Clinton "realists" vs. Sanders "idealists"

Politics & Elections
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While the internal divisions and faction-fights going on within the GOP/conservative side of American politics are much more high-profile and getting much more attention right now, there is also a – somewhat but not entirely more decorous – division going on in the Dem/liberal side. At least one rising to the level of a pundit-war on the Intertubes. Consider these examples, just from Salon.com and just from the past week or two:

Bob Cesca: The Bernie-Hillary death match is here: Why the Democratic primary is going to get very ugly. “Sanders is giving Clinton a run for her money in Iowa and New Hampshire, and now the gloves are coming off.”

Jim Hightower: Sanders’ people-powered movement: Don’t expect his free-thinking voters to give up their populist idealism. “Don’t-rock-the-corporate-boat liberalism is no turn-on for the people fed up with business-as-usual politics.”

Simon Maloy: The Democratic health care brawl: It’s Hillary’s ruthless pragmatism vs. Bernie’s unmoored idealism — with the GOP looming. “Sanders and Clinton are having a weird, ugly fight over the future of health care the GOP will likely render moot.”

Gary Legum: Let’s get real, Bernie fans: It isn’t “giving up” to admit a revolution isn’t coming. “Sanders supporters have embraced the candidate’s call for a revolution. But structural barriers are real.”

Elias Isquith: Bernie Sanders’ politician problem: How he’s making the campaign harder on himself . “The Vermont socialist’s campaign is firing on all cylinders. But the good news is camouflaging some major risks.”

Chauncey DeVega: White people just don’t get it: Bernie Sanders, Ta-Nehisi Coates and the reality of reparations . “The wellbeing and political interests of African-Americans are sacrificed on the mantle of political expediency.”

Daniel Denvir: Ta-Nehisi Coates is right about white supremacy — but that doesn’t mean that Bernie Sanders is wrong . “Sanders’ economic platform isn’t a cure-all, but it would represent a major step forward for racial justice.”

Scott Eric Kaufman: Paul Krugman has a sobering message for Bernie supporters. “‘He has never yet faced the GOP’s attack machine,’ Krugman argued, whereas Clinton clearly has.”

Elias Isquith: Dissecting Paul Krugman’s Bernie backlash: Being a Sanders skeptic doesn’t make you a hack. “America’s most influential pundit has been critical of the Vermont socialist. Here’s why that’s so encouraging.”

Chris Brooks: Hillary’s big healthcare con: The cynical myth she keeps repeating about Bernie Sanders and single payer. “The call to make the ACA work signals powerful medical interests and Big Pharma will make millions under Clinton.”

Eric Boehlert: Hillary just can’t win: Even mixed poll results mean she’s choking. “The media has decided Bernie is surging toward an upset in Iowa, whether the data supports that conclusion or not.”

Simon Maloy: Hillary’s baffling Bernie strategy could backfire: Attacking Sanders’ positions that hardcore Dems support a very risky move. “On Iran and healthcare Clinton hits Sanders as unrealistic and callow — strange way to win a Democratic primary.”

Sean Illing: The billionaires would get their asses kicked by a democratic socialist: Why Trump vs. Bloomberg vs. Sanders all but guarantees a Bernie presidency. “Sanders is right to welcome a race with Trump and Bloomberg – they prove his point that the rich control politics.”

Conor Lynch: Bernie Sanders could be the next Ronald Reagan. “Believe it or not, the democratic socialist from Vermont could be a game-changer for American politics.”

Robert Reich: Robert Reich: Paul Krugman just doesn’t get it . “The rich have wrested control of our democracy. We need Bernie more than ever, argues the former secretary of labor.”

Daniel Denvir: Bernie Sanders is right about Obamacare: Here’s why it’s time to talk about single-payer. “The Affordable Care Act advanced healthcare in America in important ways — but it’s also fatally flawed.”

John Avignone: I have had it with naive Bernie Sanders idealists . “Take a lesson from Paul Krugman: We don’t have political revolutions. This is a democracy of incremental change.”

Corey Robin: This is a dishonest campaign: 17 Hillary Clinton memes the media just won’t stop pushing — or factcheck. “On race, reparations, the establishment and liberalism itself, Hillary vs. Bernie has become unmoored from reality.”

Sean Illing: Noam Chomsky is right about Hillary Clinton – but he’s wrong that Bernie can’t win. “Chomsky concedes that Sanders is a better candidate than Hillary, but says the system is stacked against him.”

Sean Illing: This election is about the system, not the candidates: Robert Reich clarifies the Clinton-Sanders debate . “Robert Reich explains what’s driving the election — it’s about whether Americans really want to change the system.”

Robert Reich: Robert Reich: Bernie is our only hope for real political change. “If the goal is to end big money’s chokehold on our democracy, then the choice this election is no choice at all.”

Gary Legum: The Bernie Sanders revolution is probably doomed from the start. “What’s lost in all the talk about Sanders’ electoral prospects is that real change demands something more.”

Elias Isquith: The real question facing Iowa Democrats: Can the party survive as is, or is it barreling toward a political revolution?. “Clinton vs. Sanders is not about pragmatism vs. idealism, but about the power they wield over the party’s survival.”

Amanda Marcotte: The popularity of Bernie Sanders speaks volumes about Americans’ rejection of organized religion. “Bernie Sanders’ lack of religious faith is more normal in America than many pundits and politicians seem to think.”

Scott Eric Kaufman: Paul Krugman gets to the heart of the Bernie Sanders/Hillary Clinton divide. “It’s about whether money is the root of all evils, or just many of them.”

Cat J. Zavis: I have had it with cynical faux-realists attacking Bernie Sanders idealists. “It’s timid and fearful to limit ourselves to incremental change – and it only makes the powerful more powerful.”

Which side has the lefty-right of it?

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Do I have to read ALL of them? Or did you link them all just to prove you weren’t making up those summary statements?

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You can read any whose titles catch your eye and interest; that’s why I included the links, the titles, and the subtitles. But we could probably have a meaningful discussion of the matter based on the titles alone, which do flesh out what this is all about – i.e., nobody in this particular debate is screaming “NO SOCIALISM!” Almost everyone writing these articles appears to be more broadly sympathetic to Sanders’ goals and policies than Clinton’s; the controversy is over the lesser evil, the art of the possible, the perfect is the enemy of the good, etc. – which is really a more interesting thing.

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Okay. I’ll bite. “Realist” side of the fence here.

Bernie’s perspectives are the same as they have been for decades and were perhaps radical perspectives when he started out, so much so that he felt they were not contained within the Democratic Party and thus he identified himself outside of it. His ambitions now are pretty mainstream for the party now though; nothing that he proposes that seems to extreme to have as a goal, even if we disagree about methods. On many of the social issue battlefronts at least what was once unimaginable are now things that the majority of Americans embrace. Gay marriage, the Lily ledbetter Fair Pay Act, huge improvements on access to healthcare for all, on and on … How did we arrive at this point? By revolutionary sudden transformative moments driven by uncompromising idealists moving an Overton Window? Nope. By gradual incremental change.

History is littered with the aftermaths of revolutions. Ones lost and ones officially “won” but the result of which was hard to tell from losing.

"Here they talked of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about tomorrow
And tomorrow never came.

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade…
At dawn."

The “idealist argument” seems to be that made by Zavis: “we can jump into the raging waters, not knowing if we will succeed” Me, I’d prefer to not jump into raging waters but to keep working on a pretty decent bridge. People have crossed lots of bridges across raging waters successfully and but few have not drowned jumping into raging waters.

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Well, I’m not sure the Democratic Party is there just yet. The talent-pool at Salon sure is, but that’s not at all the same thing. In the party, the DLC wing still appears to predominate strongly – at least at the Establishment level – and even such a vanilla thing as full single-payer health care appears to be anathema to them.

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Help us Bernie-won Kenobi. You’re are only hope!

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I seriously wonder if the democratic party is going to undergo a shift like it did in the 60s. Before then they had a coalition of southern racists and minorities, but that coalition broke apart with the civil rights movement.

So what happens when the progressive wing and the corporate wing can’t get along? Until now the party has been able to rely on voters falling in line, but now they are pushing anti-corporate candidates.

The GOP is having the same thing, Trump is the anti-corporate candidate. He supports (or at least says he supports) progressive taxes, regulation of business, entitlement programs, criticizing money in politics.

Who knows. But I don’t think either party can continue to count on voters just supporting the pro-corporate candidate like they did in the past. If both Trump and Sanders win the primary, hopefully that’ll send a message to the political elite.

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OP tl;dr

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BG,

Believing that fighting for single-payer right now is counterproductive to achieving actual progress on those elements of a progressive agenda that even those not extremely left of center can agree are good ideas is not the same as its being anathema.

The realist argument made Avignone … that history shows actual progress is usually accomplished incrementally and not in transformative moments led by those who pass tests of ideological purity … is to me most cogent. It really is not much different than what most parents and most successful generals both know: choose your battles wisely.

Or go with the poker analogy if it resonates better: you don’t bet the pot every hand no matter what cards you are holding and expect to still be in the game for long; OTOH play smart and, with just a bit of luck, by morning you will have the most chips.

Wesley just for the record, you appear to be engaging in an excluded middle. I for one am neither pro-corporate nor anti-corporate. I am for oversight, enforced regulation, and for corporations and their CEOs paying fair shares. Both Bernie and Hillary are for those items. That is not being against corporations. Corporations are not my enemy. Hell, I have a nice 401K full of corporations that I want to be profitable. I am not even “against” the 0.1% that have become obscenely wealthy as the middle has hollowed out and as many workers are not paid a living wage … I just feel that the degree of wealth inequality that exists and that hollowing out of the middle that has occurred is bad for us all and for future generations.

What I do not want is to mouth platitudes that make me feel good for having sounded all noble but which end up doing no actual good when doing actual good here and now was achievable, even if it was not sexy or exciting.

SB seriously dude … if you don’t want to take part of a conversation then just don’t. You can’t be arsed to click a link or two to get a sense of the sorts of arguments made after someone made the significant effort to make doing so freaking easy to do then why bother to advertise your inability to do so by threadshitting?

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We are in an era where what is good for wealthy, powerful corporations is not good for the public. Something has to give. The idea that ‘what is good for GM is good for America’ is no longer true. Abolishing labor unions, regressive taxes, unaffordable health care, a risky financial system, socialism for the rich, no minimum wage, fewer consumer protections and environmental protections, etc. These things are good for the powerful and bad for everyone else. The stuff you talk about like progressive taxes, regulation, living wages, etc. are not in the interest of the powerful.

The current democratic party gives lip service to the working class, then generally does the bidding of the rich. People know this, which is why there is so much resistance to Hillary as the default candidate. Even on the GOP side people are getting tired of corporate hegemony and going for Trump. IMO, a big part of Trumps appeal is because he is not part of the corporate machine that controls politics. He is rich so he can’t be bought, and many of his issues are economic.

The democratic party can’t continue to give lip service to the interest of the working class (affordable health care, progressive taxes, getting money out of politics, living wages, etc) then turn around and service the wealthy who disagree with these things. Something is going to give. It is like how the democratic party used to try to juggle southern racists who opposed civil rights with minorities who wanted civil rights. Something had to give because their agendas are at odds with each other.

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Oh, it will send them a message, all right – but the only message they’ll have the imagination to hear is, “These voters are crazy!” :eek:

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But, I’m fairly certain that does not fairly describe the view of the DLC/Establishment wing of the Democratic Party. They simply don’t want a reform that would kill off the private health-insurance industry.

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From what I have learned so far, Bernie Sanders seems to be a very mainstream Social Democrat, and as such he is not viewed as an “idealist” by me, since Social Democracy in general is known for being very pragmatical. In my culture, the Social Democrats are the “realists” and the people to the right or left of them are usually the ones called “idealists”.

I suppose that the underlying narrative is that an “idealist” is someone who can not get things done because they are not “realistic”, and that everyone that has a vision that is “new” or not supportive of the status quo is considered to be idealistic. But quite frankly, as far as I can tell, everything that Bernie Sanders is promoting has already been successfully tried and tested elsewhere, and the only reason that he is considered an “idealist” is that the US is lagging behind in these areas. Universal Healthcare works, is more efficient AND cheaper than the option. Free college tuition works and is very good for the long term success of the nation. More economic equality obviously benefits everyone (trickle UP is actually how the economy works). etc etc. Standard stuff that many countries have implemented decades ago with very good results.

The narrative that was promoted when Bernie Sanders entered the scene, of him being some sort of kook or unrealistic simply don’t measure up to reality. In most European countries his policies would just be considered pretty standard for a centrist or left leaning politician. The US can’t be THAT special. Economy is economy and humans are humans, if Universal Healthcare works everywhere else where it is implemented, I’m pretty sure it will work in the US too.

I think the problem is that the political establishment in the US, along with the media have drifted so far from reality, and that most politicians are pushing ideas that are simply ridiculous to everyone who is not living in an echo chamber. What Bernie is talking about is sensible stuff, it only seems weird to those living in the Virtual Reality of political punditry, or who are high/crazy on their fantasy-based ideology.

There are US politicians that are suggesting flat tax rates who are being taken seriously. There are politicians who think that the earth is 6.000 years old. There are those who think that making sure everyone has a gun is a way to reduce gun violence, or that women are inferior to men. There are those who think money is speech, corporations are people and that cutting taxes is a way to handle deficits. Those guys are taken seriously, and Bernie is not? That is what strikes me as weird. The phrase “Only in America” comes to mind. :dubious:

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The slippery slope is real!

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Thanks for the clarification. I’m also on the realist side of the fence, probably because I grew up and learned to recognize that incrementalism has a better track record than does wholesale revolution of the paradigm.

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When looking at historical revolutions it’s interesting how the elites react. Some are stubborn and don’t budge an inch and then they’re surprised when they get marched off to the guillotines. The smart ones see it coming and try to manage it through a series of compromises while holding onto as much of their privilege as they can while keeping things stable. Sometimes the latter has to fight the former so they don’t both go down in flames. That’s more or less what happened during the New Deal.

I think the American elites thought stuff like Dodd-Frank and Obamacare were major concessions and they’re frustrated at the excess of democracy breaking out. The people are so ungrateful. There’s been a failure by the managerial class to handle it because they’re so toothless nowadays. Clamping down on the internet more seems like the best bet for regaining control over the long haul. It’s difficult to imagine Trump or Sanders getting any traction in an era of traditional gate keeper media where anything deviating from the Beltway consensus is heresy. Sanders in particular should’ve just been another Kucinich, a fig leaf.

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Eh? Is anyone even talking about that?

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Democratic Realizm means staying in bed with banks and health insurance companies. The only thing they can do to make this system more efficient is have us give our money directly to those businesses instead of filtering it through federal government.

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Not sure we have ever been in an era where “what is good for GM is good for America” was actually true. But it does not necessarily follow that “what is good for America is what is bad for GM.”

I would argue that corporate America (and the rich and the powerful who are only a subset of corporate America) benefit from what is good for America, even though many of them (not all) are too shortsighted to realize that.

I will refrain from excessive back and forth over this but I reject simplistic us vs them formulations. There is a balance. I want to address the issue of dramatically increasing wealth inequality (even more than income inequality), I want affordable high quality healthcare as a right and affordable education for all, and oversight and regulation of financial markets … and I want GM, for example, to stay in business and do well hiring many workers and supporting a supply chain.

And I 100% reject the charge that Obama and the rest of us who would identify as the mainstream of the current Democratic party have accomplished Dodd-Frank, the Lily Ledbetter Act, the Affordable Healthcare Act, new rules regarding overtime, have not accomplished actual real incremental progress (while dealing with effective obstructionism harms be damned) but are instead “doing the bidding of the rich.”

Is it a work in progress? Yes, this imperfect world always is.

To the issue of the op: I prefer unexciting workmanlike incremental progress to puffery and posturing. Those working on gradually building a bridge across the raging rapids get less Ooohs and Aaahs than the ones who jump in not knowing what will happen and then crack their skulls, but history has shown they end up getting more actual good done.

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I am not so certain. “Realists” just know that it won’t happen whether we want it or not so why waste the time and energy on it when the same time and energy could be spent on actually doing some good?