Bernie's Biggest Liability
I have long been a fan of Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who is one of the few reliable and consistent voices speaking on behalf of rising inequality and the declining middle class. And Sanders has been doing this long before it became a part of the national political narrative, in fact being more responsible than just about anyone else for catapulting the topic into the national conversation. But I nonetheless see his 2016 Presidential candidacy as a double-edged sword for the Democratic Party.
On the upside, his presence on the campaign trail is imperative in keeping income inequality, the biggest societal dilemma of our time, at the forefront of the conversation when interest group politics could otherwise completely obscure the issue. Enough ink is already being spilled about divisive and counterproductive (for Democrats' general election viability at least) issues such as gun control and illegal immigration, and if Sanders wasn't in the race, even more ink and debate conversation would be dedicated to these topics. Sanders' presence in the race also puts the party's most likely nominee, Hillary Clinton, on notice to keep the inequality topic from slipping out of the conversation in the general election and to square her personal and political ties to Wall Street early on rather than being unprepared for it when it's an inevitable general election issue by the Republicans.
On the downside, above all else, Bernie's self-admitted ties to "socialism" would almost inevitably be a scarlet letter among a general electorate in a country that still associates socialism with the epic Cold War battle with the Soviets. Obviously, Sanders doesn't have a stereotypically Presidential look or demeanor which would ordinarily be a drawback as well, even though I think at least at this stage of the campaign, his rumpled man-of-the-people shtick is working to his advantage and given the endless appetite for a fresh approach, it might work to his advantage as a general election nominee as well. But his biggest fundamental problem is still the "S" word that's been next to his name throughout his three-decade career in elected office. To be sure, there could at some point emerge a time and place where a self-proclaimed socialist could thrive in American politics, but it would take a crisis....
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal revolution that began in 1933 would have been an inconceivable proposition in a right-leaning, market-driven society like America has always been even five years earlier, but desperation among the masses created an environment where FDR's quasi-socialist approach to governing found an audience. Unfortunately, I suspect it would take a similar environment for the public to fully embrace what Sanders is peddling today. Even though there's a national consensus that the middle class is crumbling and that income inequality is a growing problem, there is no sense of urgency to remedy it the way there was in 1932 and there's definitely no consensus on the source or solution to the problem. The white working class demographic of voters most responsible for fueling FDR's New Deal coalition would today be more likely to point the finger at their own "welfare bum" neighbor as the driving force of the problem rather than the kind of structural breakdown in the distribution of economic rewards that Bernie Sanders is talking about. It's just impossible to believe that the public is where it needs to be for Sanders' message to resonate with a majority of American voters, and as I said last week, without a serious presence of organized labor to echo the Sanders' campaign sentiment to tens of millions of voters the way it could have a generation ago when union affiliation was much higher, the message's reach is limited.
Taking the electoral analysis out of the equation, I'll also confess to drifting from Bernie's message in recent weeks on a policy front. Much as his rhetoric is red meat for an old-school labor Democrat like myself, it hadn't really hit me how large he intends to grow the federal government's footprint until the first debate, confirming that he's not merely a "socialist in name only" in a way I hadn't appreciated having mainly listened to his stump speeches up to that point, but an actual "socialist". I've grown a little wary of the virtues of the federal government as I've gotten older and would prefer to recreate an environment where union-fueled middle class wages in the private sector reduce the need for an enlarged safety net, rather than simply accepting that inequality will keep getting worse and that a growing role of government is the only antidote. Much as Bernie talks about fixing inequality, it occurs to me that he's proposing doing so largely through substantially increased wealth transfers and often invokes "Denmark" as a model society.
Now in some sense I could get behind a societal push to become more like Denmark, but Bernie's biggest shortcoming is that he is not calling for the widespread sacrifice that "being more like Denmark" would entail. To hear Sanders talk, most of his policy wish list could be achieved through higher taxes on the 1%. While I'm all for that, Denmark didn't become Denmark by raising taxes only on the top 1%. If Sanders' agenda was to be even remotely affordable, he'd have to reach deep into middle class pockets to finance it. Again, I'm not fundamentally opposed to this. I've long advocated higher income tax rates on the upper middle class and believe that if the new rates imposed on households earning more than $400,000 applied to households earning more than $100,000 a year, we'd have a budget surplus right now. But Bernie is not making that case when he talks about America being more like Denmark. It's understandable that he isn't because it would only further endanger his electability issues, but I think he owes it to the American people to explain to them that becoming a socialist society requires sacrifice above and beyond that of millionaires.
I hate to pick on Bernie Sanders of all people in a field of Presidential candidates where just about everybody else has more obvious flaws and is approaching the race with less sincere motives than he does. Nonetheless, one has to critique the candidates they admire the same as they critique the candidates they do not, and a candidate like Bernie calling for revolutionary change in policy can't imply the revolution will be easy. I'm still inclined to caucus for Bernie Sanders in February because I think he has by far the most important message to convey in modern American politics. But just because I intend to caucus for him, does that necessarily mean I "hope" he becomes the Democratic nominee for President? Hmmm....I'll have to get back to you in a few months for that one. Much as I distrust Hillary Clinton, the stakes are pretty high for losing the next Presidential election, and I suspect Bernie Sanders would be more likely to do just that than Hillary.
On the upside, his presence on the campaign trail is imperative in keeping income inequality, the biggest societal dilemma of our time, at the forefront of the conversation when interest group politics could otherwise completely obscure the issue. Enough ink is already being spilled about divisive and counterproductive (for Democrats' general election viability at least) issues such as gun control and illegal immigration, and if Sanders wasn't in the race, even more ink and debate conversation would be dedicated to these topics. Sanders' presence in the race also puts the party's most likely nominee, Hillary Clinton, on notice to keep the inequality topic from slipping out of the conversation in the general election and to square her personal and political ties to Wall Street early on rather than being unprepared for it when it's an inevitable general election issue by the Republicans.
On the downside, above all else, Bernie's self-admitted ties to "socialism" would almost inevitably be a scarlet letter among a general electorate in a country that still associates socialism with the epic Cold War battle with the Soviets. Obviously, Sanders doesn't have a stereotypically Presidential look or demeanor which would ordinarily be a drawback as well, even though I think at least at this stage of the campaign, his rumpled man-of-the-people shtick is working to his advantage and given the endless appetite for a fresh approach, it might work to his advantage as a general election nominee as well. But his biggest fundamental problem is still the "S" word that's been next to his name throughout his three-decade career in elected office. To be sure, there could at some point emerge a time and place where a self-proclaimed socialist could thrive in American politics, but it would take a crisis....
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal revolution that began in 1933 would have been an inconceivable proposition in a right-leaning, market-driven society like America has always been even five years earlier, but desperation among the masses created an environment where FDR's quasi-socialist approach to governing found an audience. Unfortunately, I suspect it would take a similar environment for the public to fully embrace what Sanders is peddling today. Even though there's a national consensus that the middle class is crumbling and that income inequality is a growing problem, there is no sense of urgency to remedy it the way there was in 1932 and there's definitely no consensus on the source or solution to the problem. The white working class demographic of voters most responsible for fueling FDR's New Deal coalition would today be more likely to point the finger at their own "welfare bum" neighbor as the driving force of the problem rather than the kind of structural breakdown in the distribution of economic rewards that Bernie Sanders is talking about. It's just impossible to believe that the public is where it needs to be for Sanders' message to resonate with a majority of American voters, and as I said last week, without a serious presence of organized labor to echo the Sanders' campaign sentiment to tens of millions of voters the way it could have a generation ago when union affiliation was much higher, the message's reach is limited.
Taking the electoral analysis out of the equation, I'll also confess to drifting from Bernie's message in recent weeks on a policy front. Much as his rhetoric is red meat for an old-school labor Democrat like myself, it hadn't really hit me how large he intends to grow the federal government's footprint until the first debate, confirming that he's not merely a "socialist in name only" in a way I hadn't appreciated having mainly listened to his stump speeches up to that point, but an actual "socialist". I've grown a little wary of the virtues of the federal government as I've gotten older and would prefer to recreate an environment where union-fueled middle class wages in the private sector reduce the need for an enlarged safety net, rather than simply accepting that inequality will keep getting worse and that a growing role of government is the only antidote. Much as Bernie talks about fixing inequality, it occurs to me that he's proposing doing so largely through substantially increased wealth transfers and often invokes "Denmark" as a model society.
Now in some sense I could get behind a societal push to become more like Denmark, but Bernie's biggest shortcoming is that he is not calling for the widespread sacrifice that "being more like Denmark" would entail. To hear Sanders talk, most of his policy wish list could be achieved through higher taxes on the 1%. While I'm all for that, Denmark didn't become Denmark by raising taxes only on the top 1%. If Sanders' agenda was to be even remotely affordable, he'd have to reach deep into middle class pockets to finance it. Again, I'm not fundamentally opposed to this. I've long advocated higher income tax rates on the upper middle class and believe that if the new rates imposed on households earning more than $400,000 applied to households earning more than $100,000 a year, we'd have a budget surplus right now. But Bernie is not making that case when he talks about America being more like Denmark. It's understandable that he isn't because it would only further endanger his electability issues, but I think he owes it to the American people to explain to them that becoming a socialist society requires sacrifice above and beyond that of millionaires.
I hate to pick on Bernie Sanders of all people in a field of Presidential candidates where just about everybody else has more obvious flaws and is approaching the race with less sincere motives than he does. Nonetheless, one has to critique the candidates they admire the same as they critique the candidates they do not, and a candidate like Bernie calling for revolutionary change in policy can't imply the revolution will be easy. I'm still inclined to caucus for Bernie Sanders in February because I think he has by far the most important message to convey in modern American politics. But just because I intend to caucus for him, does that necessarily mean I "hope" he becomes the Democratic nominee for President? Hmmm....I'll have to get back to you in a few months for that one. Much as I distrust Hillary Clinton, the stakes are pretty high for losing the next Presidential election, and I suspect Bernie Sanders would be more likely to do just that than Hillary.
posted by Mark at 3:14 PM
2 Comments:
At this point I myself don't have a dog in 2016, as all 3 Democrats and likely all 14 Republicans still in the race are flawed.
There was a surprise in the Louisiana runoff. Like the Senate race 2014, the result was 56-44. However, Democrat John Bel Edwards came out on the winning end (in an off-year election where Democrats just do not turn out) against David Vitter, not exactly unknown and having won two elections for Senator, the second in a cakewalk. I wonder if this has anything to do with Bobby Jindal, who is leaving office about as popular as Kathleen Blanco 8 years earlier (and he didn't need Katrina to do it!).
Yeah I don't have a dog in the race either. As I said in the article, I like Bernie best instinctively but he's definitely not gonna sell as a national party emissary. It looks like it's almost certainly gonna be Hillary on the Democratic side and with her weaknesses as a candidate and the issues environment moving towards the Republicans, I think 2016 is gonna be a really tough hold for Democrats despite the irrational exuberance about their allegedly impenetrable coalition of the ascendant that manages to get penetrated--and wiped out--every election cycle where Obama is not on the ballot.
The John Bel Edwards victory in Louisiana was a pleasant surprise....a perfect storm made possible by LA's jungle primary. Jindal's unpopularity was indeed a big part of it but Dems needed more than that to win in the Deep South this day and age, and a candidate as damaged as Vitter emerging bruised out of a divided primary was exactly what the doctor ordered. Wish I could say this was a formula that could be replicated elsewhere in the South but it seems unlikely.
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