It would be hard to overstate what Bernie Sanders has already achieved in his campaign for president, or the obstacles he’s had to surmount in order to achieve it. Not only has he turned a planned Hillary Clinton coronation into an exercise in grass-roots democracy, he’s reset the terms of the debate. We are edging closer to the national conversation we so desperately need to have. If we get there, all credit goes to Bernie...
There is no Clinton firewall. At most, ten states are out of Sanders’ reach and public opinion is never static. Nor does she have a better “ground game.” Real grass-roots organizations like The Working Families Party, MoveOn.org and Democracy for America let members guide endorsements. (Sanders’ support in each of those groups was at or above 85%) Such groups are building the movement Sanders speaks of in every speech. Building a movement is like wiring a house for electricity. You can buy the most expensive lamps in the store but with no electricity, when you hit the switch the lights don’t go on. It takes real conviction to fuel grass-roots politics. In Iowa, Sanders ran five points ahead of late polls. It won’t be the last time it happens...
Democrats are deeply loyal to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton who didn’t so much reconcile their party’s conflicts as engross them within their protean personalities. Hillary accuses Sanders of disloyalty to them and to the modern party they held together. When Sanders suggested that some progressive groups might be part of the establishment, she ripped into him, denying there even is such a thing. There is, of course. Its main components were once grass-roots movements that traded independence for access and are now Washington lobbies with grass-roots mailing lists. They were better off when they played harder to get.
The absence of an independent, progressive movement left a vacuum that groups like The Working Families Party and MoveOn.org have begun to fill not a moment too soon. Clinton seeks to cast Sanders as the “other” by calling into question his loyalty to the establishment. It gets her nothing. Democrats will always be loyal to Bill and Barack, but know in their hearts it’s time to move on. The debate now is over what comes next...
One way to sum up the case he’s trying to make might be as follows. In the 1990s a near bipartisan consensus celebrated a new age of globalization and information technology in which technology and trade spur growth that in turn fosters a broad and inclusive prosperity. Government’s job is to deregulate finance and trade and work with business in ‘public private partnerships’ for progress.
Twenty years on, Hillary still sees the world through the rose-colored glasses of that ’90s consensus. Not Bernie. He sees that in 2016 rising tides don’t even lift most boats, that growth comes at a steep price when it comes at all, and that new technology cost more jobs than it creates. He understands that when jobs flow to countries with weak governments and low wages, the American middle class can’t get a raise. He sees that public-private partnership meant pay-to-play politics, and that the whole system runs not on innovation but corruption. My guess is the middle class sees what he sees and wants what he wants: a revolution. If he can continue to drive the debate, they may get one.
about the facts and like the evidence is hard to find.
