Bernie Sanders sowed the seeds of our defeat in 2016. He did it by constantly undermining and delegitimizing the accomplishments of the Obama years. He told young people and midwesterners that whatever Obama did over the past 8 years was inconsequential to their lives and what they needed was a much more radical re-ordering of the social and economic order. The job growth, new industries, energy independence, improvements in graduation, higher incomes, health care improvements that we experienced under Obama: it didn’t matter. Whatever Obama did, it was just more establishment politics and establishment economics. With that one phrase, he basically told people that Obama and the Democrats don’t care about you; they’re not working hard enough for you; they’re not fighting hard enough for you, so look elsewhere.
Bernie made those arguments in order to sell people on a pipe dream vision of Democratic socialism. He derided the Obama approach as ‘incrementalism’. He saw it as an impediment to his idealism.
I think the biggest missed opportunity of this campaign, and of the last 8 years, was the failure to make the GOP pay a price for obstructionism. People think there is no difference between the parties when what they should know is that the Democratic Party saved the economy, created jobs, created new industries, expanded health care to millions, protected the environment, extricated our country from 2 wars, and raised incomes. We would’ve done so much more if GOP members had not shut down the government and imposed austerity with no price to be paid. That we couldn’t sell that to people means that the GOP approach will always work in middle America unless they screw up big.
Sanders could’ve explained all of that. Instead, he took advantage of that basic ignorance of how our political process works to play the ultimate game of ‘both siderism’ and ‘false equivalence’. In doing so, he validated the criticisms from the right that Obama had done nothing and that HRC would do even less.
Had Bernie Sanders not run for President, his rather context-less critique of Obama from the left would not have taken hold, and it would not have softened up these voters to take real look at DT, or to simply not turn out because it didn’t matter.
DT did offer a radical reordering of things as did Sanders, but from the right: using zero-sum racist politics to describe the world as whites vs. non-whites & foreigners which whites were losing, and he would make them win again. He didn’t have to address the real successes of the Obama years, because Bernie made it easy for DT to ignore.
DT borrowed liberally from Bernie’s critiques of the system, often stealing his phrases like ‘the system is rigged.’ DT hid behind Bernie’s critique of trade policy. In no area was Bernie more ignorant than on trade. He blamed all of the midwest’s ills on trade deals, even as the midwest reaps the benefits of industrial resurgence through export industries. He spoke little of automation, of how to help people adapt. He pandered to people who don’t want to adapt or change, but sold them a fantasy that jobs can be brought back. Guess what, that’s exactly what DT did. No one sells a scam better than DT. He didn’t even need to write the script. Bernie gave it to him.
Most of all, Bernie ran a very personal campaign against Clinton, calling her elitist and establishment, diminishing her at every turn, calling her insincere, questioning her honesty and damaged her a great deal. His BoBers parroted all of Breitbart’s greatest hits (and judging by my twitter feed, they’re still doing it). She fought through it and was in position for a big win before Comey. But the key thing about Comey wasn’t what Comey did, it was how her soft supporters who were Bernie friendly reacted. They abandoned her. The voters let her down. The voters let the country down. They did that because Bernie softened them up to accept that she wasn’t trustworthy.
Now, Bernie is claiming a de facto role in the party’s leadership, even though he hedges on whether he is actually a member of the party. Democrats will accept Bernie into the leadership because of his level of support, but his voice will become more of a discordant clang as the GOP undermines his whole argument against the Obama approach which he derided as ‘incrementalism’. The GOP is going to put in radical social program changes through voucherization, a radical redistribution of wealth upwards through major tax cuts and program cuts, radical changes to immigration policy, and the appointment of an extremist as Supreme Court Justice who will undermine hard won freedoms. He will also create and exacerbate foreign policy tensions because of his inherently hawkish team and poor temperament.
Many people will look upon the Obama years with fondness after all this happens. That’s not a message that Bernie can sell. In fact, when Obama won in 2008, many of the swing Clinton to Bush voters shifted to him because he promised to bring back the approach of the 90s under Bill Clinton. Soft supporters remembered those times well and trusted Obama with their vote. That’s how Obama got over 50%. He had the support and acquiescence of Clinton primary voters and swing voters in states that several states Bill Clinton had carried twice many of whom were WWC.
To win in 2018 and 2020, we need to tell people the truth, not a pipe dream. Realistic progress in a divided electorate is a virtue, not a sell out, or a cop out. The system isn’t rigged if you don’t get everything you want. It isn’t ‘establishment’ politics to make a policy that can be friendly to business as well as to consumers and citizens.
We cannot make radical changes in a country that doesn’t want them. The hole we will be in 2 to 4 years from now will be deep, much deeper than we can imagine because there will be virtually no safety net left after Ryan gets through with it. We will be far further from progressive goals than we were on Nov. 7th, when there was still hope.
We will not be able to promise more than restoring tax rates to Obama levels and using that money to attempt to rebuild the safety net, restore education subsidies, and raise the minimum wage. On health care, we could attempt to try a medicare for all approach since no one will have any government health care. But I think a more realistic approach will be taking Ryan’s ACA (that’s what he is creating btw, a national ACA with no protection from the abuse of insurance co’s), building a public option around it, and providing subsidies. I think climate change will be another issue we can run on a national scale, but other than re-entering into a global climate accord and building solar panels, what are we really going to say?
We will also have to get away from this notion that the middle class should not pay any taxes for new services. We’ve learned in the Clinton years and Obama years that if people are not invested in a program, they’ll see no value from it, and they will not be a bulwark for it when the Republicans come to take it away. The reason social security has stayed solid is because people paid into the system, so they are personally invested. It is ironic that most white voters who received the benefits of Obamacare (a majority of the 20 million btw) did not vote Democratic, but voters who paid into the system to support that health insurance did support Democrats at a higher rate. The reason medicare is at risk is because Ryan is using the angst against Obamacare and the shock of the election result to rewrite the whole thing in his image.
We will not be able to do anything on guns or abortion at a national level. So what type of candidate will that be? I think it’s someone like Sherrod Brown, Andrew Cuomo, and some as of yet not well known Dem who wins in 2018 in a significant race. Had Jason Kander won his race in MO, I think he would’ve leapt to the front of the pack. I still hold out some hope for him. I think even Michael Moore might give it a shot. Despite his pro-Bernie leanings, I think he is much more pragmatic when asked to weigh in on issues. But I don’t think the future is with Bernie Sanders. His style of politics makes real progress impossible to sustain, because if we don’t attain his socialistic ideal we have failed. It doesn’t connect with reality. As for his movement, I think the pragmatic Bernie supporters will be of great value to the party and will invest in other candidates that can translate Bernie ideals into policy positions and candidacies. The BoB element will need to be shed from the party. They are a free radical force that causes more problems. They are basically libertarians with an angle, and I see most of them embracing DT in 4 years. I don’t even think these guys would vote for Bernie after Bannon got done jew-baiting and red-baiting Sanders.
It’s a bleak road ahead folks. We need to first see how Ryan’s revolution wrecks the safety net, how DT fumbles in foreign affairs, how Bannon implements his racist vision into the federal government and then react. There will be a lot of pain for a lot of people in 2017, but if we’re prepared to respond, we might be able to limit it and perhaps restore to the people the sense that pragmatic progress is a more reliable form of hope than a pipe dream.
