So, now I'm fully supporting Bernie Sanders.
As I said in my post on Elizabeth Warren, I agree with Bern'es platform 100%. The only thing I have serious concerns about is his age and his health. But Bernie's main competition in the primary, Joe Biden, is 77 to Bernie's 78. So as far as picking between them, that concern is pretty much void.
I know Bernie's platform would never get enacted by a Republican congress. But as Phil points out (in a piece of his I've already quoted from once before):
I've had people condescendingly explain to me that Bernie won't be able to keep all those promises he makes once he's in office. Gee, y'think? "Congress is full of Republicans. They'll call him a communist and refuse to work with him." Of course they will. As they would Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigeig, certainly Elizabeth Warren. They'd even be shameless enough to do it to Bloomberg. They did it, after all, to Clinton. They did it to Barack Obama, a self-proclaimed "Eisenhower Republican" who went on bended knee to them year after year, begging them to help him cut Social Security and Medicaid. This obstructionism saved their brand from the near-death it experienced in the late Bush years and they'll definitely keep doing it. Any Dem President faces the same level of opposition from the other party. The only strategic question is whether the Dem you want up against all that is one who has narrow or tepid support, frosty relations with unions and activists, and an unwillingness to use executive orders ... or one who will play hardball from Day One while flanked on all sides by millions of enraged poor people with nothing to lose. Personally, I want the one whose followers are ready to do a general strike.
No comments:
Post a Comment