Mostly because there’s zero chance that Sanders will be the candidate.
Paul Krugman argued today that single-payer is not even a possible outcome in the political world of the near-future. I’m inclined to agree.
Hillary is campaigning as a “centrist” and firmly rejecting “radical” solutions is a heaven-sent opportunity. At the same time, many of us are suspicious of her previous history of business-friendly, Republican Lite “centrism”. Feh! as they say in Lubbock.
We can view the Sanders campaign as part of a conversation, a way to get some kind of fix on just exactly how progressive she is. Or, at least, wants us to think she is. While at the same time reassuring tighty rightys that she really isn’t.
For my vote, it hardly matters, as there is little if any chance that the Republicans will put up a candidate that I wouldn’t crawl, hands and knees, over a hundred yards of broken glass to vote against.
Last night’s debate only underscores for me the feeling that Sanders and Clinton don’t actually differ all that much on their policy views. They mostly differ on their view of political tactics.
Clinton thinks that the way anything gets done in D.C. is by slow grinding battles for marginal change, where the goal is to navigate powerful institutions and entrenched interests to accomplish the few things are are politically feasible. She does not believe the power dynamics in DC can be fundamentally altered by a President or a presidential campaign.
Sanders thinks that little of this marginal stuff is worth doing, and that a political revolution is possible that would fundamentally change the power dynamics in DC, making things like universal healthcare politically possible.
Those are real differences. The policy differences, by contrast, are mostly just political attempts to sell nearly identical policies to different audiences. As depressing as it is, I think Clinton is probably right that political revolution through a presidential campaign is not possible. For now, our best bet is to appoint some better Supreme Court justices over the next 8 years and keep bending the arc of justice in the right direction.
This right here was the biggest sign of weakness that came out of Bernie. And he has a tendency to latch onto the same talking points without going into the how and why we need to chart a different course. When someone brought up the failure of single payer in Vermont, his answer of ask the governor is not persuasive to a general audience. Left alone it suggests there are issues implementing such a system based off where we are.
There probably are answers to such a thing, for example, Vermont is a tiny state and much like small towns looking to get better internet service from large ISPs they can be more easily ignored and told to pound sand. The real argument might be that you need the entire system to change so that the prospect of losing the ENTIRE NATIONS revenue from drugs and inflated fees vs just Vermont has to be weighed. If it’s just Vermont alone, they have the collective bargaining power of 2 homeless dudes in a tent.
None of these potential counters were raised. It reminded me of when Bernie appeared on Bill Maher and Bill was trying to get Bernie to better articulate socialism, to point out that contrary to popular belief, Americans ALREADY accept and approve of socialist style programs in our mixed economy. He needs to stop JUST saying we need to become more socialist, we know Bernie wants healthcare for all
But he has to persuade the people who are persuadable that project is feasible and preferable.Look at this article from a couple years ago, and read some of the comments:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-30/single-payer-would-make-health-care-worse#comment-2459001531
You can’t win the argument by just spouting out rainbows of covering everyone and making rich people pay more. We have to do better than that and I don’t think Bernie is up to the task.
And even liberal Ezra Klein takes issues with the lack of substance from Bernie
That’s the nature of Progressivism in America. We never get all that we want, we never get it soon enough, and we have to fight like the Dickens to keep what we do get.
“Fred, how come you keep playing in this poker game? The cards are marked, the dealer cheats, and the deck is stacked!”
“Its the only game in town.”
I don’t think there’s “zero” chance that Sanders will be the nominee – as I used to think – but even in this crazy election cycle with unusual dynamics on both sides I think the odds are really low. As others have said, his main utility is in steering the conversation rather than being a genuinely viable candidate in his own right. But stranger things have happened.
On single-payer, though, I totally agree with Krugman. That’s one of the most depressing opinion pieces I’ve read in a while, not because it’s wrong, but because it’s so true. He nails the three reasons single-payer can’t happen in any foreseeable future: the enormous entrenched power of the insurance industry, the blind ideological opposition to taxes even when those taxes clearly and demonstrably save everyone money, and the opposition of a minority who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they already have good coverage and who will resist change.
The most hopeful thing I can imagine is that some progressive administration will be able to introduce a public option on the exchanges. Widespread subscription to a well-implemented and successful public option might demonstrate the viability of the single-payer principle in a politically realistic way, which of course is what the private insurers fear and why they so ruthlessly fought it when it was first proposed.
If you watch both the GOP and Democratic debates, it doesn’t sound like they are campaigning to be the leader of the same country.
Even more depressing is that Clinton will be subject to months of vilification as a “socialist” despite the clear difference between her and Sanders. An avowed socialist? Try to imagine what would ensue - although don’t do it soon after eating.
To be honest, it might just take that issue off the table.
Trump: “Sanders is a socialist.”
Sanders: “Yep. Here’s why that’s better: …”
What’s the point of throwing around the s-word if your opponent accepts it so eagerly?
Anyway - just watched the debate. I actually went into it thinking, “Unlike the Republican debates, I actually have to make a choice between these guys eventually, so I really ought to listen.” And I came out thinking I’ll vote Clinton all the way. A lot of my thinking was discussed upthread, but there was one other thing that kept coming up during the debate: campaign finance reform.
Now I support campaign finance reform. I think our campaigns are excessively corrupt, and that the effects are pernicious. The difference between Sanders and me is that Sanders seems to believe that it would be a magic bullet: reform campaign laws and the floodgates to a more progressive future will open. This won’t happen. The American people are still way too tax averse to be able to swing the pendulum very far on progressive issues that involve spending: furthering the reduction in poverty, universal pre-K, reinvestment in infrastructure, etc. The main blocker isn’t right-wing billionaires devoting their cash to campaigns; the main blocker is that Americans aren’t convinced that paying for these things is worthwhile. The battle going forward is arguing, educating, moving the Overton window, and fighting in the trenches. Campaign finance reform is a small piece of a huge war. I don’t think Sanders sees it that way.
At bottom, I think that campaign finance reform will, indeed, add more juice for us lefties. But that isn’t the point. Money talks, well, shit, too bad. Money votes? No, no, hell no! If tamping down the power of money in our politics led to a more conservative government, then so be it! Right is right, even if it means we lose.
Course, you might question my sincerity on the grounds that I don’t believe that would happen. You would have a point. But behold! My big brown innocent eyes! “Trust me”, as they say in California…
I’m not sure what you’re saying here.
My point is that the Democratic Party has a great opportunity to show up the Republicans as a party of arm-wavers who don’t know shit and shouldn’t be taken seriously. The way to do this is match the GOP debate-for-debate, so that there’s plenty of opportunity for people to compare the two parties. I’m not sure what minutes per candidate has to do with that.
How?? They’re already starting right after the previous midterm elections. Did that change when they moved the Iowa caucuses back from the beginning of January to the beginning of February? No, it didn’t. It just added a month to the eternity of shadowboxing before the first actual vote.
If the Iowa caucuses had been in October and the NH primary had been in November, do you really think it would have caused candidates to say, “now we’ve got to start running for President before the 2014 midterms”? I really doubt it: I think the midterms are a firewall that would be hard to breach, because you’ve got a whole 'nother campaign going on up to that point.
It always surprises me a little when I go out of my way to defuse an anticipated argument in advance, and then someone shows up to make the anticipated argument anyway.
I don’t think it’s a magic bullet, but I think the big piece that people overlook is the effect of massive spending on races for state legislature, judgeships, and the like. Twenty years ago, a candidate for state legislature might raise and spend in the low five figures for his race. A candidate’s ability to raise money through normal channels hasn’t drastically increased during that time, but if big businesses want to swamp the race with 10x or 20x the money that can be raised by a candidate they want to beat, they can do that. And with gridlock at the Federal level, politics at the state level is more important all the time.
The other problem is that while you can stop corporations from flooding the zone with campaign money, individuals have a constitutional right to do so.
I had no idea it was even going on. Oh, well.
I hear Sanders did well, and O’Malley is still trying to introduce himself?