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The Berning at Waterloo

It was Waterloo for Feel the Bern. But it wasn’t even the Waterloo of historical fame. No, this was more like Waterloo, the ABBA song.

Andrew Donaldson
7 min readMar 16, 2020
Photo by Σ via Wikimedia Commons

Mercifully, the marathon of scheduled Democratic debates for this primary season is now coming to a close. Eleven of these, if you count the two double-headers that started off the campaign for the presidential nominee as one each, have now come and gone. Nearly 30 candidates whittled down to the two who were leading from the beginning. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders were the only two candidates left, and despite soon-to-be non-officeholder Tulsi Gabbard having a sad over the 7th place candidate in a two person race not being included. Wisely, the DNC did not acquiesce to her request.

This debate was also different as it was held in a studio with no audience. The reality and optics of the coronavirus moved the festivities from Arizona to DC, and only the moderators were on camera with the candidates, though CNN elected to bizarrely have them stand at lecterns anyway. Maybe it was the social distancing, maybe it was the plan b slash C part 2 since the debate had to be rearranged. But the whole vibe was rather deadened.

Then again, to be fair, this race has been over for two weeks. Super Tuesday slammed the door on Bernie Sanders the…

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Andrew Donaldson
Andrew Donaldson

Written by Andrew Donaldson

Writer. Mountaineer diaspora. Veteran. Managing Editor @ordinarytimemag on culture & politics, food writing @yonderandhome, Host @heardtellshow & other media

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