For anyone who doesn't think that one of the bigger losers in the Bernie Sanders campaign was the reputation of Bernie Sanders, this article on Politico is pretty devastating. It paints him as the one making all of the worst decisions of the past several months, with input from Jane Sanders and Jeff Weaver. Some of the low lights:
It was the Vermont senator who personally rewrote his campaign manager’s shorter statement after the chaos at the Nevada state party convention and blamed the political establishment for inciting the violence.
He was the one who made the choice to go after Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz after his wife read him a transcript of her blasting him on television.
He chose the knife fight over calling Clinton unqualified, which aides blame for pulling the bottom out of any hopes they had of winning in New York and their last real chance of turning a losing primary run around.
And when Jimmy Kimmel’s producers asked Sanders’ campaign for a question to ask Donald Trump, Sanders himself wrote the one challenging the Republican nominee to a debate.
That last one is just incredible, it was such a bad idea that I'd figured it had been ad libbed by Kimmel and I figured he must have thought it was a dumb idea as soon as said it. For a long time politician to have done that is just amazingly shocking. And the rest are pretty shocking too.
No one of any maturity should hold such an elevated picture of any politician in their minds as many of us held up of Bernie Sanders, there are many things about even the most honorable career in politics that will be compromises with principles and even morals. And it's a stupid politician who promotes that kind of view of himself because no one can sustain it. Those who came close, people like John Lewis, Shirley Chisholm, Paul Wellstone are rare and they generally don't make it as high as the Senate or an executive office. Politicians are like policemen in that they are hired to do a lot of the dirty work that needs to get done and who, all too often, are either morally compromised to start with or they become so. Bernie Sanders has traded in the super-hero business, having been elevated to that status by the lefty magazines and the few narrow cast and broader cast media celebrities of the left. Well, I used to buy a lot of that right up until early this spring. It's not Sanders fault, exactly, that a lot of us wanted him to be a lot better than we had any rational expectation of him being. He's not to blame for us not looking closer at a man we wanted to be the PR Bernie Sanders. It is his fault for falling far shorter of that image than he needed to in this nomination fight.
No more idols on the left, no more heroes on the basis of cover up, not after 2016. The secular Puritans who are such a big part of the Bernie Sanders dead-enders would be the first to claim they don't do that kind of thing. Well, Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and several cycles after that, Ted Kennedy in 1980 (despite his known flaws, especially as compared with Jimmy Carter) Ralph Nader in 1996, 2000 and 2004 and now Bernie Sanders in 2016. The secular left would seem to be a henotheistic religion, elevating one god-figure after another, for all of its atheism.
More political realism. Less absurd hagiography. If Sanders doesn't pull it all down and gets Trump elected, it may turn out that he is the biggest loser in his run for the nomination. If his run results in Trump winning, the world will be the biggest loser.
Oddly, my touchstone for political realism is the Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He was so deep into American politics that he told his daughter he actually feared for her when Ike on, because she'd never known a Republican president. He obviously wasn't too sanguine about Ike.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what he would think today, except as it would reinforce his ideas of sin, grace, redemption, humility, and how nations cannot be moral (despite what the U.S. keeps telling itself).
I think it all goes back to that American myth, the "city on the hill" that Reagan invoked (wrongly; completely wrongly): the idea that America is, was, or can be, a moral exemplar to the nations. We are not Biblical Israel (the children of Abraham, not a modern nation-state), but we continue to act like we should be. It's true of conservatives, it's true of progressives: we have an obligation to live up to a moral standard which will guide the world.
American exceptionalism is written into our cultural (and hence political) DNA. Sanders wanted to win so he could be in charge, so he could impose his vision of America on America. Is Trump really any different? NPR reported this morning on a Sanders backer who said he was now going to vote for Trump. And why not? What he saw in Sanders he also sees in Trump, so what's the difference?
And yeah, Sanders is responsible for that. He pushed the same reckless and groundless distrust of government (the "Establishment" he's been a part of for at least 30 years) as the GOP has done for decades. The only difference is Sanders wants single payer healthcare and free college for everyone. But he ended his campaign, not on that platform, but on the platform of corruption and defying the "establishment." And in that he was absolutely indistinguishable from a Tea Party fanatic.
Or Donald Trump, actually.
The primary reason I support Hillary is that, unlike Trump or Sanders, she understands how government works; what it can do, what it can be made to do, and what can't be done at all, or perhaps just soon. Sanders and Trump both imagine government to be a magic ring and, once they possess it, they will have all the power they need to do whatever they want to do.
It's no wonder that Sanders supporter is shifting to Trump. The way Bernie ended his campaign (or rather, is ending it), it's harder and harder to distinguish the two.
I'm still hoping that there are enough rational Sanders supporters who will know better, I do, actually, think it's mostly the dead-enders and Greens and the like of Jello Biafra and (perhaps the second biggest causality of this campaign) Susan Sarandon who are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton. They never would have anyway.
ReplyDeleteI am rather disappointed in that if Hillary Clinton had won with the full support of the left it would have enhanced our importance to her and the Democratic Party and we might have used that for something. If she wins with his withholding his support or his former supporters do and she wins, that means we weren't important to winning and may have cost her support.
Anyway I look at this, Bernie Sanders blew any good his campaign could have been after the Daily News interview came out. Though, now, I think that might have been inevitable.
It's an odd position to be in, to be a gay socialist, leveler equality absolutist who has decided that the leftist establishment, atheist or "secular" as they hijack that word, white-collar, white, elite, elitist and damned conceited and stupid - the magazines, the movie and media personalities are what's wrong with the left.
We need a religious left, and I don't mean idiots who have spent too much time in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. Frankly, I expect that to come from the mid-west and the South, not from the North East or the West Coast. And I suspect it can't have an all white, all male or all Christian front line. I don't think they're going to be the kind of people who get published in The Nation, Mother Jones and, least of all, the friggin' Progressive.
As an aside, I've grown entirely less impressed with the Madison Wisconsin left than they are with themselves.
At this point I should point out Niebuhr was as solidly Midwestern in background and education as one could be.
ReplyDeleteEven if he spent is academic career in New York City.
There's a great deal to be said for the values of "flyover country."
I just spent several days at our regional ELCA synod, where the focus was on racial justice. Being here (and at Adventus) has led me to Neibuhr and Brueggeman, among others. I have learned and grown my faith by watching and reading, but it has felt like a small community. From the synod however, I am energized by how much racial justice, action on poverty, and social issues are at the center of our Christian faith. To be in the communal room or the small break out rooms and to hear how common this issue of racial justice for those of faith. Attendees were strongly engaged and serious about the issue. The assembly was made up of 2 members from each church in the synod (roughly 170) and the synod pastors (both active and retired). In reality the ordained members were a large part of the assembly. The pre-reading was "The New Jim Crow", along with other materials. To have the active lay and ordained members of the synod so committed was deeply moving. The synod opened with prayers for the victims of racial injustice, many names that we have heard in the news killed by police or by others due to their race. A picture, their name, and our prayers. Over and over. It was very powerful. The main speaker was Rev. Dr. Pero, the 2nd Black woman to be ordained in the ELCA. Her main address starts about 1:46.00 in Plenary 1 (near the bottom) on this page http://livestream.com/unys/assembly (My apologies for not being able to link directly to the video). Rev. Pero also preached on the subject the next evening at the Service of Holy Communion (also on the same page). This is the basis of real grassroots change. Coming from our churches, rooted in scripture, sustained in faith. As Rev. Pero points out, sustained beyond our lifetimes, not just the next election. If Lutherans (centered in the Midwest, rooted in Northern Europe, middle of the road and reserved) get this and are so firmly committed, then it feels all is possible. Peace be with you.
ReplyDeleteIt is good. And it is where change begins: in hearts and minds, not in ideologies and candidates.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me, and reaffirming that for me. Thanks be to God, who makes all things possible.