In a
presidential campaign where conventional wisdom has been turned on its head so
many times, in such a dizzying way, we now have this: Republicans for Bernie
Sanders.
The National
Journal reports that the ultraliberal Vermont Democrat’s populism and fiery personality have
ingratiated a group of longtime Republicans to the point that they are ready to
switch their voter registration to Democratic so they can vote for Sanders in
their upcoming state primary election.
I was surprised
to learn from the NJ piece that there are Facebook groups and Reddit forums
devoted entirely to Republicans who “adore the Vermont senator.”
has no chance of winning the general election and only the slimmest glimmer of
daylight to slip past Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, some
Republicans view Sanders as the ultimate disrupter of the Washington status
quo.
Others in this
clique look past the candidate’s embrace of “democratic socialism,” saying that they’re
dejected with the Republican field and feeling detached from a GOP that is
turning rightward.
How could any
longtime Republican cozy up to a candidate with such a leftward agenda?
Distrust of big corporations and big banks is apparently a part of this shift
that defies ideology.
buy any of the explanations for this phenomenon but here’s how NJ analyzes it:
“Anger
and alienation have turned conventional wisdom upside down in this presidential
election. Self-styled outsider candidates like Donald Trump and Ben Carson
have surged in the polls. And as Republican candidates debate their conservative
credentials, support for Sanders shows how difficult it can be to pin down
what exactly it means to be conservative.
“‘Once
you get out of Washington ‘conservative’ can mean all sorts of different
things. Voters are often left of center on some issues and right of center
on others. So someone like Trump or Sanders who talks about themselves in a
way that doesn’t fit into a pre-ordained box could be appealing to a lot of
people,’ says Chris Ellis, a political science professor at Bucknell University.
“… Far
from claiming to have experienced a political conversion, other Republicans
argue that Sanders actually embodies conservative values.
“‘When I
think of true conservative values I think of Teddy Roosevelt who earned a
reputation as a trust-buster,’ says Jeff DeFelice, a 38-year-old registered
Republican voter living in Florida.
‘Now look at Bernie. He’s the only one willing to stand up to
the big banks. The big banks control an obscene amount of wealth in this country
and he wants to go after them.’ If Sanders looks like ‘a viable candidate’
by the time the primary rolls around, DeFelice says he’ll switch his party affiliation
to vote for the senator.”
