There were plenty of circumstances in which one could picture the defeat of Bernie Sanders. It is safe to say that none involved a situation where Congress just quadrupled the US fiscal deficit and prominent Republicans were flirting with universal basic income. It is an irony — and a bitter one for the Sanders movement — that his candidacy folded at just the moment big government was coming back into demand.
Ronald Reagan famously said: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” were the nine most dangerous words in the English language. Covid-19 has taught Americans that nothing is more worrying during a crisis than government’s absence.
Yet, it was the coronavirus that dealt the final blow to his hopes. Joe Biden had gathered a near-insurmountable lead before most of the US went into lockdown last month. But he faced months of bitter contest with the Sanders’ movement before the crown would be his. The wave of “shelter-in-place” orders suddenly made campaigning irrelevant.