Sanders, criticized as an unyielding hard-liner, is willing to accept incrementalism.

[bluewater]

Link to tweet

Bernie Sanders' image as a left-wing purist belied by record of compromise

The Democratic front-runner, criticized as an unyielding hard-liner, is willing to accept incrementalism. He just doesn't like to talk about it.

Bernie Sanders was threatening to kill Obamacare.
It was December 2009, and the iconoclastic senator had mounted a rebellion against Democratic Senate leaders who were moving to scrap the “public option” to make the bill more palatable to two conservative Democrats. The party had 60 available votes and needed every last one to successfully cap a century of effort to remake health care.

Sanders went on MSNBC’s "The Ed Show" and didn’t mince his words: “I’m threatening not to vote for it.” He said a lack of “a strong public option” to compete with private plans and control premiums would mean it “ain’t a strong bill — that’s a pretty weak bill.”

Two weeks later, Sanders voted for the bill despite the removal of the public option, conceding that it was “not as strong as I wanted” but “it begins to move this country toward the long-time goal of providing comprehensive, affordable health care for all Americans.” The episode captures a widely misunderstood feature of Sanders’ three-decade legislative career: He has repeatedly, if grudgingly, supported compromises that fall short of his ideal as a self-described democratic socialist.

That may surprise voters in 2020 who see an unyielding purist leading the Democratic presidential field with calls for a “political revolution.” Here was a bill that rejected Sanders’ preferred single-payer system and entrenched the private insurance market he wants to eliminate. Yet he voted for it to advance the goal of expanding coverage after securing some funds for community health centers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-image-left-wing-purist-belied-record-compromise-n1143956

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I am heartened to read that he knows how to compromise. Wish he'd said so sooner.

This is an important point. You have to be willing to do this. Without compromise, progress could be stopped.

[bluewater]

4. Sanders compromised back in 2009 on the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

It's just that people like to paint Sanders as someone that would never compromise.

Buttigieg was trying to do that in the last 2 debates, to be honest.

And the facts say it's not true.

Sanders is willing to be an incrementalist and accept half a loaf as being better than none.

[thesquanderer]

2. Yup. I've made similar points here before.

He's a strong advocate for what he wants, but in the end, not an uncompromising one. It's also why he voted for the 1994 crime bill after railing against some of its provisions (and trying to get it amended). He accepted what he didn't like to get the part he liked.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Compromise. You mean like with the NRA?

[bluewater]

6. Evolving I would say, as Biden did over federal funding of Abortion.

Sanders currently gets a D- rating from the NRA. Obviously he has "evolved" on the issue.

Much as Biden has "evolved" on the issue of Women's Reproductive Rights.
Biden has recently withdrawn his support for the notorious Hyde Amendment, that stop federal funding of abortion for poor women.

Don't they both deserve credit for now being on the right side of the issue?

Especially since Biden has changed his position most recently? Like 6 months or so ago?

I think so.

[JudyM]

5. He signed it after getting massive funding for local health clinics added to it. This move also gave

cover, by design, to GOP members who ended up voting for it.

It was masterful legislative meeting gotiating.