Bernie Sanders Over the Edge

Some of my friends who are Bernie Sanders supporters will not be pleased with this post, but a column in the New York Times by Paul Krugman who is certainly no big supporter of Wall Street and the Republican worship of vulture capitalism gets to the heart of my problem with Bernie Sanders: he is largely a one over arching issue candidate who I worry could not hold up in a brutal campaign against a Republican candidate who will say and do anything to win.  Both Cruz and Trump fall into this category as does Kasich if one looks behind the false facade he is painting for himself.  That's not to say that I in love with Hillary Clinton.  One simply has to sometimes pick who one believes will do the best job and be able to get the most of what needs to be done accomplished under adverse conditions (meaning a GOP controlled House and possibly Senate as well) even if it is less than ideal in a perfect world.  Sanders supporters are, in my view, losing sight of this reality.  Here are column highlights:

From the beginning, many and probably most liberal policy wonks were skeptical about Bernie Sanders. On many major issues — including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform — he seemed to go for easy slogans over hard thinking. And his political theory of change, his waving away of limits, seemed utterly unrealistic.

Some Sanders supporters responded angrily when these concerns were raised, immediately accusing anyone expressing doubts about their hero of being corrupt if not actually criminal. But intolerance and cultishness from some of a candidate’s supporters are one thing; what about the candidate himself?

Unfortunately, in the past few days the answer has become all too clear: Mr. Sanders is starting to sound like his worst followers. Bernie is becoming a Bernie Bro.

Let me illustrate the point about issues by talking about bank reform.

The easy slogan here is “Break up the big banks.” It’s obvious why this slogan is appealing from a political point of view: Wall Street supplies an excellent cast of villains. But were big banks really at the heart of the financial crisis, and would breaking them up protect us from future crises?

Many analysts concluded years ago that the answers to both questions were no. Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big. And the financial reform that President Obama signed in 2010 made a real effort to address these problems. It could and should be made stronger, but pounding the table about big banks misses the point.

Yet going on about big banks is pretty much all Mr. Sanders has done. On the rare occasions on which he was asked for more detail, he didn’t seem to have anything more to offer. And this absence of substance beyond the slogans seems to be true of his positions across the board.

You could argue that policy details are unimportant as long as a politician has the right values and character. As it happens, I don’t agree. For one thing, a politician’s policy specifics are often a very important clue to his or her true character — I warned about George W. Bush’s mendacity back when most journalists were still portraying him as a bluff, honest fellow, because I actually looked at his tax proposals. For another, I consider a commitment to facing hard choices as opposed to taking the easy way out an important value in itself.

But in any case, the way Mr. Sanders is now campaigning raises serious character and values issues.

It’s one thing for the Sanders campaign to point to Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street connections, which are real, although the question should be whether they have distorted her positions, a case the campaign has never even tried to make. But recent attacks on Mrs. Clinton as a tool of the fossil fuel industry are just plain dishonest, and speak of a campaign that has lost its ethical moorings.

And then there was Wednesday’s rant about how Mrs. Clinton is not “qualified” to be president.

This is really bad, on two levels. Holding people accountable for their past is O.K., but imposing a standard of purity, in which any compromise or misstep makes you the moral equivalent of the bad guys, isn’t. Abraham Lincoln didn’t meet that standard; neither did F.D.R. Nor, for that matter, has Bernie Sanders (think guns).

And the timing of the Sanders rant was truly astonishing. Given her large lead in delegates — based largely on the support of African-American voters, who respond to her pragmatism because history tells them to distrust extravagant promises — Mrs. Clinton is the strong favorite for the Democratic nomination.

Is Mr. Sanders positioning himself to join the “Bernie or bust” crowd, walking away if he can’t pull off an extraordinary upset, and possibly helping put Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the White House? If not, what does he think he’s doing?

The Sanders campaign has brought out a lot of idealism and energy that the progressive movement needs. It has also, however, brought out a streak of petulant self-righteousness among some supporters. Has it brought out that streak in the candidate, too?

I have been involved in politics for a number of decades - first as a GOP activist before the GOP went off the rails and was hijacked by the Christofascists and for later for quite a few years now as a LGBT rights activist.   Throughout this period I've learned that one must focus on pushing for what is possible and within reach of achieving.  I feel that many Sanders supporters are losing sight of this reality.  Worse yet, their attacks on Hillary Clinton could end up putting a Republican back in the White House which would be a worse case nightmare for anyone who likes Sanders' progressive ideas.  

Sanders Supporters' Magical Unicorn Problem

Having been in the political trenches for well over two decades, one of the issues that must always be kept in sight is that of what is realistically possible versus some idealized vision of what would be nice if we could have whatever we wanted.  While I like many of Bernie Sanders' proposals in concept, the problem is that many are not realistically possible even if Sanders were to win the Democrat primary and then go on to win in November.  The further concern is that Sanders' fantasy vision make render him un-electable in November.  And if a Republican wins the White House, the consequences will be horrific, including potentially three conservative appointees to the U. S. Supreme Court.  Paul Krugman lays out the dilemma in a New York Times column.  Here are excerpts:

It has been an interesting few months on the progressive side of the political debate, and I mean that in the worst way. A significant number of progressives are very, very excited by the unexpected support for Bernie Sanders, and are shocked and horrified to find many — I think most — liberal policy wonks rather skeptical. For me this is somewhat familiar territory: I was skeptical about Barack Obama’s promises of transcendence back in 2008, too. And then as now a fair number of enthusiasts took no time at all to declare that I was a corrupt villain, a tool of the oligarchs, desperate for a job with Hillary etc.. OK, this too shall pass. But I thought it might be worth saying a bit more about where people like me find ourselves.

First of all, to say what should be but sometimes apparently isn’t obvious, what you would ideally want and what you think can be achieved — and even what you think should be an election platform — aren’t the same thing. What I and most of my wonk friends would like to see is . . . . a strong social safety net that protects everyone against avoidable misery, workers with substantial bargaining power, strong environmental policy; not an equalized society, not a Utopia, but someplace where basic decency is a fundamental principle. But nothing like that is going to happen in America any time soon. 

[E]ven the incremental changes Hillary Clinton is proposing are very unlikely to get through Congress; the radical changes Bernie Sanders is proposing wouldn’t happen even if Democrats retook the House. O’Brien says that the Democratic primary is “like arguing what’s more real: a magical unicorn or a regular unicorn. In either case, you’re still running on a unicorn platform.”

[W]hy not go for the magical unicorn? A couple of reasons.

One is that there are degrees of realism: a program that could be implemented in part if Democrats retake the House might turn out to be a useful guide relatively soon, while a program that requires a political revolution won’t. 

Another is that, perhaps inevitably, the Sanders insistence on the need for magical unicorns has led to invocations of economic as well as political magic. I warned a while back that even Sanders wasn’t willing to level with voters about what his ideals would require — that, in particular, he was assuming unrealistic savings in order to gloss over the reality that quite a few middle-class Americans would be net losers from a transition to single payer.
And this could matter a lot in a general election. For sure the Republican, whoever he is, will be offering plans that are obvious nonsense; but if the Democrat is also offering a plan that doesn’t add up, you know that the media will portray the situation as symmetric, even if it isn’t. . . . This is why it’s important to bring up the criticisms of Sanders now, not wait until later — and it’s also why the campaign’s knee-jerk response of attacking the messengers is such a bad one. It might work in the primary, but it definitely won’t work later on.

OK, so I’m not happy with magical unicorns as a campaign strategy. But I understand the problem, which is also the problem Clinton faces: among young people in particular, being a wet blanket is no way to be hugely popular. . . . . She’s not going to be able to promise magic without being obviously false. Sanders, on the other hand, probably believes what he’s saying; the rude awakening still lies ahead.

Now, Clinton will probably get the nomination — in part because African-American voters, much more than young whites, know all too well how hard it is to achieve change. . . . . And, as I said, she’s actually pretty well-positioned for the general.

But you see the problem. It’s a rough time for progressives who don’t believe in magic.