timeline is. I think Biden's withdrawal will be seen as somewhat of a "only Nixon goes to China" moment and Sanders White House might prioritize domestic issues over totally rocking the boat. Cuba relations probably normalized and Iran deal kept which has huge effects going on.

- Merrick Garland is likely nominated in the interim between Obama and Sanders. Ginsburg retires before the midterms and Sanders likely picks between Paul Watford, Jane Kelly, and Sharon Block (tough with the Senate composition). I could also see Jed Rakoff or Barbara Underwood but their age might take them out of contention. Breyer is a tougher guess because I can imagine he wouldn't be enthused about being replaced by firebrand Sanders especially since the Court is a lot less polarized now and he might keep his "political consideration shouldn't affect the court schitck." On the other hand turning things over to his former clerk, Ketanji Brown Jackson, might smooth things over as they did in OTL. KBJ has plenty of appeal for a Sanders administration as it does for Biden's.

- 2018 probably doesn't go down as bad as a Hillary-2018 would, but still a lot of losses. How many seats lost will affect what kind of stimulus Sanders can enact during the pandemic and thus determines his re-election. If the Sanders administration successfully negotiates a deal then I imagine he wins re-election in a landslide similarly to other pandemic world leaders. I would dearly hope that a Sanders administration tries to use the COVID pandemic to push for something close to universal healthcare, but I just don't know how much of that could be conducted through executive order.

 

[JesterBL]

Senate is likely 51 D-49 R with McGinty, Kander, and Feingold all floating above the line without being weighed down by Clinton on the top of the ticket.

McGinty was outperformed by Clinton. Feingold had a difference of 2000 votes over Clinton. Kander is the one here that appreciably outperformed Clinton, but its far from clear that a candidate who was to the left of Clinton would have increased the chances of red state Democrats (the opposite is far, far more likely).

 

[Jackson Lennock]

McGinty was outperformed by Clinton. Feingold had a difference of 2000 votes over Clinton. Kander is the one here that appreciably outperformed Clinton, but its far from clear that a candidate who was to the left of Clinton would have increased the chances of red state Democrats (the opposite is far, far more likely).

Expanding on this.

Every Republican in a tight race outperformed Trump except for Roy Blunt (ergo, Clinton outperformed every Senate Dem in a tight race except Jason Kander). Hillary's doing better than other Dems seems to mainly have been to do with Romney-Clinton swing voters.


While not a perfect proxy, Colorado had a referendum on single-payer healthcare in 2016 which Bernie stumped for. It flopped, with almost 80% of Coloradans voting against it. Bernie the person was consistently more popular than his policies were. Progressive policies generally poll well, but as soon as a follow up question is asked like "are you willing to pay more taxes for this?" they poll a lot less well.

Meanwhile the GOP apparently had a literal wheelbarrow's worth of oppo research on him. He literally honeymooned in the USSR and praised the Sandinistas while Mayor of Burlington. If he wins, there would be a good chunk of people voting for Republicans down ballot as check-and-balance voters.

 

[TheKennedyMachine]

I could probably talk about this for hours but some basic outlines of where I see things going:
- Senate is likely 51 D-49 R with McGinty, Kander, and Feingold all floating above the line without being weighed down by Clinton on the top of the ticket. Mileage may vary on Deborah Ross in North Carolina where the race had significantly tightened due to the toxicity of the state GOP brand post-bathroom bill. It also depends on if Sanders is winning by a landslide like some polls showed or if the race tightens to something like Obama 2012 margins (probably the more plausible outcome). Sanders likely resigns in November and Peter Shumlin appoints a placeholder (extremely likely to be women since VT was yet to send a women to Congress) some names that come to mind are:

• Martha Abbot. One of Sanders' longest associates and the former chair of the Progressive Party. Might be too nakedly partisan as a capital-P Prog for Shumlin.
• Annie Noonan. Vermont Labor Commissioner and former longtime head of the VSEA, one of the most powerful labor unions in the state.
• Cassandra Gekas. Head of Vermont Health Connect, the state's Obamacare portal, not exactly a position filled with laurels, but Gekas is a young progressive associated with both Ds and Ps in the state.

- House is pretty impossible to swing with any 2016-Democratic coalition. The blue wave that flipped the House in 2018 required a major re-alignment with suburban white college-educated voters that the Sanders campaign, in particular, is not equipped to replicate in 2016. On the other hand, a Sanders nomination would probably come at the right time to save the Iowa state party along with local Democratic organizations in rural sections of Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota among other states. It is now clear to me that a Sanders victory wouldn't usher in a "le-wholesome white working class safe D West Virignia progressive revolution" as many of us on certain sections of the left felt would happen, but I do think that the OTL-2016 election sparked a death cycle among those Democratic organizations that they still haven't been able to recover. In this timeline things aren't safely D but those areas would hang around 40-45% D and the party is able to snag state legislative and occasional congressional seats and hold onto a healthy bench.

- A soft-D Senate allows Sanders to safely nominate cabinet positions, but otherwise things are going to be in legislative deadlock. Expect a lot of executive orders. I imagine criminal justice reform and decriminalizing marijuana would be priorities along with student debt. I imagine withdrawal from Afghanistan is on the table but I don't know what the timeline is. I think Biden's withdrawal will be seen as somewhat of a "only Nixon goes to China" moment and Sanders White House might prioritize domestic issues over totally rocking the boat. Cuba relations probably normalized and Iran deal kept which has huge effects going on.

- Merrick Garland is likely nominated in the interim between Obama and Sanders. Ginsburg retires before the midterms and Sanders likely picks between Paul Watford, Jane Kelly, and Sharon Block (tough with the Senate composition). I could also see Jed Rakoff or Barbara Underwood but their age might take them out of contention. Breyer is a tougher guess because I can imagine he wouldn't be enthused about being replaced by firebrand Sanders especially since the Court is a lot less polarized now and he might keep his "political consideration shouldn't affect the court schitck." On the other hand turning things over to his former clerk, Ketanji Brown Jackson, might smooth things over as they did in OTL. KBJ has plenty of appeal for a Sanders administration as it does for Biden's.

- 2018 probably doesn't go down as bad as a Hillary-2018 would, but still a lot of losses. How many seats lost will affect what kind of stimulus Sanders can enact during the pandemic and thus determines his re-election. If the Sanders administration successfully negotiates a deal then I imagine he wins re-election in a landslide similarly to other pandemic world leaders. I would dearly hope that a Sanders administration tries to use the COVID pandemic to push for something close to universal healthcare, but I just don't know how much of that could be conducted through executive order.

Probably the most realistic prediction for a Sanders Presidency, not bad.