2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Why I DON'T support Bernie for President [View all]BumRushDaShow
(129,052 posts)and I am still undecided but WILL vote for whoever is the nominee at the convention.
I pointed out in another thread that after over 25 years in the House and Senate, Bernie has only had 3 pieces of legislation that he sponsored that were actually signed into law (and 2 of those were naming Post Offices in Vermont, with the 3rd being a Veterans Pay bill in 2013).
I personally think he knows this and that is not his focus per se, where his idea is to articulate and channel the frustration (and rightly so) of millions of people regarding the income gap that has widened to extremes that now exceed the Depression era. But his most ardent supporters have elevated him into the ether without any examples of Bernie's pragmatic work towards just one articulated goal. This type of request has been called "holding feet to the fire" and where along with that, phrases like "He gives a good speech but..." has also been dished out on DU an inordinate amount of times... Yet these phrases seem to only apply to certain folks and not others. And when called on it, the knee-jerk "But what about Hillary!!11!!!!" nonsense is blurted out, again without addressing valid questions on the ability of this candidate to maneuver through the quagmire of Congress to get stuff done.
Given that his entire Congressional career has been as an "Independent" (who caucused with Democrats) and given the strong partisanship of the current parties, I expect his ability to muster votes for some of his key legislation has been hindered somewhat.
The one quibble I do have with your excellent post is the mention of Glass-Steagall, as the original intent was to literally separate/forbid investment banks from combining with commercial banks so that if one goes, it doesn't take the other down with it. Gramm-Leach-Bliley essentially nullified Glass-Steagall and this is partly why the bankruptcy of Lehman hit so hard, whilst the blow from the other bank failures was softened only because other banks agreed (or were strong-armed) to buy them out and/or they received money from TARP.
I do think Hillary has some work to do herself as her positions have tended to be directed to a certain demographic, many of whom are the antithesis of the liberal/progressive thought in terms of corporate focus. My mother always taught me that this was a "capitalistic country and 'capital = money'", so I have no illusions that we would suddenly fulfill the prediction of capitalism becoming communism and communism becoming capitalism. But I do know that this country is not about to give up its money any time soon and we are not a country of "cottage industries" with tens of millions of families eeking out a living selling goods and services from a stall in front of their house.
The job of a Democratic President is essentially thankless because keeping a coalition is literally like herding cats, and this requires some very on-point vocal surrogates out there to hit all those groups, with the candidate establishing the literal "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of many, one) that ties us all together and that is the Democratic party and its platform.