Bernin\u2019 Up the Race<\/p>\n
Sanders may be the nominee\u2014what then?<\/p>\n
There was a poll that hit the news the other day, which claimed that 45% of Bernie supporters wouldn\u2019t support any other Democrat who was nominated. The poll was misreported: 31% didn\u2019t know who they would support if Bernie wasn\u2019t the nominee, and 14% said they wouldn\u2019t support anyone else.<\/p>\n
Given the general level of mistrust the left has for Democratic party leaders, that is actually a pretty accommodating stance. Party leaders have been demanding that voters support their nominee, no matter who it is, and leftists know that if they make such a guarantee, party leaders will smugly assume they\u2019ve got the leftists herded into a pen, and nominate whoever the hell they want. And they don\u2019t have a great track record there\u2014while none of their nominees in recent decades have been bad, few have been inspiring, and none have really mounted a full-throated advocacy for working people and the poor. So leftists are entirely justified in making no promises beforehand.<\/p>\n
Ever notice that the question doesn\u2019t get turned around? Few if any polls ask, \u201cIf Bernie is the nominee, will you still support the Democratic ticket?\u201d It\u2019s an interesting omission, especially since Bernie is the front runner right now. He won the Iowa debacle by a sliver, and he\u2019ll probably win New Hampshire this week. His first real test will be in South Carolina. If he does well there\u2014finishes first or second, say, then he will be the<\/b> front runner.<\/p>\n
The DLC will fight that, of course. They\u2019re not supposed to, but money has had the same corrupting effect that it has on the Republicans; the difference is that they aren\u2019t anywhere near as corrupt and ethically bankrupt. Wall Street and the Russian Mafia don\u2019t own them outright the way they do the GOP, but they are sliding down that same path. Goldman Sachs does not want Bernie. Putin doesn\u2019t want what he doubtlessly considers to be a clever Jew. Bernie does make the very best enemies, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n
How the Democratic leadership opposes Bernie, and the level of unfairness and viciousness voters see in that opposition will determine if the left fights for their choice or not.<\/p>\n
Put it simply: if the party is in such a frenzy to keep the left away from power, and willing to behave like Republicans in order to defeat the left, then they have no reasonable expectation of enlisting the support of the left in November, and nor should they. You don\u2019t win followers by spitting on them.<\/p>\n
Parenthetically, it\u2019s well-known that some 10% of Bernie supporters in 2016 wound up voting for Trump. I figure that was motivated by stupidity and \/ or spite, but a lot were seriously alienated by Democratic efforts to keep thumbs firmly on the scales against Sanders. I would hope that most of that 10% have figured out by now that that was one of the stupidest decisions they ever made, although I still come across some Trotskyite who declares that Hillary would have started World War III by now and Trump is better. Well, not all conservatives are stupid, and now we know that not all stupid people are conservatives.<\/p>\n
Now, for 50 years, Sanders has referred to himself as a \u201cdemocratic socialist.\u201d In a nutshell, it means he supports a society where the people are sovereign, and that has a strong safety net, not just against need and want, but against the authoritarian depredations of corporations, the aristocracy, churches and fascists. Nothing Thomas Jefferson would have taken great issue with at the time the Constitution was written. (Jefferson suggested to Madison that the Constitution include a 100% estate tax, something far, far to the left of anything Sanders has ever proposed!). Much of the developed nations of Europe, along with Japan and Canada, have systems that fall under the umbrella of democratic socialism.<\/p>\n
Sanders isn\u2019t a wild-eyed radical even if he does sometimes look like Big Bird on bath salts in debate. Ninety percent of his platform can be found in any of Eisenhower\u2019s campaign speeches.<\/p>\n
Most of Sanders\u2019 platform is as American as clich\u00e9 pie. Jefferson wanted to tax the gentry in order to avoid the rise of an aristocratic class. Mason and Madison wanted public schools, from childhood through college. Eisenhower recognized the need to not make the country a cash cow for the military, and recognized the need for a strong safety net. Lincoln realized that people must get equal treatment under the law, and equal opportunity in life.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing in Sanders\u2019 platform that hasn\u2019t been a part of the Democratic Party platform going back to 1936, and even some Republican platforms back when they were still respectable. If the Overton Window was where it was in 1960, Sanders would be considered a slightly-left-of-center moderate.<\/p>\n
But that word \u201csocialism\u201d scares the piss out of people, since the American right has been vilifying it since about 1915. I was genuinely startled when a putatively educated libertarian told me he couldn\u2019t support Sanders because \u201csocialists killed millions of people.\u201d I expect that from the MAGAts and the Q conspiracy-nut crowd. You know, the morons who think Hitler was a socialist because he was in the National Socialist Worker\u2019s Party. Chris Matthews, an MSNBC commentator well past his sell-by date, made the startling statement the other night, \u201cI believe if Castro and the reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. I don\u2019t know who Bernie Sanders supports over these years, I don\u2019t know what he means by socialism.\u201d For fuck\u2019s sake, Matthews has only been covering Sanders for 40 years. Didn\u2019t he ever bother to ask? Or does he prefer to just red-bait?<\/p>\n
So lesson #1 in supporting Sanders: He is not, and never has been a communist. Being Jewish, he probably takes a dim view of genocide. He doesn\u2019t believe \u201ceveryone should get paid the same\u201d or \u201cthe state must own industry\u201d that many people, including a quite a few who should know better, say about socialism. He doesn\u2019t believe everyone is entitled to a college degree; he knows many people could never earn such a degree. He\u2019s a millionaire\u2014barely, when you factor in the two homes he and his wife have. That doesn\u2019t make him a hypocrite\u2014in fact, it makes him the second poorest member of the Senate, a body disposed toward vast seas of hypocrisy and corruption.<\/p>\n
Sanders does think everyone should have the same opportunity if they have the abilities, and for those that don\u2019t, good training programs for necessary professions like maintenance and construction. He isn\u2019t out to create a dystopian Vonnegutian fantasy land where everyone is equal; he just wants to make certain nobody is cheated, and everyone has a right, in the world\u2019s richest land, to a comfortable life without hunger or want. To Amy Klobuchar, standing up for the poor and the dispossessed is bad, and she falsely called Sanders a \u2018billionaire,\u2019 in hopes of discrediting him.<\/p>\n
One acquaintance of mine bemoaned the fact that Sanders uses the term \u201csocialist\u201d to describe himself, and wished he used something like \u201cRooseveltian.\u201d Well, he\u2019s been a democratic socialist all these years, and that bell has done rung, and they\u2019s ain\u2019t no unringing it. If he used it just once, fifty years ago, the Republicans would be harping on it endlessly to this day.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, though, I don\u2019t think it much matters. No matter who the Democrats nominate, the Party of Trump will queue up to declare him or her a socialist, a communist, a genocidal maniac who wants to sell your daughters to large Negroes. (Yeah, that\u2019s about how Trumpkins think. Don\u2019t waste time promoting Sanders or any other Democrat to them. They are cultists, lost.) I know this because the Republicans have been doing this going back to the days of Joe McCarthy, where they cheerfully tried to smear General Eisenhower as a commie sympathizer.<\/p>\n
It is independents and moderate Democrats that you have to persuade that not only is Sanders within the Democratic mainstream, but he\u2019s the least likely to be corrupted by Wall Street, the evangelicals, or Russia. A century of propaganda have conditioned Americans to have a knee-jerk aversion to the word \u2018socialist\u2019 and even Democrats shiver when Sanders espouses the very policies that made the Democratic Party\u2014and America\u2014great.<\/p>\n
So what policies does Sanders espouse?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a list, cribbed from his website, and paragraphs following \u201cNote:\u201d are my own thoughts:<\/p>\n
Note: Immigration, as a percentage of the population of America, is the lowest it\u2019s been since 1870. Crime rate amongst immigrants is lower. Poverty is lower. Stop listening to the haters on the right!<\/p>\n
Create a Medicare for All, single-payer, national health insurance program to provide everyone in America with comprehensive health care coverage, free at the point of service.<\/u><\/p>\n Note: estimates on the tax increase needed to implement this range from $900 billion a year up to $4.5 trillion. However, the US will save at least 20% by eliminating overhead and the inefficiencies of competing insurance schemes.<\/p>\n Transform our energy system to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million jobs needed to solve the climate crisis.<\/u><\/p>\n Note: Solar already employs more than coal and nuclear combined. Continuing to transition to a safe, clean, efficient economy will create millions of jobs.<\/p>\n Guarantee tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools to all.<\/u><\/p>\n Note: One need only look at the buffoons who graduate from elite colleges on the legacy program to know higher education in America is badly broken. The system doesn\u2019t produce \u2018very stable geniuses\u2019; it merely produces silver-spoon whelps good only at preserving their class wealth and power.<\/p>\n Double union membership within Bernie\u2019s first term.<\/u><\/p>\n Note: American workers receive the worst treatment of all workers in the developed world. The federal minimum wage is an utter disgrace, as are most state minimums. There\u2019s no paid vacation minimum, no maternal leave minimum, and between the gig economy and \u201cfire-at-will\u201d laws, there is absolutely no job security. I personally know two people who were fired from their jobs after 29 years and 11 months, because the employer didn\u2019t want to pay their pensions. Those employers would be in prison in most parts of the world for pulling a stunt like that. Instead, they support the GOP, which wants to wipe out Social Security. Speaking of which:<\/p>\n Expand Social Security benefits for all recipients and protect pensions.<\/u><\/p>\n One in three private pension plans fail, usually through legalized corporate malfeasance. Administrative costs average 25-30% (Social Security is less than 1%). People in the world\u2019s richest country shouldn\u2019t have to work 30 years, only to face hunger and possible homelessness because corporate CEOs have taken it all. Productivity in the US has risen 280% since 1978; wages only 5% (both adjusted for inflation). So where did all those tens of trillions of dollars go? (Hint: they own the GOP, and are trying to buy up the Democrats).<\/p>\n\n
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