Tag: Bernie Sanders

SANDERS COULD WIN, BUT THE RISK ISN’T WORTH IT

Bernie Sanders has done more than any modern political figure to advance the cause of economic justice.  In less than four years, he managed to move issues like single payer health insurance, free college tuition and the sanctity of a living wage from the fringes of the political left into the mainstream of American thought. He is arguably one of the most important and effective change agents in our time.  But I so hope he isn’t the Democratic nominee for president.

In another time and context, I could have been a screaming, stomping, shouting Bernie Bro. But not now, not this year. Our democracy is hanging by the thinnest of threads. We have a deranged, narcissistic authoritarian in the White House; a cruel, mean, vindictive man who defies every norm of decency, every rule of law; a man firmly committed to lying, cheating and stealing his way to a second term. We have one shot to stop him. Please tell me we aren’t going to bank it all on an almost-80-year-old socialist who is recovering from a heart attack and hellbent on revolution.

On an aspirational level, I’m totally good with the dictatorship of the proletariat.  But right now, in this moment of despair, revolutionary change has to mean ending the Trump revolution before starting a new one.  Our immediate focus needs to be less on toppling the moneyed elites and redistributing the wealth, and more on capturing electoral college votes in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Arizona. 

A number of pundits (here and here) have insisted that Sanders can’t win.  I disagree. They said the same thing about Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.  Nobody thought Donald Trump could win, not even Donald Trump.  Sanders could, indeed, win.  The likelihood of such an outcome, however, seems far riskier than it would be with others in the Democratic gaggle of presidential candidates. 

Numerous studies (here and here) have shown that candidates with hardened ideologies – on both the left and right – suffer electorally, substantially raising the risk of loss. (Think Goldwater and McGovern.) If ever there were a time to be risk adverse, it is now.

While some of Sanders’ positions have popular support, many are apt to pose a serious problem in a general election.  He is unabashedly in favor of raising taxes to pay for a Medicare for All program that would eliminate private health insurance, a move polls show is opposed in most swing states.  There is a long list of other Bernie proposals that certify his leftist credentials but are likely to be an albatross for him:  banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, eliminating ICE and giving free health care to undocumented immigrants. 

Then there’s the socialist thing.  Trump, of course, will redbait any Democrat who runs against him. He calls anyone who opposes him a “socialist,” among other labels picked from his limited vocabulary: “scum,” “horrible,” “dirty,” “crazy,” and “lowlife.”   Bernie is a Democratic Socialist, a political philosophy not that far removed from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. In the distant past, however, he supported the Socialist Workers Party, a Marxist-Trotskyite group that now criticizes Sanders for being too conservative.  

To be sure, such nuance will do little damage control in an election campaign.  Bernie is on tape supporting Fidel Castro’s communist revolution in Cuba in the 1960s. Twenty years later, he backed the Sandinistas’ Marxist regime in Nicaragua while the U.S. was financing a rightwing overthrow there.  He attended a Nicaraguan rally where the crowd chanted “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.”   Such ancient history is hardly disqualifying in this post-cold-war era.  Still, it might well be enough to give Trump a lock on electoral-vote-rich Florida where there is a large contingent of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.

Beyond his radical past and out-of-the-mainstream positions, there is a far deeper problem with Sanders’ candidacy.  He is, in many ways, the leftwing version of Donald Trump, albeit a kinder and more intelligent one.  They share many characteristics. They are both populists. They are both angry and yell a lot. They both see the government as a swamp needing to be drained. They both play not to a diverse spectrum of Americans, but to a much smaller, passionate and very fired-up base.  

A Sanders versus Trump contest is an easy call for liberals. It’s Bernie in a heartbeat. But what about independents, or Republicans feeling the same Trump stress disorder that keeps us up at night?  An angry old white guy trying to bring Wall Street to its knees by braying at the moon could have been refreshing after four years of a Jeb Bush administration. But not now. If you believe the psychotherapists, Trump has so stressed out millions of Americans with his constant bellicose bellowing that they long for a merely competent president, a quieter, more serene leader. Although competent, Bernie Sanders does not do quiet or serenity.  

Angry Socialist
Angry Narcissist

The Vermont senator’s 2016 presidential run was not about winning. It was, as Politico noted, about organizing a movement to shift power from corporate billionaires to the working class, Bernie’s life-long goal.  He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.  Issues of his that were seen as extremist four years ago are now on center stage of the 2020 campaign. The very fact that Sanders is now a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination has moved the party to the left.  If he becomes the nominee, the leftward tilt will be that much stronger. Even if he loses.

Yes, even if he loses, Bernie Sanders will have won, simply by advancing his agenda and moving a major political party that much further to the left.  For well over a century, leaders of the class struggle have counseled patience in building the revolution. It’s one small step, followed by another, and another, for as long as it takes.  Famed Marxist theorist Leon Trotsky, taught that “strife is the father of all things,” and that “revolution is impossible until it is inevitable.” From that perspective, Bernie’s revolution would be well positioned if he gets the nomination and loses in November.  Four more years of Trump will certainly produce sufficient strife to father that inevitable revolution. 

Either that or we slip deeper and deeper into the autocracy of the Trumpian abyss.  With all due respect to Brothers Sanders and Trotsky, let’s go with a Democratic candidate who appeals to a broader swath of the electorate. The revolution will wait.

THE UNTHINKABILITY OF A SECOND TRUMP TERM

Democratic primary voters are facing an excruciatingly painful decision: What’s more important, revolutionary change to benefit the poor and middle class, or getting rid of Donald Trump? As much as we want to believe that both are within reach, the ghost of Election Night 2016 keeps whispering: “Are you sure?”.  If we are wrong, we will have lost it all.

Back in the aspirational 1960s, the Kennedy brothers – John, Robert and Ted – frequently used a poetic line borrowed from Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why?’. I dream things that never were and say ‘Why not?’.”

That was then and this is now, a pathetically melancholic era in which our aspirations have been Trumped by a villainous, self-absorbed president.  Sadly, our dreams for a better tomorrow may need to be put on hold so we can singularly focus on eradicating this malignancy from the White House.  Former George W. Bush speech writer and current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson perfectly captured our dilemma with these words: “Our greatest political passion seems dedicated not to the pursuit of dreams but to the avoidance of nightmares.”

If not for our Trumpian nightmare, 2020 would be the perfect time for Democrats to dream big and bold, to replace the spoils of underregulated capitalism with the dreams of things that never were, like Medicare for All, free college tuition and a Green New Deal.  

Competing for the progressive vote, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have tapped into the understandably unbridled passion for single payer health insurance, known colloquially as Medicare for All.  Finding a way to extend health care to everyone is a concept whose time arrived decades ago.  Originally proposed by Richard Nixon in 1972, it has long been the way of life in most every other industrialized country.  

Passage of Obamacare in 2010 substantially increased the number of insured Americans.  But it did not go nearly far enough.  An estimated 30 million people lack coverage, and another 44 million are so under-insured that they face risk of financial ruin.  Americans borrowed $88 billion in 2018 to cover health care expenses. There are more than 500,000 bankruptcies every year because of medical debt. Most people are insured under employer group plans that carry an annual price tag of more than $20,000 for family coverage. The average employee annual premium share is between $6,000 and $7,000, in addition to deductibles and co-insurance that can run as high as $10,000 or more. 

Based on facts, figures and sound reasoning, the Medicare for All case could not be more compelling. Yet, repeated polling shows strong negative reaction to the proposal (here, here and here), fed mostly by anxiety over the costs and uncertainties of such a major change.  In an election, it’s the perception, not the reality, that wins the day.  Remember what a political albatross Obamacare was for years before winning broad approval. 

It’s a stretch to see either the Sanders or Warren health care plan becoming law even if one of them captures the White House and Democrats win majorities in both houses. The bulk of the party’s 2018 House gains came in either Republican or swing districts, making a vote for single payer health insurance politically difficult. Still, in an ordinary election year, it would make sense for a presidential candidate to campaign for a bold change and, once elected, bargain downward to obtain what’s doable. Alas, the 2020 election will be anything but ordinary.

“Thinking about the Unthinkable” was the title of a 1962 book about nuclear war. It also captures perfectly the prospect of a second Trump term.  Do we spend four more years counting his lies while watching him continue to: ignore the law, dismantle human rights, destroy the planet, insult our allies, rob from the poor and give to the rich?     It’s hard to imagine a more unthinkable scenario.  Yet, in order to escape from our dystopian abyss, we must think about the unthinkable.

There are two paths to defeating Trump, both backed by facially credible theories.  One is for Democrats to nominate a left-of-center candidate, someone promising revolutionary – or at least big and bold – structural changes like Medicare for All, tuition-free colleges and forgiveness of students loans. The strategy here would be to pull in new voters from disaffected and marginalized groups, folks who disdain and distrust traditional politics but whose passion has been ignited by the prospect of a massive system overhaul. Since many in this demographic didn’t vote in 2016, their ballots would have a value-added impact on the Democratic tally, or so the thinking goes.

The other path is aimed at independents, never-Trumper Republicans and Obama voters who switched to Trump in 2016.  The math on this is fairly simple.  The Donald won the last election with 46 percent of the vote. Most polling puts his hardcore base at 25-30 percent of voters. The difference between those two measurements represents a sizeable chunk of 2016 Trump voters, a faction seen through polling as disillusioned and irritated with the president.  The theory here is that a moderate Democrat, one not pushing for huge progressive changes, could well flip a sizeable portion of Trump’s non-base voters.

Nine months ago in this space, I advocated for the first of these two paths, a charismatic progressive candidate pushing for profound structural change.  My reasoning was two-fold. One, we desperately need profound structural change. Secondly, I liked the idea of building passion among those outside the political mainstream and pulling them into a growing Democratic tent.

I’m rethinking that position now for two reasons.  First, Trump is even more of an existential threat to our way of life than he was nine months ago (see Ukraine, Turkey and the pardoning of war criminals).  Then there is the Electoral College. Getting more votes in places like California, New York and Massachusetts does nothing to move the 2016 Electoral College needle.  Repeated polling in six swing states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina) shows Trump either ahead or within the margin of error of his potential opponents.  Democrats will probably need to take at least three of those states in order to recapture the presidency.  

Although the landscape will evolve between now and the election, I find myself growing more risk adverse by the day.  The best candidate in 2020 may not be the one with the best platform. It will be the one who is best able to defeat Trump.  The alternative is just too unthinkable.

DEMOCRATS’ INTERNAL DISSENSION BEATS THE ONE-MAN PARTY OF TRUMP

These times are not easy for any of us, but moderates from both parties seem to be experiencing their own special version of hell right now. On the one hand, they see Donald Trump plunging ever deeper into the hateful abyss of bigotry and division. And then they watch a horde of Democratic presidential candidates play to the party’s leftward flank, leaving them between an orange rock and a very hard place for them to go. 

“I could never in a million years vote for Donald Trump,” wrote New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks.“So my question to Democrats is: Will there be a candidate I can vote for?”  

Former Republican operative Rick Wilson begged Democrats, the party he is rooting for in 2020, not to “(rush) to the left with reckless abandon.” 

Mona Charen, a conservative author who worked in the Reagan White House, is disgusted with Trump but worried that Democrats will nominate some starry-eyed socialistic liberal unacceptable to “Republican refugees like me.”

This Never Trumper angst is shared with such prominent centrist Democrats as Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, as well as many of those seeking their party’s presidential nomination.  One of them, former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper blasted his more liberal counterparts – Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – during last Tuesday’s debate.  Referring to their health care proposals and support for the Green New Deal, Hickenlooper said, “. . . you might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump.”  

With a summer-and-a-half to go before we know the precise parameters of the 2020 presidential campaign, it’s easy to get lost in the noxious electability weeds of specious political prognostication.   We really need to chill, take some deep breaths, and remember that just four years ago we all saw Donald Trump as the most unelectable candidate in either party. The optics of a single moment do not portend a future outcome, particularly in a process as fluid as a lengthy presidential campaign.  

For those of us longing for an end to our Trumpian nightmare, this process will be filled with excruciating anxiety.  Yet, it has to play out. What remains of our democracy depends on it.  We are, after all, left with only one functioning political party.  Trump commandeered  the GOP and drained every last drop of process and policy out of it.  What was once the party of austerity, free trade and limited government is now the party of Trump, a nihilist cabal singularly committed to the insatiable ego needs of a lying, racist megalomaniac.   

When it comes to the basic building blocks of our political system, the Democratic Party has the only tent in the game.  And it has to be big enough to house everyone, from West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, to the Bronx’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, the dialogue inside that tent will be acrimonious and contentious as we argue over whether to go with big, bold structural change or with steady incrementalism geared toward repairing the damage that Trump wrought. Yet, despite all the chaos churned out by this agonizingly protracted nominating process – or maybe because of it – the Democrats are giving voice to what it means to be a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”  The other party has muted the people’s voice in order that Donald Trump alone can rule this country.  

A year from now, the single most important issue of the 2020 election will be whether to take four more years of Trumpian disarray and dysfunction, or go with a candidate who will neither embarrass America nor tarnish its soul.  Sure, issues like health care, immigration, climate change, income inequality and foreign policy are vitally important. The only election prediction I will make is that, come November 3 of next year, the nuances of those policy matters will take a back seat to a referendum on the most excruciatingly toxic presidency this country has ever seen.

However, now is not the time to narrow the debate to a Trump versus Not-Trump dichotomy.  There are two dozen Democratic candidates, each with their own vision for a better America. We watched them battle it out over their ideas and resumes last week.  It wasn’t always pretty or elegant, but it was an extremely important part of the process.  Those candidates – at least most of them – are works in progress on the presidential stage.  And so are their ideas.  

In a normal campaign, there may be cause for alarm when primary candidates tilt too far to the left or right, since most general election voters lean toward the middle. But there is nothing normal about the 2020 election.  The only discussion on the nitty gritty of policy matters is taking place in the Democrats’ tent.  As they joust over Medicare for All versus a modified Affordable Care Act with a public option, Donald Trump has no healthcare plan and never did.  As the Democrats argue among themselves over approaches to immigration reform, Donald Trump has no plan other than his wall and putting children in cages.  The Democratic candidates have ideas – big and small – for wealth redistribution. And here, so does Donald Trump, but it is in the opposite direction: through tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the poor.

Centrists should lose no sleep over fear of creeping socialism, particularly given the composition of Congress and an abundance of gerrymandered conservative districts. To put this red scare in perspective, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, Congress’ two Democratic Socialists, have authored a bill that would cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent, hardly a stake through the heart of the bourgeoisie. 

The bottom line in this August of 2019 is that Democrats have just begun their process of nominee and issue development. A robust conversation over matters affecting our lives and our country’s future is essential to our democracy and to mobilizing the electorate.  Even a raucous, contentious debate stands in poignant contrast to the status quo, a government of Trump, by Trump and for Trump.