On balance, I see Bernie Sanders’ running for president as a positive thing. I wrote this back in August 2011, voicing my support for his candidacy long before the Bernie Sanders For President bandwagon left the barn last month.
Mr. Sanders has some troubling ideas in terms of foreign policy.
But contrasted with a dynastic rematch between the neocon shrew Hillary and the neocon opportunist Jeb, there is no contest.
Go Bernie!
Nonetheless, I feel required to point out something, which in the exhilaration of his early campaigning, no one has addressed.
What if Bernie wins?
If you think we have dysfunctional government now, just try to imagine what would be the result of such a historical “upset” in the duopoly game plan. The center and center-right Democrats — there are only a handful of genuinely progressive Democrats — would team with the center-right and right-right Republicans, their shared control of electoral politics threatened by the anomalous election of a truly progressive president. The only legislation which would pass would be bipartisan anti-progressive veto-proof bills.
Of course, with their long-established common ground — an agenda of defeating anything which the corporate plutocracy disapproves of — and even more importantly their newly discovered common objective — totally destroying the Bernie Sanders presidency itself — mustering 67 votes in the Senate and 300 votes in the House would be a piece of cake.
Bear in mind that on the off-chance he wins the Democratic nomination, he will only be window-dressing for the Dems, a desperate attempt at pulling in the populist vote, which they lost by abandoning the middle and working classes. Any success at the polls by these turncoats will translate into even more aggressive promotion of the vile corporatist agenda they have pursued for decades now, as the Democratic Party steadily morphed into the left wing of the Republican Party.
The simple point is this: While a Bernie Sanders presidency would inject some hope into our dismal electoral politics and floundering democracy, his election without a supportive Congress would create gridlock and dysfunction of biblical proportions. President Sanders would be demonized, vilified, emasculated, meaning the prospects for the advancement of a progressive agenda, serving the needs of all Americans, not just the ultra-wealthy, would be set back for decades.
There is an obvious remedy to this predictable mega-gridlock.
Blocs of at minimum 34 senators and 151 representatives with an unyielding commitment to Mr. Sanders’ 12-point plan for restoring the economy MUST be put in place via the 2016 election. Either we replace many of the current corporate toadies holding elected office, or the promise of a Bernie Sanders presidency is doomed to utter failure.
I’ll get right to the point.
I have a plan for accomplishing that and — if progressive activists can actually get it together — indeed do much much more.
It’s contained in my new book, over 900 copies of which have already been sent to independent and Green Party candidates, NPOs, and think tanks across the nation.
A quiet revolution is possible.
But it requires making a lot of noise.
“Candidate Contracts: Taking Back Our Democracy” is now available . . .
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Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/1MGjDnN
Am I promoting my book?
No . . . I’m promoting my ideas.
