Sanders Supporter Michael Moore Brushes Off Biden’s First Primary Win: ‘South Carolina Is Not Representative of the US’
Staunch Sanders supporter and progressive firebrand Michael Moore brushed off former Vice President Joe Biden’s big primary victory in South Carolina, dismissing that state as “not representative of the United States” and that it will have “absolutely no impact on the November 3rd election.”
Speaking with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, Moore said the Democratic establishment was growing increasingly frightened of Sanders’ candidacy, and was the driving reason behind the abrupt endorsement of Biden by three of his 2020 rivals — Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Beto O’Rourke — on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries.
“This is a Hail Mary move to let’s get them all on the stage tonight,” Moore said. “Whatever discussions went on before yesterday, they were convinced that this is the move. They should have been allowed to go through the election tomorrow and have their voters vote for them. This is what bothers me about really either party. But I hate to see it in either party where we want to take the right of the people to have their say and that’s tomorrow. Whether they want Biden or Bernie or Pete or Amy. But we’re going to take that away.”
Melber then played a past clip of Moore on his show, where he doubted Biden’s electability and touted Sanders’ ability to appeal to young and minority voters.
“Joe Biden is the center. He’s this year’s Hillary,” Moore said back in October 2019. “He’s not going to excite the base to get out there and vote on November 3rd, 2020. Seventy percent of the people voting are women, people of color, that’s 70%.”
Back live, Melber then pressed Moore about Biden’s first-ever, big primary win on Saturday” “How do you square that with South Carolina?”
“South Carolina is not representative of the United States, that’s just a fact,” Moore said. “It will have absolutely no impact on the November 3rd election. It is still the same, it’s 70% of those eligible this November are young people, are people of color and are women. They’re going to decide the election. And so what we have now are three primaries or caucuses that Bernie either won or tied and then Saturday. For people tonight to just get so excited about ‘Oh, Biden finally had a win, after 32 years running for president.'”
Moore’s rhetoric notably echoed a narrative that had rocketed around social media on Sunday in the wake of Biden’s South Carolina win. The implication of which was that Biden’s victory was compromised because it skewed too heavily toward both moderate and African-American voters.
South Carolina is the 45th most representative state of the entire Dem electorate similar to Iowa which is 42nd.
Nevada, on the other hand, is 5th most representative.
Source linked below. https://t.co/wetaFDl9sc
— drew (@ImNotOwned) February 29, 2020
The Twitter post from Sunday, which went viral, was based on a analysis by Five Thirty Eight from one year ago, which compared each state’s Democratic electorate to the national average, and found that South Carolina was the 46th most representative state, while Nevada ranked fifth.
“Do you think they’re for Joe Biden or falling in line?” Melber asked.
“They’re thinking about what can stop Bernie Sanders and not Donald Trump,” Moore claimed. “And that’s sad because they’re afraid, voting out of fear. If you’re afraid of Trump now, if that’s what really is behind this. If you vote for a candidate, and we take fear into the general election. Running on fear, we will lose to Trump if we vote on fear. We need vote on strength and our belief systems.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
