Boris Johnson's triumph proves democracy-denying radical socialists backed by self-righteous celebrities on Twitter are electoral poison
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/me...tUoP6kuLOl6a9-TTR_a5UpeUlhrcTQMtDTzQ8bamGVH9Q
Corbyn's UK defeat was bad news for Sanders, Warren and America's left
Dec. 13, 2019, 9:04 AM EST
By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann
WASHINGTON — Always beware of drawing conclusions from one country’s election to another.
But it’s also hard to ignore that the results in Britain last night were bad news for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and America’s left — just 52 days before the Iowa caucuses.
On Thursday, unpopular Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party trounced even more unpopular socialist Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, with Labour having its worst general-election performance in three decades.
Make no mistake: Neither Sanders nor Warren are as unpopular as Corbyn is in his country; in fact, Sanders and Warren have similar favorable and unfavorable ratings to Joe Biden’s.
And there’s no doubt that Corbyn’s muddled message on Brexit hurt his party.
But beyond unpopularity and Brexit, last night’s election showed the limits of campaigning and winning on ideology. A socialist or very left-leaning message — inspired to turn out young voters and unite the working class — simply didn’t work.
It also showed what happens to a party when it becomes primarily an urban party.
“The tide has gone so far out for Labour that it is now predominantly a party of the English cities and their commuter suburbs. Seat after seat in its traditional strongholds across central and northern England and north Wales fell to the Conservatives,” Helen Lewis writes in The Atlantic.
And it shows the limits of the Twitter Left.
As NBC’s Keir Simmons noted on “Today,” this morning, the Twitter Left in Britain thought it was building momentum and winning the argument.
“One commentator today, perhaps with a lesson for America again, saying: ‘Never believe that Twitter reflects the country,’” Simmons said.