Jeremy Corbyn in Telford to support Labour’s candidate for the next election, Katrina Gilman. (6th November, 2019). Photo courtesy of Jeremy Corbyn.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party suffered its worst pummeling since 1935. Is the Democratic Party about to suffer the same misery?
Bernie Sanders is uncannily aligned with Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn, notes Joseph C. Sternberg in the WSJ. Sanders and Corbyn match up in ideology, affect and career trajectory. Corbyn was adroit at rallying “a youthful and fervent-to-the-point-of-derangement base, the likes of which British politics has rarely if ever witnessed.”
Bernie’s Disdain for America
As Mr. Sternberg points out, why would anyone who shares Middle America’s core values of freedom, democracy, and entrepreneurship choose to honeymoon in the Soviet Union? America’s achievements in science, the arts or education are exceptional. Instead, Sanders heaps praise on Cuba’s schools.
Every other Democratic candidate on a debate stage with Mr. Sanders has been able to communicate even the most fantastical policy ideas with an undertone of patriotism. Mr. Sanders alone sounds as if he wants to replace America rather than transform it.
And if he wins the Democratic nomination, he’ll be running against Donald Trump, whose only consistent mode is American greatness. Mr. Corbyn ran aground against a candidate in Boris Johnson and a policy in Brexit that spoke directly to British patriotism.
British voters concluded that the danger of a leader who didn’t share their values was greater than the risk even of Brexit. Labour now faces years in the political wilderness as it tries to rebuild the trust of those who came to doubt whether it’s truly a British party.
