The limitations of Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders is fulfilling the progressives’ wish that a truly left-wing candidate might run for the Democratic nomination, and for the time, he is soaring, pulling within 10 percentage points of Hillary Clinton in the latest poll out of New Hampshire. But we’re about to find out what a giant mistake it was for Sanders, a political independent that caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate, to choose to run as a Democrat rather than as an independent.Ralph Nader electrified the summer of 2000 with his independent candidacy, tallying almost three million votes and pushing a progressive agenda that Democratic candidate Al Gore refused to open his ears to until years later. By then, the former Vice President was a filmmaker and a defeated political candidate. Howard Dean was the upstart “progressive” in the 2004 Democratic Primary and the party machine famously rose up to destroy him in Iowa. Sanders, like Dean, is most vulnerable to destruction in this particular state.
The caucus system is profoundly polluted. It allows a small number of activists to dominate the majority. Voters in a caucus, as opposed to a primary, don’t have the whole of election day to cast their ballot, or the time requirement of only a few minutes to do so, or the option to vote absentee. Further, one caucus vote does not equal every other, and the vote is not private affair.
Iowans voting in the Democratic or Republican Party Caucuses are forced to brave the unpredictable weather conditions of a January night in chilly Iowa. The time commitment is the entire evening, perhaps from 6:30 or 7 local time to three hours or more later. (Anybody that works outside an 8 to 5 schedule is excluded.) After a lengthy discussion about the party platform (plus a spirited pass-the-hat effort you don’t find at a traditional polling location), the participants break down into their different candidate groups. They look around the room to see if they’re being judged for their choice by their boss, their co-workers, or their neighbors, especially if they're voting for Donald Trump. The candidates that fail to garner more than 5% of the vote are not tallied for their actual percentage, but actually dismissed entirely. Those candidates have been deemed “unviable” and their supporters must then choose between joining one of the “viable” groups or going home having not had their vote counted at all. (This happened to me and the rest of my precinct’s Dennis Kucinich faction in 2008. I joined my next door neighbors in the John Edwards camp, not feeling any peer pressure whatsoever.) The only vote tally that makes it out of the room and onto your television screen is the final vote, and that one has been shrunken down to a fractional allotment based on the percentage of registered Democrats in that precinct. These reported numbers will tell only part of a story and may bare only a passing resemblance to what would have been the actual vote.
Sanders is clearly a growing favorite in this race among rank-and-file Democrats, and could potentially give Clinton a run for her money for overall support, but he has absolutely no chance of supplanting the Queen of Wall Street Cash as the favorite among the party leadership and the party’s money changers. Sanders’ chance to guide the rhetoric of the debate is limited by the electoral apparatus itself. His “true” progressivism (contrasted by Clinton’s poorly-disguised Republicanism) will have the tangible impact of coloring Clinton’s stump speeches and dictating the nature of her campaign promises, but not in any way will it affect the method in which she truly intends to govern if elected.
Sanders’ voice will have been muted entirely by Super Tuesday in early March. The remaining six months of the race will be a sprinting battle between the preternaturally-dishonest Clinton, a Republican Neanderthal, and nobody else. And if a Nader pops up in there to sound a progressive voice during any part of that half-year, he or she will be labeled by the Democrats a threat to the progressive agenda, a spoiler, and an egotist. He or she will be told that the primary season was the proper time to have raised a voice. The electoral story will end with either a Democrat or Republican victory and a less-than-30% turnout of eligible voters.
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As a federally-contracted employee, my security clearance data is likely in the hands of the Chinese. I was notified of this by my employer earlier today. Aren't I lucky that the United States government keeps a file on me despite no criminal record and foreign governments can just lift it in full?
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Michael Jackson taught us that "it don't matter if you're black or white." It's good advice for Rachel Dolezal. And also for her critics.
posted by CM @ 9:20 PM
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