I ask this question because he is a socialist. Not a democrat or a republican. Like Trump he didnt have years of networking within his party. He also would have beaten a democratic establishment person (Clinton).
Do you think he would have had the support of democrats? Would he even have had a chance with Republicans.
What do the House and Senate look like in this example? Majority Democrat?
Of course he wouldn’t have any chance with the Republicans.
Probably a little better than Obama, overall. Nobody would be questioning whether Bernie is an American.
However, I would guess that his Administration would still be somewhat of a mess. On a scale of 1-10, where Obama was probably in the range of 3, and Trump is in the range of 23, I would guess Bernie probably would be in the 6 or 7 area.
As a distraction. Sanders has been in Congress for decades, and achieved almost nothing in advancing his economic ideas (thank God). I doubt he would do any better as President.
If he had actually been elected, it would depend on whether it was a fluke (like Trump) or part of a wave of progressives. Even if he were part of a wave, his huge tax increases and even huger spending increases would be a tough sell, if anyone in Congress had even a glimmer of sense. The analyses I read of his proposals were that they would increase the national debt by $18T over the next decade, cost six million jobs, and cut after-tax income for all income levels, including the bottom ten percent.
Also, Sanders is Jewish, and core Democratic constituencies like blacks have unpleasantly high levels of anti-Semitic attitudes, so it is possible he might encounter that.
I would say he would be treated about as well as he deserves, for good and for bad reasons.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - I fixed a typo in the title, but I am not claiming it as a quote.
America would not be the laughingstock of the world.
America would not be Russia’s bitch.
The integrity of the FBI and Justice Dept. would not be under assault.
Freedom of the press would not be under assault.
Health care reform under Bernie would improve coverage rather than taking it away.
No chance with Republicans…if anything, they would have been even more opposed than they were under Obama, since they would see Bernie as using what Obama did as a starting point to springboard in a lot more left wing/progressive reforms. They would have dug in their heels and basically refused to do anything…a continuation of their Obama era strategy…while undercutting the President at every turn and every chance they had. Not only that, what we are seeing with Trump I think would have been happening with Bernie, just from the other side. The Republicans would be digging around, trying to find anything to pin on Bernie or the Democrats, would have been continuing their seemingly endless rail against Clinton…and you’d have Trump in the mix anyway, saying the election was rigged and making a big stink. I actually think this is what Trump et al was planning, and they were more than mildly surprised that they won (it seemed to me anyway that they were caught a bit flat-footed when it turned out they won).
On the Democrat side, I guess it depends on what Bernie would push for first. With the current makeup of the house and senate, I don’t think the Dems have the votes to just bull anything more through, and I’m not sure that the things Bernie would push for would even carry all of the Dems. So, I think what would happen is a lot of nothing…Obamacare would have solidified and there wouldn’t have been a rollback of Obama era programs or initiatives, which is probably the best thing one could say about a Bernie president (if you think those were good things). I’m not sure about the TPP…Bernie was opposed, so we might have been in the same boat there as with Trump. Depending on how ineffectual Bernie looked like and how the Dems were perceived would depend on the mid-term elections and whether the makeup of the house and senate would shift enough that Bernie could, in theory at least, have gotten something done (I have my doubts it could change enough for him to accomplish much of anything he was talking about in his first term).
My WAG is he’d be Carter…but then, that’s what I thought Trump would be, and that didn’t work out, so who knows?
Democratic socialist. Big difference.
Pretty much what XT said. I expect you’d see a number of angry-old-man speeches about Congress continuing its decades-long obstruction and no real progress, but at least he wouldn’t allow the active undercutting of Obamacare.
I expect Bernie would have had a very rocky start to his presidency. I will assume that a Sanders win would have pushed the Senate into a very slight Democratic control, perhaps 50/50 with his VP pushing control to Democrats.
I think Sanders would have suffered a few early defeats. I think he would have tried for a very unconventional Supreme Court justice that would have been defeated (or withdrawn). I also think Sanders would have appointed some controversial cabinet members that might not have made it through Senate confirmation.
I think you’d have to look at it from the outside.
The entire right-wing mediasphere would be taking every thing Sanders does, says, wears, eats, drinks, or watches as evidence of socialism destroying American values. No evangelists would be forgiving any mistakes he might make or have made, no businesses would be saying that his policies were responsible for new jobs. There would be a huge rise in anti-Semitism. And anti-New Yorkerism, just because of his accent. And anti any group he would be seen to favor, with favor defined as not demonized. Contrarily, any place he went, any person he met with, any cause he praised would be demonized. The Republican Party would be uniting in opposition and raking in gigantic amounts of money from mass mailings, which they’d use to increase the number of winning races in local seats. Nazis would be marching publicly. Oh, wait.
I voted for him. I think he had a better chance to win if nominated than Hillary(-and-Bill) Clinton. I would have supported him. If he weren’t just too freaking old now, I’d still support him in 2020. And I also think that he would have had a really hard time.
The same people who suddenly decided that Obama was too foreign and that was a big deal would have found some kind of previously obscure reason to call Bernie un-American. If “socialist” wasn’t enough, they might go after his religion, or lack thereof–or even complain about his parents being immigrants.
After decades in public life, Bernie himself seems pretty reasonable, but his staff would be a little unconventional. He would draw in a lot of people who are on the outside–kooks. He was way outside the Democratic Party’s mainstream. I don’t know if the centrists would actually refuse to work with him, but if they did, that would exacerbate the problem.
It would be a nightmare. Idealistic lefty outsiders, suddenly in power unprepared for them and for which they would be unprepared, would have problems comparable to what SYRIZA has gone through in Greece–if a bit milder than what the Trump administration’s gang of fakers and gangsters are going through. And he’d have the rage at his outsiderness and perceived radicalism that Obama had.
So, the performance of the administration’s senior staff would probably be a little better than Trump’s administration overall, on balance. But the gnashing of teeth would be–well, concentrated in different quarters, but maybe not* much* worse than what we have now. (Because what we have now is state-sanctioned violence against immigrants, a criminal gang in the White House, and the specter of possible civil war if not foreign war.) So, it would be very difficult.