Sorry for two Sanders threads, but after two months my fevered mind has accepted Hillary’s inevitable flameout and the inability of the Republican Party to take this presidency thing seriously. So work with me on a hypothetical if you please.
In exchange, I’ll spare you the self-deprecating introduction and go right for the money: The last president we had who was “a good guy” was Jimmy Carter. As I understand it, his administration performed poorly, primarily because he surrounded himself with other “good guys” and straight up failed to move the congress he and his team alienated.
Sanders comes with a completely different toolkit, admittedly, and at 437 years old he’s not likely to be as naïve as Mr. Carter was. Mr. Obama has shown us that the best of a president’s ideas will wither on the vine if the congress can’t be compelled to at least behave reasonably. Mr. Sanders’ entire platform really serves the shit sandwich to, well, pretty much everyone in congress. So…
…Would a president Sanders start off with an alienated congress, and if so, how likely is he to be able to overcome that and get them on board with at least the majority of his platform? Is it perhaps the case that a “good guy” has no place in The Whitehouse, and instead we should hire a thug to fight thuggery?
Just off the top of my head I would say these two things:
As you note, Bernie is no noob when it comes to how Washington works. I would think he would be pretty skilled at using the power of the office to get things done, AND
For something as radical as a President Sanders to become reality there would very likely be a major change to the composition of Congress. I would expect his party to at least gain firm control of the Senate.
Whether Bernie can pull this off remains to be seen and I am not hopeful. But, if he is able to connect with a substantial portion of the blue-collar folks who routinely vote against their own best interest and convince them his type of socialism is a good thing for them and the country, well then all bets would be off.
Sanders and Carter are very different temperamentally. I don’t think that honesty was an issue for Carter, nor will it be for Sanders.
Interesting that you mention the platform though, because if Sanders was the nominee, the makeup of the 2016 Democratic platform would be a huge pre-convention battle between Sanders delegates and the Democratic establishment. That’s a great opportunity to alienate some longtime powerful Democrats. If Sanders did win the nomination, the platform would be his first test. Does he fight to make the party in his image, or as a new Democrat does he largely accept the Democratic platform preferred by the DNC?
Carter was the most underrated president in US history. If a president Sanders outperformed Carter, he would be most successful indeed.
The only people that give a rat’s ass about the platform are those in the opposition party, since they will be running against it. When was the last time you referenced the Democratic 2012 platform? Didn’t think so.
Sanders knows how things work and what is possible and what isn’t. What he would do that Obama couldn’t is use the bully pulpit to tell the citizens how the elites have been screwing them in the ass for generations and how to put a stop to it.
The point will be quite moot, since Sanders isn’t going to win. It will be Hillary or Biden with a hand on the Bible come 2017.
Oh God. Carter is underrated, in that he had some pretty nice domestic accomplishments. His deregulation push was awesome. But he completely failed as a leader, which is a core job of being President.
It’s very important to Bernie Sanders I’ll bet.
I wouldn’t be so sure anymore. If no one intervenes, Sanders just might pull it off. Clinton’s only attraction is her inevitability. Once that fades, she loses. Clinton does not do well in competitive elections.
It’s funny, because so many of the defense accomplishments credited to Reagan – building the MX missile, the B-2 bomber, the covert action to throw the Soviets out of Afghanistan – were Carter initiatives that were simply continued. Reagan’s initiatives – bringing back battleships and the B-1 bomber, and starting SDI – were basically flops and wastes of money. Yet Reagan is seen as the pro-defense president.
What I don’t get is the OP’s criticism that Carter didn’t handle Congress well. I can understand the criticism that Carter didn’t succeed in ending the Iran hostage crisis – ironically because the Iranian extremists hated Carter more than Reagan – and that under Carter the economy did very poorly, but to call relations with Congress out as Carter’s major failing? That’s weird.
I’m the first to agree I can be a bottomless font of ignorance on many matters, and although I will sometimes cry in private when this fact is ungently observed, I continue to post and ask because, well, I wanna be less ignernt and I don’t mind taking the occasional lump to get that way. So please, feel free to flesh out Carter for me. I am interested in differences between what I see as the only two reasonably honest presidents* in recent history.
With all deference to Mr. Obama, of course, but I still can’t quite decide whether or not I like him. He’s rubbing me as more of a rational politician than an up-front and honest guy.
Carter was an outsider who actually was an outsider. He did have domestic accomplishments, but his relationship with Congress was notoriously poor. Part of that is that in an age when Democrats felt pretty sure they’d never lose control of Congress, they just didn’t feel they needed the President, so to an extent Carter was simply living in the same reality his Democratic predecessors were. The upside to that is that back then Congress took its oversight responsibilities more seriously and didn’t consider itself to be tied to the President’s political fate. I think Congressional Democrats just assumed that no matter what happened to Carter, they’d still be around. Presidents came and went, but the committee heads were pretty close to eternal.
Carter’s honesty wasn’t a problem. It was a plus. His intelligence was also not a problem, it was another plus. What was a problem was his prickly personal nature, he was a moral scold, and his foreign policy was spineless. If he’d been honest, smart, and a better leader and persuader he would have been a great President.
Sanders is honest, he’s also smart(although I think Carter, Clinton, and Obama easily top him in intelligence), but he’s completely untested as a leader. Even as a legislative leader because he’s been outside the party structure. Is this a skill he can learn in his 70s? Unlikely. So Sanders could very well end up like Jimmy Carter, but it won’t be due to him being too honest, it will be because he doesn’t know how to lead.
He voted against Desert Storm, and faced with an aggressive Russia, his foreign policy would probably be just as weak and stupid as Mr. Peanut. He’s Jewish, so maybe he could do something similar to the Camp David accords. But probably not.
His economic policies would go nowhere, fortunately, so he would deal with the economy much as Carter did - essentially wring his hands and talk about how bad Americans are for having a regard for their own interests. He is against semi-automatic guns, so there is no chance for anything gun-control-related. The GOP will likely control the Senate, so he would have to nominate someone at least superficially rational for any Supreme Court vacancies. If he doesn’t know anyone like that, maybe he will pick another racist like Sotomayor and this time the nom will go down in flames.
He won’t be able to achieve anything - maybe his legacy will be to curb a GOP Congress from achieving anything either.
And due to his complete lack of management experience, the government’s functions will continue to degrade. Of course, this will be blamed on not enough money.
I think I remember reading on here that one of Carter’s biggest downfalls was that he examined each of the trees as a means to understand the forest: he was a micromanager in a CEO position, which is very difficult to pull off. It seems likely to me that a president Sanders would more likely take a top-down/delegate approach, but I could be wrong.
Also, Carter was a conservative, well to the right of Bernie Sanders.
While I’ll likely vote for Sanders in the primary, I have to reject the OP’s assumption that Clinton will inevitably flameout. I think it’s more likely than not that she will win the primary.
The Dems had a super-majority in both houses of Congress for the first two years of Carter’s term. That is not likely in 2016.
If a liberal like Obama can’t do what he wants because the GOP has him outnumbered in the Senate 41-59, I doubt a Sanders will be able to achieve what he wants.
(Bolding, mine)
The Carter Administration is 100% responsible for ending the hostage crisis - who do you think negotiated their release and the Algiers Accords? Warren Christopher and others in the State Dept worked their asses off Nov until Jan 19th to secure their release - Reagan had zip to do with it.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with this, there is a difference between Sanders and Obama. It appears that there are a non-trivial number of people who consider themselves conservatives who are supporting Sanders. I’ve run into some myself. Some of them insist that he’s not a liberal. Weird but true.
So it’s possible that Republican legislatures could face some pressure from their own base.
In the sense of “he lost the election”, yes. In the sense “had he been re-elected the hostages would have been freed”, no.
Maybe they support Sanders because he has no chance in the general election.
It is a truism of American Presidential politics that it is the more partisan people who vote in primaries, but general elections are won by moderates. Sanders is an extreme example of someone who would be subject to this drawback. (Trump is another).
Sort of a 21st century Sherman - if nominated, he will not win. If elected, he will not serve (to do anything).
Even if the Hillary campaign collapses under the weight of her irritable sense of entitlement, I cannot believe they will turn to Sanders. O’Malley, maybe, or even Biden. But nominating Sanders is the moral equivalent of taping a “Kick Me Hard” to your crotch. And every GOP voter and at least two thirds of undecideds would be glad to oblige in November 2016.