Sanders and Warren

     "The Sanders approach, which has not changed in decades, is to sketch out a social democratic vision of America — universal health care, free public college tuition, a $15 minimum wage — in sentences punctuated by applause."

                  Observation of Daniel Weigal, Washington Post

"Millionaires and Billionaires."

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have different messages.  

Opportunity America vs. Class Struggle America.

A recent poll of Bernie Sanders' supporters revealed that 26% of people who favored Sanders said they would vote for Trump rather than Elizabeth Warren, if she were to be the Democratic nominee. Within progressive Facebook groups of past and present Sanders supporters, Warren is not an alternative to Sanders. She is his opponent. She is irredeemably Establishment. She is part of the problem. 

Some of the divide is the Democratic Party label.  

Sanders is running for the Democratic Party nomination but he is not a Democrat. He is a "Democratic Socialist." His friends and supporters do not forget 2016, nor does Sanders in his stump speech.  In their view, Sanders was a victim of the Democratic Party. He was robbed. Democrats might be better than Republicans, barely, but not by much. 

Click: Daily Kos

Hillary Clinton won more 2016 primary votes than Sanders, but this is easily dismissed: she had help from the Democratic establishment inside the Party, so it wasn't a fair fight. Besides, she won her votes early, in red states, the wrong states, won because early in the campaign black voters supported her, not having yet heard Sanders' message. Sanders won in the later primary blue states, states where general election turnout would be crucial. Clinton had super-delegates, those Democratic governors and senators who gave her the psychological advantage of hole-card-Aces.

Bottom line: Democrats picked the wrong candidate, foolishly and corruptly. A pox on them.

Now, in 2020, Sanders is being robbed once again. Candidates are stealing his policy positions: Medicare-for-All, $15 minimum wage; end college debt; end Citizens United influence of money in politics. Imitation is not flattery. It is theft, because they are taking the popular policies without accepting the underlying premise of Democratic Socialism.

Elizabeth Warren has a record long pre-dating the 2016 election as an opponent of predatory banking practices--indeed of predatory banking institutions, too. She led the struggle to pass the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but was considered too forceful and militant to be confirmed by the US Senate to run the agency. Her response was to run and win a senate seat. She is not a johnny-come-lately to progressive, anti-corporate politics. 

This did not make her a Sanders ally. Still, she is on the wrong side of a divide. She is a Democrat. She does not accept the mantle of "Socialist." 

Opportunity for all.

Warren's speeches tell the story of a girlhood, overhearing her parents' financial difficulties, of her pluck and hard work and affordable college, of the power of women who fight and persist. Political power is needed to force fairness and equality onto the system, where everybody has the opportunity to thrive. 

"Structural change," she calls it. But not revolution.

The world isn't zero sum. Opportunity is not taken from someone else, in her message. It is offered freely to everyone, in a just society. She wants to break up the banks--and the big internet players--so they will be forced to play fairly with consumers. It isn't about redistribution. It is about fairness.

(The Pocahontas meme gets traction and hurts Warren because Sanders supporters claim she got special privilege and advantage from saying she had partial Cherokee ancestry. She got un-equal opportunity, unjustly, they argue. Fraud! It muddles her message.)

Sanders presents a different message: a new America. Built into the Sanders message is class struggle. Some people and interests are pitted against others. His 2016 speeches, especially early on, condemned the "millionaires and billionaires." They focused more on "billionaires" later in the campaign, but built into Sanders' message was that wealth and power were gained unjustly, taken from the labor of workers. Political power is needed to seize back the wealth by reorganizing the system.

Fox news trolls Sanders

The criticism of Sanders-the-millionaire has some traction because Sanders implied that wealth is per se unjustly gained. He explains that he sold a best selling book, and therefore the wealth was gained honorably. No one was hurt. True. His political opponents would agree with him; wealth can be achieved honorably. He owns three houses. He got prosperous and comfortable. 

So what? Writing a bestseller seems innocent to nearly everyone. It does not muddle their message. It muddles his.

Sanders's message is that to get justice we need re-distribution, through taxes but also a shift in fundamental power. His new wealth demonstrates the wrong message, a message of opportunity. Sanders did not need to take the book sales from someone else to have a best seller and make a million dollars.

Sanders' own success paints a picture of wealth in America based on opportunity, not Socialist struggle. It muddles his message.

Both Warren and Sanders have problems to work out. Warren is taking the tack of "moving on" from the DNA/Pocahontas claim. She doesn't mention it, and instead attempts to bury it with a log cabin story of genuine poverty.  Sanders' followers don't forget it, though, and neither do Republicans. They razz her. Fake Indian.

Sanders, for his part, is unapologetic: he is hoping to normalize the word Socialist, and that will likely be a persistent problem with among the older people who turn out to vote. Socialism is associated with wealth confiscation, authoritarian governments, and economic failure. Venezuela and Cuba, and before that the USSR, are widely understood as failures, not successes.  He is adjusting. He criticizes the billionaires, not the millionaires. He still has the "grumpy old man" schtick, and it works pretty well. He seems authentic and charming, but some people resist the messenger. He is 4 years older now. Age comes up.  More important, others are sharing his policy prescriptions, which makes him less out of the box and unique. 

 But Sanders is the sole keeper of the title of "Socialist" and he has a core group of supporters. That gives Sanders political space in a crowded field. Warren will not be able to take it away from him.