I’ve heard in recent days that African American voters who support Biden and not Bernie, are “pragmatic” and in the South, even “conservative.” Fear is what motivated them. This really misses the mark. First of all, who isn’t fearful of a second Trump term? But more to the point, Black voters are the most politically astute and strategically sophisticated component of the electorate. This has been the case for a long time. And their votes in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday demonstrate this fact. In their calculus, I would argue, Joe Biden was considered the candidate best able to assemble the kind of expansive election coalition that is capable of defeating Trump and regaining control of the Senate, while retaining a Democratic majority in the House. It looks like in the wake of Super Tuesday that they are right. In the coming weeks we will find out for sure. 

To say that”centrists” at the top of the Democratic Party, as I’ve heard and read, reasserted themselves on Super Tuesday misses the most salient point of yesterday’s primaries. Which is that a broadly based and diverse voting coalition with little help from the “centrists” in the DNC or anywhere else took the bull by the horns and catapulted Joe Biden to the front of the presidential primary.

This mega wave in Joe Biden’s favor, however, didn’t begin yesterday, but a few days earlier in South Carolina where Black voters cast their carefully and strategically considered votes for Joe Biden in record numbers.

Their action, as it turned out, was both inspiration for and prelude to other voters, millions of them in fact, from Virginia to North Carolina, from Texas to California and from places in between doing the same yesterday. And in doing so to assert their will and control over the presidential primary. No one expected this voter surge. And it surely wasn’t the brainchild of the leaders of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Its genesis lies elsewhere, that is, in the desires, intelligence, and actions of ordinary people to put their stamp on the presidential primary by selecting a candidate who they think can defeat Trump and, in doing so, reclaim our democracy and country.

Not to see this, not to shine a light on this, not to make this democratic eruption of people across the country the main story is, at best, to miss the forest for the trees. At worst, well I won’t go there.

1. A big night for Biden. Most people didn’t see this coming. I sure didn’t. Especially the depth and sweep of it. Bernie’s campaign is in trouble. The rest of the map favors Biden, by a lot, seems to me. Of course, things can change, but short of something earthshaking, Biden’s path to the nomination is coming into clear view.

2. One, maybe the main, question that people asked themselves as they walked into the voting booth was: which candidate is most likely to defeat Trump? And the answer most people arrived at was Joe Biden.

3. While much has been said about the depth of support of African Americans for Biden, another striking feature of last night’s primaries is the breadth of Biden’s voting coalition across the country.

4. Elections are a reality check. They test our expectations and assumptions. They expose wishful thinking. They force us to look at politics soberly. And, above all, they let us know what’s on the minds of millions. Last night we found out.

5. One thing we learned yesterday is that this isn’t a “socialist moment,” notwithstanding the new and growing interest in socialism, particularly among young people.

6. It is said that Biden voters were motivated by “fear.” First of all, given the occupant in the White House, who wasn’t? But more to the point, it wasn’t fear so much as a sober calculus of who is most likely to lift the county out of its present nightmare in November. More people believed that Biden is. That doesn’t mean that Biden voters only want a return normalcy. They want that, for sure, but they also expect a substantive agenda of reform.

7. It’s never a good idea to get mad at voters if elections don’t turn out how we expected. A far better response is to ask: what did we get wrong?

8. Elizabeth Warren’s performance — and she was my first choice — came up short yesterday. I’m sure the reasons are many. But two that should figure in any post mortem (and they are related) are the pervasiveness of sexism and the negative effect of Hillary’s defeat in 2016.

9. It is hard for me to see the path to the nomination for Bernie now; look at the next states up to bat. Most of them favor Biden. Moreover, Biden has broad support as well as momentum now.

10. The turnout on Biden’s was much higher than expected, which augers well for November..

11. The challenge of uniting anti-Trump voters remains.

12. Lenin is out of vogue these days, but one of his strengths as a thinker and actor was that he soberly and unflinchingly looked defeat in its face. Given the stakes of this election, we should too.

I like Elizabeth Warren. I had hoped that she would capture the nomination. She would have been a great president I believe. But that hope is fading and if she does poorly today, I would think it is time to exit the race. Why her campaign didn’t register as I and many others had hoped is likely the result of many things. One is sexism. The shadow that it casts is far larger than many people across the political spectrum will admit.

When asked to explain the outcome of the South Carolina primary, Michael Moore just said on MSNBC that the state isn’t representative of the country. I would like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not.

This is part of a larger problem in the Sanders campaign.