Member-only story
Bernie shouldn’t give up his donor list
Bernie Sanders is out of the Democratic Primary, he’s endorsed Joe Biden, and now the campaign of the presumptive nominee is hounding him to hand over his massive donor list that he used to rake in record-breaking sums from small-dollar contributions. The same thing happened back in 2016 with Hillary Clinton. He didn’t give it up then and there’s no reason for him to do so now.
For starters, Biden’s campaign wouldn’t know what to do with it. Just having possession of Bernie’s list won’t automatically translate into huge fundraising hauls. Democratic pundits and politicians spent so much time maligning Bernie’s supporters as a “cult” that they started believing their own bullshit, thinking he’s some Svengali who can usher them into the party along with all their hundreds of thousands of $18 recurring donations.
The vast majority of Sanders’ base are loyal not to him but to the set of ideas that he faithfully champions. Millions of working people — bartenders, teachers, warehouse workers — who had so little still gave so much because they believed in those ideas, and many of them still don’t trust Biden in spite of the handful of concessions he’s made.
When asked in a 2017 interview why Bernie didn’t fork over the donor list, fundraising consultant Tim Tagaris likened it to “Thor’s hammer,” adding “You can have it but only a…
