Here at BMG, we’ve had our share of disagreements over Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. My contention is, we tend to start with our non-rational preferences and develop reasons for our choice as we go along. This is, psychologically speaking, natural. After all, few of us decide who to support with a completely open mind. How many of us start with a list of candidates, carefully weigh their assets and liabilities, and proceed to make a completely rational decision? Almost no one. We start with our biases, our preferences.
Although my preference is Hillary Clinton, I can’t deny the historical importance of Bernie Sanders and his candidacy. If he earns the nomination, I will happily support him, but I think it’s important to talk about what his candidacy means. Massachusetts may have the strongest Democratic organization in the country, but PPP just released a poll showing Hillary 7 points behind Bernie two weeks before the primary. My question is, why?
The answer lies in the content and medium of his message.
1. Opposition to Wall Street and the Government Collaboration & Corruption
“You know, I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street. In truth that’s not the case. The real truth is that Wall Street regulates the Congress.”
This is Bernie’s core message. He comes to sincerely, but it’s also important to note that research has also shown these to be very powerful political themes. The Democratic Strategist, an online journal that is very much like it sounds, has covered these issues extensively. These two issues have been found to be powerful enough to persuade a sizable number of the white working class to vote for a Democrat.
Ask some of Bernie’s supporters why they don’t support Hillary, and many will say Bernie isn’t beholden to Wall Street. Many will also say Hillary is too close to Wall Street.
PPP’s Polling suggests the same thing: “Sanders does better on the issues of who voters trust most to crack down on Wall Street and who they have more faith in to pursue policies that raise the incomes of average Americans. Voters trust Sanders more to crack down on Wall Street in 5 of the 12 states we polled and in the states where Clinton is trusted more on that question it’s by a much more narrow margin than her overall lead.”
It’s also important to point out that some of Trump’s support is due to the belief that he’s not beholden to anyone either.
2. The Internet Circumvents the Parties and MSM
Prior to the internet, candidates were dependent on parties for communication. It was just too difficult to reach voters without the organization. In the television era, a lot of money was needed for advertising, and parties had the money. Small, marginalized candidates couldn’t afford to reach mass audiences without a party behind them, which gave parties a lot of control over which candidates could advance.
Trump and Sanders, however, have both largely ignored the established parties and been ignored by their respective parties. As an outlandish, famous celebrity, Trump knows how to promote himself. Sanders, however, has the internet.
“Reaching & persuading even a fraction of the electorate used to be so daunting that only two national orgs could do it,” Clay Shirky writes on Twitter. “Now dozens can. This set up the current catastrophe for the parties. They no longer control any essential resource, and can no longer censor wedge issues.”
Twenty years ago, almost all of our information about candidates and issues would come television and print media. A 75 year-old, democratic socialist would not made it far with institutional media. That stranglehold is now loosening. Sources of news are blowing up traditional sources. Sanders supporters talk directly to each other. People can learn about democratic socialism without having to content with the media according the Right the opportunity to make stuff up about it.
The internet hasn’t obviated the need for parties, but it has eroded their power over issues and, to some extent, campaign funds. The internet has made it easier for outsider candidates to raise money. After the New Hampshire Democratic debate, so many donations flowed into Sanders’ website, that it was temporarily shut down. And he has also set a record for the number of individual donors for a campaign.
3. The Left Rising
Twenty-five years ago, Bernie Sanders campaign would not have been a feasible candidate. Aside from the logistical problems with the communication and fundraising, the Left was truly marginalized. The Far Right, funded by the wingnut welfare system, had think tanks and newsletters. Back in the 1980s, my ultra-conservative uncle used to give me newsletters from Reed Irvine and Phyllis Schlafly. These newsletters were effective propaganda, but they also provided important mailing lists for Republicans. The Left had very limited ways to reach a large audience. The Internet, and blogs like BMG, changed that. In 1990, there was The Nation, now there are hundreds of sites where news and opinions are shared and interpreted. Bernie has benefitted from a revitalized Left.
4. Millenials On the Rise
The kids are wild about Bernie. I see this in my 21 year-old daughter. My niece and nephew. And even in my students. I’ve noticed a larger share of my suburban students are more tolerant–less racist, less resentful, more concerned with fairness. This was not true 20 years ago when I could always get a classroom argument going by bringing up welfare. The kids like Bernie. (They scoff at Trump).
I haven’t seen polling to suggest that younger Americans are more politically engaged than they were, but Sanders’ candidacy gives a clear idea of which direction they are headed in.
Of the millenials, pollster Stan Greenberg says, “there’s this deep sense that they have worked hard, they’ve learned the right values from their parents; they did everything possible to get an education and became burdened with debt. They have jobs that don’t pay very much, so they’re immediately weighed down by the debt. There is a real poignant sense that the values that they were taught and accepted have really been poisoned.”
5. Philosophies of Change
“Today,” Sanders said as he announced his campaign last May, “we begin a political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally.” Revolution is a byword of Bernie’s campaign. It appeals, I think, to the Left and the politically inexperienced, the Left because it believes in revolution, the inexperienced because they don’t know any better. The desire for revolution waxes and wanes with the degree of injustice. Bernie is talking about revolution at the right time.
In my opinion, revolution is the last step of evolution. As much as I love the idea that someday a real rain will come and wash the scum out of our political system, but it’s the gradual change in climate that makes the difference. Bernie’s candidacy may feel like a revolution, but it is a natural outgrowth of the growth of the Internet, the Occupy Movement, which put inequality on the map, and our own Elizabeth Warren, who has taken on Wall Street.
One reason I support Hillary is that she doesn’t believe in revolution. She’s an incrementalist, a realist, if you will. I also have faith in Hillary because I don’t think she can get elected without participating the evolution. Some Clintonistas (Lawrence Summers) have already joined the evolution.
I appreciate the role that Bernie is playing but disagree with his notion of revolution. I save that word for more extreme circumstances.
I was a big fan of the evolutionary botanist Stephen Jay Gould and his theory of evolution being propelled by “punctuated equilibrium,” long periods of stasis with minimal biological evolution, punctuated by enormous events like volcanoes, meteor strikes and massive fires. The punctuation of the equilibrium kills off certain species, allowing others to thrive.
Frank Baumgartner took the theory into politics and organizational responses. A good local example of punctuated equilibrium (the cool kids call it “punk eek”) is the decades long willingness of the public to tolerate crappy MBTA service. The winter storms of 2015 punctuated the equilibrium of resentful tolerance of the MBTA and things are changing (not fast enough and not always in the right way, but change is happening).
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are simultaneous punctuations of our nation’s political equilibrium. Neither is a revolution and they really are not even at war with each other. But their campaigns have both unleashed and temporarily focused unrest that has been growing for years. It will take a few more years to see what the new equilibrium is.
As Jeff Stein points out on Vox, turnout at the 2016 Nevada Democratic caucuses was roughly two-thirds of the turnout for the 2008 caucuses. If Sanders is going to lead some revolutionary — or maybe just transformative — change, he’s going to have to generate a bigger wave than Senator Obama did in 2008.
We’re not seeing that yet.
I like a lot of what you are saying but I don’t understand your conclusion. You are saying that Bernie is the right thing at the right time. Hillary is, at best, the right thing at the wrong time.
The democratization of political organizing via the Internet, Occupy, and all the other things you mention are the movement. Bernie Sanders is the politician in a unique position to ride the movement to real policy changes and action. You may call it revolution or evolution, but that is the next step.
I can’t quite decipher your last couple of sentences, I think there may be a couple of words or a sentence missing. However, I’ll agree that Hillary can’t get elected. The next necessary increment is someone who will make a significant dent in the influence of big money, particularly Wall Street, on policy, even if (s)he gets nothing else done. The public (and my) perception is that Hillary cannot and will not do that, which makes her a bulwark to progress, a cynic rather than a realist, and unelectable in the climate that you’ve just described.
I also want to emphasize your point about “Millenials on the rise”. Bernie has been getting over 70% of voter under 40 and about 83% of voters under 30. (IA, NH, NV) At 17% of the vote, the candidate anointed by the party is FRINGE among the next generation of voters. This spells disaster for the party in the next few years if it doesn’t evolve quickly. Again, a Hillary nomination and actions like this are a step back in this evolution.
A Hillary nomination at this point will lead to a Trump presidency in the short term and massive problems for the Democratic Party in the medium term.
…in terms of the proportion of voters compared to their elders. Hillary I would argue is among the most electable there is. Her husband is right, IMO – she is one of the most significant change-makers out there.
than a couple of words in my last sentences. You need to take off your Bernie-colored glasses, my friend. I’m not looking for an argument about who’s better.
I’m not saying Bernie would be the best president; I’m saying he’s an important candidate. He’s appealing to a lot of people for a number of reasons.
I’ll check my last couple of sentences.
I don’t, at all, interpret the thread-starter to mean that “Bernie is the right thing at the right time”. My read is, instead, that Mr. Sanders is an otherwise undistinguished Senator from arguably the most liberal state in the nation who happened to be at the right place at the right time to ride the momentum that these forces have generated.
In my view, it is naive to believe that that wave of change will continue unabated until nirvana arrives, “Wall Street” has been routed, and egalitarian change sweeps the land — no doubt providing good high-paying jobs for Millennials and erasing their student debt on its way through. As rousing and inspirational as this vision is, it is disconnected from reality.
The first thing I think we need to all be clear about is that pretty much all of human history teaches that the one thing the already-wealthy and already-powerful will hang onto more tenaciously than ANYTHING else is their wealth and power. This change will not be accomplished by ANYONE elected president in 2016. I think the best we can hope for is that the 2016 will, in retrospect, mark a turning point towards a more egalitarian America in the same way that Reagan election in 1980 marked a turning point towards the right-wing miasma that Reagan proclaimed.
In my view, the real question is whether this recapture of the bulk of America’s wealth from the top 1% (actually from the top 0.1%!) can be accomplished without bloodshed. No other revolution in human history has accomplished that feat. This, in my view, is the real challenge of this revolution — can it be done peacefully, by the institutions that have guided America for nearly three centuries.
If these forces are real (and I believe they are), if this movement is sincere (and I believe it is), and if these changes are to be accomplished (and I believe they will be), then BOTH Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are needed, as is Elizabeth Warren. As difficult as it is for Millennials to believe that anyone else in history has felt as they do, this is not the first time that a young generation has seen the absolute requirement for immediate revolutionary change in society.
Since time is short and the need is immediate, it strikes me as counter-productive to cast the older generation — that actually VOTES at MUCH higher rates than the demographics you cite — as the enemy. We are NOT. Many of us believe in the ideals you describe — many of us do so because we taught them to the “under 40” voters, and taught those voters to value them.
If Mr. Sanders is nominated, and if Mr. Sanders wins against Mr. Trump, then Mr. Sanders will be faced by a relentless, across-the-board, and withering fusillade of attack from EVERY weapon that the one percent can bring to bear. I see no indication that he is prepared to withstand this attack, and many indications that he is NOT prepared. The moment he loses his cool, about pretty much anything, we can expect the attack to swarm and concentrate on that weakness.
Ms. Clinton, and her husband before her, has been withstanding this for decades. Mr. Obama faced it, and it took most of his administration for him to realize that — yes — it IS a personal attack. Yes, the other side DOES mean it when they promise to destroy him. Yes, that is their ONLY goal. No, rationality, common sense, and the “good of the nation” means absolutely nothing.
Hillary Clinton gets this reality. She has been fighting these forces for decades. It appears to me that Mr. Sanders does not. For better or worse, he has spent most of the same time behind the front lines — doing needed and loyal service, for sure, but still NOT in combat.
I reject your contention that nominating Hillary Clinton “will lead to a Trump presidency in the short term”. I think that President Hillary Clinton will show, in the two terms that she subsequently will serve, that these destructive forces of the far-right and the one percent CAN be marginalized, that a degree of fairness in our economic system CAN be restored, and that the change we all seek is most effective when it is embraced by the ENTIRE population.
I think that is the best way for today’s Americans under 40 to learn about how ACTUAL CHANGE happens in America.
When I hear that the Clintons have been fighting the .1% for decades, all I see is Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage in the ring, throwing fake punches and once the bell rings, getting together for cocktails and dinner at Le Bernardin to discuss the next public match.
Actual change in America has been absent for the past 40 years as Democrats elect leaders who vote along the same lines of Republicans, both, as Chomsky has said, are just different factions of the business party.
Bernie is different. He openly attacks the business party and wants to dethrone it. Trump attacks the business party too, but as an insider who promises to use its power only against non-whites instead of whites. (no, he does not say that out loud, at least not much).
I don’t think Ms. Clinton had any dinners with the Benghazi crowd after her most recent grilling. I don’t think Mr. Sanders faced any accusations of murder after the suicide of a dear and long-term friend. I don’t think there was anything fake about the relentless legal harassment of Ms. Clinton by Ken Starr. I don’t know what a “real” attack looks like to you, but I suggest that Mr. Starr’s partisan attempt to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton was as real as the American system knows how to create. I don’t think there was any “bell”, and I don’t think either Mr. or Ms. Clinton got together for “cocktails and dinner” afterwards with Mr. Starr or any of his enormous taxpayer-funded retinue.
I get that Mr. Sanders makes public statements about how unhappy he is. I agree with him, and I hope he continues that.
I think your cynicism of Ms. Clinton is misplaced, and is inconsistent with the optimism you profess about Mr. Sanders. Each candidate is fighting the fight, each in a different way.
Ken Starr, Benghazi are just the theatrics used to make it look like a real fight. They are akin to the body slams and fist pumps of the “WWE”, props and stuntmen blocking the reality that everyone in the audience is being fooled into thinking that the “fighters” in the ring are real. Millions of dollars in “donations” and hundreds of dollars in “speaking fees” for yet to be released transcripts trouble me. Even her daughter’s spousal choice bothered me, but I find it had to fault Chelsea for her choice. The young man was the son of a couple whom the Clintons had become close friends with. The Clintons and Mezvinskys have long been political allies and friends. Ed Mezvinsky was sentenced in 2003 to serve 80 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to a massive fraud he committed againt friends, family members and institutions to the tune of more than $10 million. His son, Chelsea’s husband, is a hedge fund manager.
I get it. Ms. Clinton is unsuitable, according to you, because her 36 year old daughter married — at age 30 — the son of a convicted felon. I’m not sure what “family values” you’re attempting to assert in that posture, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share them.
What will you say to right-wing evangelicals who harshly criticize Mr. Sanders for being divorced (he divorced first wife Deborah Shiling in 1966), and for fathering a child (Levi Sanders) out of wedlock in 1969?
Or perhaps you would reject candidate Jimmy Carter because of his often embarrassing younger brother.
Since you assert that Ken Starr and Benghazi are “just the theatrics used to make it look a like a real fight”, I do wonder what a “real fight” looks like to you.
I think you’re WAY outside the envelope of reasonable dialog about two viable candidates.
No, it’s not the son in law. It’s not the three Goldman Sachs speeches for $625,000 that she was evasive about. It’s not the millions of dollars that she and her husband have received over the years from wealthy insiders. It’s not her sudden reversal on health care. It’s not her admission that she will look into advancing the eligibility age for Social Security. It’s not her most recent meetings with big business to ask for more in big money donations. It’s not her super pacs. It’s not her past votes as a senator that protected Wall Street. It’s not her stand against the $15 minimum wage. It’s not her past endorsement of TPP and recent reversal. It’s not any one of those things alone and accusing me or anyone else of being that simplistic is insulting. It’s all of those things and more in aggregate.
It sounds to me as though the right-wing smear machine has been very effective at shaping your views.
What I see “in aggregate” is what happens when a Democrat spends a lifetime promoting Democratic values in a nation moving rightward for three decades.
I suggest that it’s been easier for Mr. Sanders to maintain in his moral purity while he’s been safely out of the line of fire for the past thirty years.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Tell me what I listed that is false? Tell me when I have said that Senator Sanders is morally pure? Secretary Clinton has indeed spent much of her political life promoting Democratic values when it suits her. She has also spent much of her political life giving “speeches” to Goldman Sachs in exchange for a “donation” of $225,000 per speech. Now mind you I do not object to her right to do so and yes, Goldman Sachs does represent US citizens. My point it that given the option to support a candidate who is not beholding to Goldman Sachs and its ilk, I will always take that option. Any clear thinking laborer in the Democratic Party would.
start arguing about whose (candidate) is bigger, everyone’s going to laugh, you know.
If I were a person who believed that the wealthy class that is now in power cannot be removed and I, as a laborer and a Democrat would be best served by a president who would work with those who are in power, then clearly Secretary Clinton would be my choice. If I was convinced that Senator Sanders was just a quixotic fantasy dream and would only enrage the people in power which might just mean things would get even worse for labor, Secretary Clinton would be by candidate.
As Robert Reich said, Secretary Clinton is the best candidate for the political/economic system we have and Senator Sanders is the best candidate for the political/economic system we need….with “we” being labor, not the monopoly capitalists.
I agree, it’s not that complicated.
We each want the same things. I don’t believe nor have I written here any of the things you ascribe to me. I do not share your apparent belief that Mr. Sanders will be even a little bit effective at removing the wealthy class now in power. You do not share my belief that Ms. Clinton WILL be effective at that.
That’s why we have primaries. That’s good enough for me.
I am a 46 year old woman who cast my first vote for Bill Clinton in 1992. I campaigned for Kerry in 2004 and for Obama in both 2008 and 2012. Excited by president Obama’s win in 2008, I ran for city council that year and served a term before moving back to Boston 4 years ago to take care of my mother who was diagnosed with cancer. I am supporting Senator Sanders because I feel we are at a point in this country when we desperately need his bold vision. I work in Boston where I see, first hand, how seniors are struggling to survive on social security and how many people are displaced from rising housing costs. Every day we get calls from seniors who are being evicted or are looking for housing and the average wait for affordable housing is 3-5 years. The issue of income inequality is one of the most important issues of our time–from which so many other things flow. Economic justice is a tangible way to address many other injustices. If conditions had not become so profoundly unfair and unequal, Senator Sanders’ message would not have caught on as it has. It’s especially powerful to know he has been consistent and principled and courageous about this message and standing up when it was not popular to do so. I see him as a real leader, someone who does not lead only when it is safe to do so. I also feel very strongly about his message of less military intervention. We have made a real mess of the middle east and now are dealing with the rise of terrorism spreading to additional countries and the refugee crisis that are at least partially the result of our misguided policies. Andrew Bacevich (the professor at BU who lost his son in the Iraq War), writes very well about the situation there. Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute describes Secretary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State and it is very disturbing. Many of the young people I’ve spoken with are supporting Sanders over Clinton for precisely this reason. They are tired of always being at war and our policies never making anything better–in fact making things far, far worse. The middle east is destabilized and we are less safe here at home. While basic investments in infrastructure go unmet, 29 million people still do not have health insurance, and are buried under mountains of student debt. I don’t think we can assume that people under 40 don’t know what is at stake here or how real change happens. As Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without demand.” We need a courageous president who will put people ahead of corporate profit, and work to make America strong from within. The choice is very clear for me.
Seriously, get over it. I know it’s primary season, but you’re missing point of my post if you’re arguing Clinton over Sanders or Sanders over Clinton. You can argue to your heart’s content. If it makes you feel like you’re right and everyone else is stupid or less enlightened, then shame on you. You are not more virtuous for supporting one candidate over another. Whomever you support, you’re not going to persuade anyone here. We all agree on the ends, we disagree on the means.
I was trying to get people to look at the big picture here, not start another thread complaining about the other candidate’s supporters. Your thinking allows me and others to learn. How about some introspection?
And you did a very good job of laying out the big picture. Tempers are running hot since this is a tight race and everyone wants to advocate for the candidate of their choice. I would say this–At least we care and are involved!
your comment. I understand also where you coming from based on Tom’s comment.
It’s like one of those finger puzzles: one side puts in its finger (candidate) the other puts their finger (candidate in. If one side pulls, it tightens on both.
I don’t know you. I don’t know if you know me from BMG, but I’ve been trying to get a discussion about the primary that doesn’t involve fighting about which candidate is better. It’s very hard not to lapse into argument during primaries. It was much worse during the 2008 primary.
Anyway, thanks for your understanding. It’s in short supply these days.
Particularly it’s intentions. I have become fairly indifferent to this primary, I really think we will be just fine with either or our flawed nominees at the helm vs. any of their substantially more flawed candidates. My heart leads me to Bernie, his passion, his issues, and his consistent record. My mind is satisfied with the prospect of a Clinton victory in a way it wouldn’t have been in 2008.
Nobody running is a saint. Bernie has made flip flops and compromises too. He may be ‘independent’ but he has campaigned and raised money exclusively for Democrats since 2006, when he cut a deal with them to avoid a challenger when he ran for Senate, including at fundraisers for well heeled donors. He has flip flopped on gun control during this campaign to neutralize the one issue where Hillary was further to his left. He has distanced himself from past statements and actions supporting left wing governments with appalling records on democracy and human rights (don’t think for a second Chavez, Fidel, and Ortega won’t make appearances in GOP general election ads if he wins).
Is that as bad as all the flip flops and calculations Hillary has made? I don’t really know and don’t particularly care. I can say with 100% certainty I was convinced Obama would be my generations Kennedy or FDR, and now realize he was just our Bill Clinton and I am perfectly fine with that. Maybe Hillary can be our LBJ, or maybe she’s a third and fourth term of a thoroughly decent presidency. Either way, I’m happy. I find it harder to actually envision Bernie being able to fulfill the campaign promises he has staked his campaign on than Hillary’s far more muted vision becoming a reality. But maybe that’s because I recognize how much little power the presidency actually has.
The real challenge for progressives of all stripes going forward will be getting the folks feeling the bern to feel getting involved on Beacon Hill and in their city and town governments where their voices, their views, and their candidacies would have a far greater impact.
…as opposed to those who make up what our British friends would call “the party opposite”.
I remember their 2008 nominee being pro-campaign finance reform, pro-immigration reform, anti-climate change, and anti-torture. And they would say “and he still lost, so might as well not moderate” and insist on the likes of Tes Cruz and Donald Trump.
…said 2008 nominee also introduced Sarah Palin to the other 49 states and her brand of Republicanism has taken over.
Thanks for this helpful post. Your points about the Sanders campaign are all on point. I agree that this is indeed a crucial moment where there are a couple of key forces and futures that can play out. My hope is that Sanders (made possible in my estimation by OFA and Obama, the heroic Occupy Movement, and then by the example of our own Elizabeth Warren) is helping to ignite a new period of liberal/progressive ascendancy.
In this election, Trump is a near-perfect embodiment of 40 years of increasing neocon public policy domination that has led (in the context of the economic and other effects of the digital revolution) to a vast transfer of wealth, the subsequent economic fragility of the middle class, the emergence of an overt plutocratic push for control of the nation’s future, and much fear and frustration amongst a vast middle of the population. The attacks of 9/11, among many unfortunate and tragic consequences, really “shell-shocked” the country, and opened the door to whole new layers of feeling vulnerable. Americans for years have been working through and trying to sort out real from imagined personal and national security vulnerabilities. This has given much room for fear mongering and appeals to nativism, racism and bigotry, which are now being further “Trumped-up.”
Liberals during this time have been largely on the defensive, especially in the “Southern Strategy” states, with a few nationally-electable neo-liberals essentially fighting a rear-guard action and accommodating a national mood generally inclined to more conservative and parochial self-interest. Liberal Dems and moderate Repubs were broadly defeated over several election cycles in the states, but the country stayed with the promise of liberalism in electing Obama twice. This has so frustrated the right that its unity of purpose began to unravel, abetted by power-hungry plutocrats who could now choose and fund their own candidates thanks to SCOTUS and Citizens United. The result is literally a conservative movement that has been Trumped.
It is quite remarkable that Bernie Sanders, who has for decades had been considered an irrelevant Senate gadfly and has been near invisible in all of this nationally, suddenly emerged last April to become a Democrat and has since parlayed the perfect storm of the presidential race to become the lightening rod for re-energizing the “grass roots.” He and his campaign deserve a lot of credit. He has done great things to articulate key issues and to create enthusiasm for new Democratic priorities.
The pollsters that I most respect (See: Princeton Election Consortium) sight strong indications Hilary Clinton is most likely to win the most votes/delegates in the primary and to win the nomination. (And I confess to my own worries about Bernie’s vulnerabilities because of his decades-long history as a socialist.) But I believe Bernie has played a critical role in this moment in articulating strong progressive values that are an alternative to Trumpism and can help make possible a renewal of liberal/Dem/progressive prospects.
Regardless who is nominated, we must all do everything we can to ensure a Dem president! If Trump should win, then the “Trumped-up” nativist coalition will burst forth with who-knows-what dire consequences for many of our Democratic processes and institutions. But if we can elect another Dem president, the chances are good that the right/plutocratic paroxysm will implode on itself and the Republican Party and the right will be left in disarray — and for some time. Then, because of the emerging liberal/progressive coalition that Bernie is currently helping to energize, there will at least remain the possibility that, especially with favorable mid-term elections and a second term, a Dem president and Congress (and SCOTUS), along with a strong movement that is moving the Dem party in progressive directions, could once again advance liberal/progressive programs to redress decades of reaction and harm, and work to build a better future.
Thanks again for stirring this discussion.