Ocelot II
Ocelot II's JournalIf Bernie is the nominee, this is what I'll do.
I don't like Bernie. I like him less and less every day, and his latest tweet about fighting the "Democratic establishment" (you know, the people who gave him the chance to run for President and who will be supporting him if he gets the nomination) was the final straw. Nevertheless, if - God help us - he is the nominee, I will fight like a rabid wolverine to get him elected, because Trump.
But the attitude I will have is of a lawyer representing a client, and most definitely not that of a fanatically-devoted Bernie cultist. I practiced law for almost 20 years before going into a different line of work, and during that time I learned how to argue on behalf of clients I didn't like and whose behavior I disapproved of. I usually didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing my clients, so from time to time I represented insurance companies, sexual harassers, age discriminators, drunk drivers, embezzlers and drug dealers. I didn't like them or what they did but I was obligated by the rules of my profession to present the strongest argument possible on their behalf within the limits of the law and legal ethics. I couldn't lie - but I could spin. I learned how to slant the facts without misrepresenting them, and how to argue the law to the client's best advantage.
That's pretty much what I'll have to do with Bernie, because I don't like him, I don't like his attitude, I don't like the people who work for him, and I fear that he'll cost us the election. But as a lawyer I learned how to pull all manner of disingenuous and just barely truthful nonsense out of my own butt and I'll do it again. I'll pretend to believe that Bernie will give us all free health care and free college the minute he walks into the Oval Office and I'll spin it hard enough to generate enough electricity to power all of Vermont.
I will be like the lawyer who defends a convicted murderer on Death Row - not because she thinks the client is innocent but because she fervently opposes the death penalty. The re-election of Trump is the death penalty. Therefore I will defend Bernie with all the zeal I can muster to try to prevent the death penalty from being imposed on the Democratic Party and the American people, even though I know I will probably fail. (Angry Sandernistas: I'm not equating Bernie with a convicted murderer; I am merely equating his candidacy with that level of desperation).
But I hope I can campaign as an ordinary citizen for a candidate I believe in instead of as a cynical defense lawyer for one I don't.
One issue with M4A that I don't think I've seen addressed,
is that its proponents often compare it to the health care arrangements in the Nordic countries - that their systems are the ideal, or close to it, and that we should adopt their kind of system. Ideally, maybe we should. But here's the catch: Those countries have never had for-profit, privately-owned primary health care. In Norway, for example, the oldest hospital still in existence was built in 1277 and was operated by the church; later on, other charities ran the hospitals. After WWII the government took over the entire health care system, with the actual provision of services being managed by local governments. https://www.lifeinnorway.net/healthcare/ In contrast, the United States has never had government-provided health care, with the exception of the VA. Even Medicare isn't really government health care because it is provided by privately-owned and in many cases for-profit providers, and we and our employers, not the government, paid for it (and you still pay premiums). So the transition to a government-managed single-payer system would require massive restructuring of almost everything, that would take years to implement. Candidates flogging M4A aren't being honest if they're trying to convince voters that it's going to happen like flipping a switch as soon as there's a new administration.
Suit yourself, but Sanders is the only one of the first- or second-tier candidates
whom I will absolutely not support in the primary in my state. Obviously I'd vote for him in the general because he'd be better than Trump (but that's a pretty low bar), but I seriously doubt he could win. For one thing, the GOP will slap the "socialist" label on him and he won't be able to peel it off because he's called himself that, and that label, fairly or accurately or not, is still the kiss of death in this country. For another thing, maybe we're all sick of angry, shouty old men. I certainly am.
More importantly, I don't think that, even if Bernie did manage to win, he would be a good or effective president. Although I supported him in 2016, he showed me a side I didn't like at all when he refused to concede to Clinton even after there was no mathematical chance he could get enough delegates - and then his supporters tried to disrupt the convention because they didn't like the outcome. That's poor sportsmanship at best and destructive, even nihilistic behavior at worst. Even though my personal ideology is closer to his, I was happy to shift my support to Hillary because by then I thought she could win and that she'd be a good president.
Now, four years later, I'm more convinced than ever that Sanders, unlike Clinton and unlike most of the other current candidates, lacks the temperament needed for the presidency. His ideology is rigid and, like his political vocabulary, it has not changed appreciably since the '60s. He doesn't understand that racism can't be fixed with only a more progressive economic policy, which means that he doesn't have a particularly strong following among PoC, especially women, whose votes we need desperately. He seems oblivious to reported charges of sexism within his own campaign (an onloing problem within the doctinaire left since the '60s), and his campaign's senior staff includes former Stein voters and current Democrat-bashers like David Sirota, Brihanna Gray and Nina Turner, all of whom seem to be more interested in trashing the so-called "establishment" (as if someone who's been in Congress for decades isn't a member of same) than in focusing on persuading voters to actually vote for Democrats. What will this do to down-ticket Democratic candidates who rely on the coattails of a strong Democratic presidential ticket?
And this all comes down to the basic point that Bernie isn't a team player and never has been. He's a Democrat only every four years when it's convenient, and he will have a huge problem on that account if he were to become president: to be successful a president absolutely needs his/her party to have his/her back. Would Bernie appoint agency heads who can work with Democrats in Congress, or will he appoint ideologues without proper vetting (see, e.g., Darius Khalil Gordon, who had to be fired from his campaign when his anti-Semitic and homophobic tweets were discovered; why weren't they discovered before he was offered a job - and what about the endorsement of noted misogynist Cenk Uygur)? Never mind being able to work with Republicans - will Democratic Congresspeople and other politicians trust Bernie after he and his surrogates have been kicking them in the nuts for the entire duration of his campaign? Will they support his initiatives and legislative proposals? Will he kick them in the nuts some more if they ask him to support proposed bills that are not pure enough to suit him? Or will he just yell and point his fingers and rail about the billionaires, like always?
I do believe Bernie is sincere, but sincerity isn't enough. And I really don't give a shit about satisfying my own personal ideology or anybody else's as long as Trump is in the White House posing an existential threat to democracy. Sorry, but the only reason I can think of any more to support Bernie is that he's better than Trump.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Minnesota
Member since: Mon Oct 27, 2003, 12:54 AM
Number of posts: 115,681
