It is 2007. Our wonderful Pandora says to family and friends that the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate is a shoe-in to win the Presidency, unless of course that candidate is a black man or a woman. She of course thinks there is a lot of racism and sexism left in the world, and that would prevent either from winning a general election. And of course she was and is right. Where I disagreed with her was that the racists and sexists wouldn’t be voting for the Democrat in the general election anyway, for, after realignment over the last forty years, they were diehard Republicans.
Thus, for me, thinking that race and gender were no longer barriers to winning the Presidency, I firmly believed a Democrat, any Democrat (well except maybe John Edwards) would win the general election. So, I abandoned my traditional pragmatism when it comes to voting.
You see, I usually want to vote for the most progressive candidate that can win.
Because winning is important to me. You don’t get to enact progressive policies to affect progressive change unless you first win an election.
So in evaluating candidates, I follow my heart and mind. But in 2008, I could more follow my heart, because my mind told me any Democrat then running (save John Edwards with Gingrich-style cheating on his cancer stricken wife) could win. And so I went with Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.
But now it is 2015. We have made tremendous progress with a progressive President over the last seven years. And yes, Barack Obama is a progressive President who has achieved much progress, and to those Progressives who deny that, you are all purist idiots. Yes, he is not perfect. Yes, he did not prosecute bankers who got us into the financial collapse. Yes, he has not yet closed Gitmo. But we have achieved health insurance reform. We have new regulations protecting the consumer in the financial industry. We have new regulations on the financial industry. We have new regulations protecting the environment. We are pursing alternative energies. Gays and lesbians can get married. We have a more progressive tax structure now, what with the raising of taxes on the wealthy in 2013. We have an Iran Deal rather than a war with Iran. As Andrew Sullivan has predicted, Barack Obama will go down as the Liberal Reagan, a consequential President who has and will change the course of this nation for decades to come.
The most important consideration now for me is winning, so that all this progress is not reversed. As with 2012, we need the Democrat to win the Presidential election. Because a win is needed to cement policy changes into stone. Just as it was important for FDR and Harry Truman to win all those elections in the 30’s and 40’s to cement the New Deal into American society so that the next Republican President could not dare reverse them.
Now, there are some Democrats and progressives out there that do not care for electability arguments. They prefer to put the purest progressive candidate on the ballot, and if we lose, the consolation is that we were true to our principles and pure. Yeah, I am not much a fan of that opinion for the reasons I mention. For that, I am sure I am a sell out and a DINO. But whatever, at least with my way, we might get actual progressive policy results. If purist progressives had their way, Obamacare would have been defeated, and we would be where we were in 2008, with no health insurance reform, meaning that denial because of preexisting conditions is still possible, you still run up against yearly and lifetime caps, tens of millions of people uninsured, with no cost controls and or Medicaid subsidies. But that is ok for the purist progressive, because you stood on principle and waited for single payer. For me, being a Progressive is about making progress. Was Obamacare perfect? No. Is it a much better improvement on where we were? Yes.
To be sure, I am not advocating for the election of moderates or conservatives under the Democratic Party banner just so that our team can win. Like I said above, I want the strongest progressive candidate that can win.
At this time, I don’t think Bernie Sanders can win a presidential election.
And I will defer to Kavips to explain why.
Can Bernie Sanders win? Is supporting him a waste of vote? Were Bernie to win the nomination he would rapidly be pushed into the “crazy old man” box by our corporate media and would constantly be on the defensive clawing his way out. Vast numbers of the ill-informed would take portraying him that way as the truth. Little about American Presidential politics is based on ideas or policies… For a majority of Americans it is about electing your favorite Superhero. As in do your like Flash better than Wolverine? If Bernie was the candidate then large numbers of voters would compare him with the Republican who would be cloned like Romney and say,” Romney-clone is the more normal and with whom I am more comfortable with… I like what Sanders says but I’m more at home with a Romney clone on my TV than someone like Sanders”…. and a Republican then takes the White House…. Hillary despite her faults, as of now, is probably going to be the Democrat’s candidate simply because she has potential to steal voters away from the Republicans…. and bring voters into the fold who have never voted before but want to be part of putting a woman as the most power person on this planet.
That is my exact feeling that I have not been able to put into words until Kavips did it for me. I like Bernie Sanders. I like most of his ideas. I like his role in keeping the Overton Window on the left side of the spectrum. I like that his presence in the race is making Hillary even more progressive and liberal than she already is. I like that his presence is making her bolder (i.e. her student debt plan revealed earlier this week. Cautious triangulating Hillary would never had introduced that).
But Bernie does not look the part. As much as you want to scoff at this notion, choosing a President is a lot about visuals and stagecraft. And that is why Donald Trump is not going to win. His bombast is not what Americans picture in their Presidents.
You know what Kavips says is true. You know that is how our media functions. In a perfect world that purist progressives operate in, that doesn’t matter. I am not a purist and I have long ago realized this is no perfect world. And I want to win. That means I can’t vote for Bernie Sanders.
But, I will donate to Bernie Sanders. Why?
Because his continued presence in the race makes our party and Hillary Clinton more progressive. It makes our Democratic message more progressive.
Here is interesting question for purists to contemplate: Would you rather elect Bernie Sanders with a toned down, moderated platform or Hillary Clinton with a progressive platform? Because you know, if Bernie is the nominee, there will be some moderating going on so that he can appeal to the general electorate.
Think about that. My message to supporters of Bernie Sanders supporters is to keep supporting him, but don’t get deluded about the end game here. Be a realist. And realize that Bernie Sanders serves a very good purpose. But he is not going to be our next nominee or President.