So I can already see this whole ‘Bernie Sanders Had Blocked Arteries’ talk is about to be all anyone who is trying to smear the Sanders campaign will talk about for the next few cycles, so I wanna jump ahead of this and see what the different scenarios are that could possibly unfold.
By the way, before we get into it, just know that he didn’t have a heart attack, he didn’t have open heart surgery, none of that. He complained about chest pain and had some stints inserted to unclog his arteries. It’s a relatively common procedure. He cancelled upcoming campaign stops, because he’s been going 100 miles an hour and hasn’t slowed down. He’s getting some rest. It’s healthy.
With all that said, this is going to be reported in a few ways, and the results could play out in a few ways as well. The main thing I see is a shift in the voters who haven’t completely decided on a candidate yet. I think voters who may have already been concerned about Bernie’s age will use this as more evidence to back up their claim that he isn’t healthy enough to be President. I totally disagree with this, however there is enough talk about this I’ve heard to concern me, as an avid Bernie guy. He doesn’t comb his hair and he doesn’t have great posture, so for optics purposes, this isn’t good at all. Many of those voters who aren’t sure who they like yet will swing from Sanders to Warren, or even Yang. We just have to hope that there aren’t that many people who think like this.
The news is going to continue to cast doubt in everyone’s mind as to the well-being of Bernie, so rather than ‘attack’ him like they’ve been doing, they will feign concern and act as if they care so much about Bernie’s health that dropping out of the race is what is best for him. This is one thing that could possibly connect, on account calling him a socialist hasn’t, calling him old hasn’t, saying he hasn’t done anything as a Senator hasn’t, calling him sexist hasn’t, and they never try to explain why his policies don’t work with any detail. And unfortunately, since we know many voters aren’t as well researched as others, the mostly A-political types who basically vote along party lines will see this as a big deal.
We know Trump is going to go after Bernie in a vicious way using this as an area of attack. This is basically the ONLY area Trump could do any damage in my opinion. Debating literally ANY other topic, Sanders gives Trump the Stone Cold Stunner, Tombstone Piledriver, and Sweet Chin Music all over the stage. Go to physical wellbeing? We know Trump is an overweight dufus who binge eats fast food and never sleeps, but he has doctors who will blatantly lie to us about his health being phenomenal, he can win this aspect of the race, which as much as I wish it wasn’t, is indeed major.
Bottom line, I think Elizabeth Warren is somewhere rejoicing as her poll numbers have been rising and she knows that realistically amongst the progressive wing of the party, Bernie is her only competition. As much as we all acknowledge that Liz is NO Bernie, she is the second most progressive candidate with a realistic chance of getting the nomination. There are other candidates that are more progressive in other areas (TulsiGabbard is more progressive on foreign policy, Andrew Yang is more progressive on drug policy), but when it comes to the total package of progressive ideology AND having a realistic chance to win the primary, Warren is the second best option. Is she too corporate and willing to play nice with the establishment for my liking? Absolutely. We have to seriously hope this minor setback for Bernie doesn’t lead to the disastrous consequences I laid out above.
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