"The Democratic establishment and their corporate allies in the media are desperate to discredit Bernie Sanders because they know that universal policies like Medicare for All are a direct threat to their profits and control of our government."
Our Revolution,
PAC supporting Bernie Sanders
Democrats are the enemy.
Trump has infuriated Democrats, but he has not united them.
Trump polarized the electorate into the Trump base and the larger anti-Trump base, but this does not mean the Democratic coalition will come together to "vote blue, no matter who."
The Bernie Sanders phenomenon is more than Sanders himself. He inspired a movement. It includes left-oriented voters, people who voted for Obama but wish he had been more angry and impatient. They wish he had prosecuted bankers and condemned drug companies more. Obama had the intractable enemy of Republicans, but not of big business. He wasn't quite enough for those Obama supporters, but I expect most of them to vote blue in 2020
But some Democrats stayed unhappy or became unhappy.
 |
| Pro Bernie PAC |
Sanders stimulated a different constituency of those discontented leftists, a Tea Party of his own. It has the same energy and anger of the populist right Tea Party, but it has different policies, different targets, and it engages different people. Sanders punches up, at economic and social elites.
Although he graduated from the University of Chicago, his movement targets not only financial elites but the superstructure of meritocracy elites, fortunate people whose good luck or special skillset cause them to thrive in the current economic environment. These are the people who carry out the actual managerial and professional work of the economy. They do fine.
They are understood by the Sanders movement to be the sellouts, the corporatists, the neo-liberals. The people who don't like Bernie and who don't understand his movement. The enemy.
They are understood by the Sanders movement to be the sellouts, the corporatists, the neo-liberals. The people who don't like Bernie and who don't understand his movement. The enemy.
 |
| Facebook comment |
The most hostile comments from Sanders supporters are against Hillary Clinton (the perennial enemy) and now against Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg and the other candidates for their elitism, and for being corporate sellouts.
Sanders' activists skew young and toward people who are feeling directly the pinch of policies that worked against their interests. They have real gripes. Free markets created wealth, but it concentrated it on owners, not workers. Efficiencies through de-regulated transportation and offshoring helped consumers, but not workers, especially young ones. The pressure to get higher education helped universities and employers, but it buried young people in debt. Asset inflation policies intended to re-capitalize banks made home prices unaffordable in the areas where the jobs are. Zoning rules protect people who already own homes, but make them unaffordable for people who don't yet own one.
They have reason to be unhappy.
 |
| Facebook comment |
But there is a class of people who thrived in that environment: smart, self-disciplined, lucky people who got into elite universities and thrived there, who got advanced degrees there, and who were fast tracked their whole lives. The Sanders movement says that those fortunates elitists don't understand the real world, or if they understand it, they don't care much about the injustice of it. They got theirs. They are OK with the status quo, and that makes them the enemy. They sap the strength of the discontented and destroy the energy for change. The hurt the movement more than do Republican opponents.
And those are exactly the kinds of people who became Democratic candidates, more of the artificial meritocracy class: Some are billionaires, Tom Steyer (Yale and Stanford) and Michael Bloomberg (Johns Hopkins). Some are attorneys Warren (teaches at Harvard), Booker (Stanford, Oxford, Yale), Klobuchar (Yale, U of Chicago), Yang (Brown, Columbia.) Buttigieg is just as bad, or worse, having worked at McKinsey (Harvard, Oxford).
Biden is a special case. He does not read at first or second glance as Ivy League elite but he was a senator from Delaware, the corporate headquarters state; he sold out to the elites.
Biden is a special case. He does not read at first or second glance as Ivy League elite but he was a senator from Delaware, the corporate headquarters state; he sold out to the elites.
 |
| Facebook comment |
Will Democrats unite the way that Republican did under Trump?
Do not count on it.
5 comments:
Our candidate field for the Democratic Primaries:
Sanders, it would appear is an Independent running on the Democratic ticket. (Caucuses as a Democrat AOC-approved)
Bloomberg is Republican-like East Coast.
The remainder are talking and living like and running like Democrats.
If we were Republicans the saying goes; “we would fall in line.” (Beyond their candidate rank-and-file might grumble a bit but in-mass vote Red.)
The Democratic Convention of late is ruled more by the heart. Who can we fall in love with? When we do Democrats pull the lever and a Blue wave is released.
However, this year we don’t have our own love-anointed candidate, yet.
The question I’m thinking is this: Can any candidate in the Democratic field light our fire? Anyone? Anyone?:
the passion seems to be Bernie at the moment.
Bern it UP!
or
Burn it DOWN.
Time for the professional/managerial class to choose wisely. There is one chance to save America: join the movement with Bernie's Kids.
Many people who suffered under Obama will NOT go to the polls to vote to return to that status quo.
America needs a new FDR. Obama had the perfect opportunity to be the leader of dramatic change, entering office with the financial system collapsing, but he chose to bail out the banks instead. Obamacare is far from Universal Health Care, very expensive for many working people, and provides health 'insurance' for $10/hr WalMart workers that has a $8000 deductible.
Bernie Sanders understands that America needs a new New Deal. If the servants of the oligarchs who are doing so well for themselves want to keep the gravy train rolling, they MUST listen to the suffering of the half of America's population working at low wage jobs.
It's very short sighted to call President Obama a "sellout", or for that matter to brand Sen. Warren "elitist", (a Regressive pejorative).
Sen. Sanders has the luxury of a pure ideology because it is unlikely he will ever have power, and he probably knows it.
This is all well and good, but let's concede he has gone as far as he can and persuade him to drop his self-serving and quixotic quest. Sen. Warren is as close to his message as any but the most fervent Sanders acolyte and is actually electable, especially with his endorsement.
As for Steyer and Bloomberg; it's somewhat ironic that Bernie's candidacy will be derailed by his own Democrat "millionaires and billionaires", and perhaps the entire election along with it.
There were over a hundred million eligible voters in 2016 who didn't consider either of the options put forward by the major parties to be electable -- they stayed home. Conventional political wisdom of what is electable has not been serving America well.
Warren was a Republican until she was 47 years old -- this makes her somewhat less trustworthy in many eyes. She is firmly a member of that professional class that has inflicted such economic suffering upon America's workers. If Warren was such a strong candidate, she would be the one with the Movement of donors and callers and doorknockers and the huge crowds at her rallies.
America's young adults are choking on high debt, low wages, and high rents. They have chosen their champion, Bernie Sanders.
What kind of wealthy nation, what kind of political party, would repeatedly tell their struggling young people, 'Too Bad, you ask for too much. Shut up and fall in line' ?
Most Bernie supporters are big fans of Warren. I talk to many people who, like me, support Bernie Sanders. They would without exception not only be satisfied with Elizabeth Warren but would be excited to have her in the White House. Some, like me, think she might even make a better POTUS than Bernie, However, he is the candidate I am (and I believe they are) more confident would win against Trump. He, more than she, is inspiring to the non-urban and less educated portion of the electorate, including many who might otherwise not vote, across all racial and cultural groups. He seems to have gained an especially strong foothold among Latinos and Arab-Americans, who can be critical in certain states, such as Florida and Michigan. The former, I believe, traces back to his fight for the tomato pickers in FL when he was in the House. https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2016/apr/05/bernie-s/did-bernie-sanders-fundamentally-improve-lives-tom/
The latter is related to his active and forthright solidarity, as a Jewish person, with Palestinians. I don't think Elizabeth or any other Democrat can catch up to him in winning the loyalty of these constituents.
Post a Comment