The president will not have a cooperative congress, and pretty much no legislation will get passed. Isn’t there a risk that if Sanders runs and wins people will think ‘we elected a progressive president and nothing was accomplished. Why bother again?’
Unless you have a progressive president, the house and a senate that is willing to change the filibuster rules and wants to enact progressive legislation it seems like nothing will be done. And I’m 99% sure the democrats in congress don’t want to actually enact any progressive legislation.
A truly progressive, democratic socialist candidate is rare. This wouldn’t just be another democrat president. It’d be like if libertarians elected Ron Paul as president and he accomplished nothing. It would set their movement back.
You miss my point. What you predict could happen to Sanders has already happened to Congress; conservatives can ask themselves right now "we elected a [del]progressive president[/del] conservative Congress and nothing was accomplished. Why bother again?’
And has it hurt them? A bit, but only indirectly. The true believers have moved further to the right, believing that the problem with the current Congress is that it’s not conservative enough. Things have fractured, and a few have defected when the rightward shift got too extreme, but many of those who have stayed have redoubled their efforts.
My point is that a conservative congress is not something new. Conservatives controlled congress from 1994-2006, then they took congress back in 2010. By comparison, we haven’t had a progressive president since LBJ.
I’m not sure why that would matter. Do you believe that conservatives are stubborn and that they’ll continue to do something despite its demonstrated futility, but that liberals will take one shot and then give up?
A progressive President that can’t get legislation passed shouldn’t do any damage at all to the progressive movement. What will damage the progressive movement is a government that continues to fall into dysfunction and waste and corruption. Progressives should be asking Sanders what he’ll do to make government work better for Americans as President, in the absence of new legislation. As boosters of government, progressives’ fortunes will rise and fall based on the performance of that government.
You may be right BUT, as I mentioned elsewhere on the boards (I honestly don’t recall where), if something as unlikely happened as Bernie getting elected I would imagine there would be a related shift in the make up of Congress. Whether he was able to put through a total democratic-socialist agenda, there would be a serious realignment of priorities that would line up with a lot of the progressive agenda. Bernie has been in Congress for 24 years, most of it in the House. I suspect he has a good idea how to build consensus and get things done.
That’s not part of his record, sorry. Bernie has been a lone wolf who has joined coalitions to pass legislation, but has rarely if ever led them.
Secondly, the attraction to Sanders is based primarily on his honesty and sincerity, and the fans of his ideology are probably not huge fans of the Democratic Party, although they probably vote Democrat. Sanders is unlikely to bring Democrats into Congress with him.
What Sanders would end up doing at the top of the ticket is causing primary challenges all over the place. Think the Democratic version of Barry Goldwater. You’d see big convention spats over the platform and in the summer you’d see all kinds of Tea Party-like primary challengers popping up to challenge established Democrats.
And possibly winning in large enough numbers to influence legislation, just like the Tea Party has.
Look, I highly doubt Bernie will get the nomination, but IF he did and IF he won, I don’t think it unreasonable to say that would indicate a significant shift to the left in the political climate. That alone would help him get legislation passed that would bring significant gains for progressives.
I don’t know that that’s necessarily the way it would shake out. Sanders isn’t just a lefty candidate. He’s also independent, honest, and never afraid to take a stand. Even Terr likes him.
But you are right about more progressives in Congress being a possiblity. But yes, it would be more like the Tea Party, an angry minority, probably causing a lot of trouble. Although on some issues the Tea Party and progressives would find common cause, such as on killing corporate welfare programs.
That’s a* good *thing. And it dovetails with the concerns of ethnic minorities that many Democratic politicians aren’t really on their side, but sort of coasting.
I want to see the “centrist” Democrats challenged both from the economic left and the racial justice left. Democratic pols need voters, and they will have to respond to movements in the electorate, just as the GOP have responded to the anti-birth-control, anti-firearm-regulation, and anti-visa movements.
It won’t be the centrists that get challenged. It’ll be more like Cindy Sheehan vs. Nancy Pelosi type races. Only with the Sheehan types having a chance to actually win.
I can’t speak for Wesley Clark, but isn’t this what happened in 1994 and 2010? Liberals became disillusioned rather quickly after the victories in 1992 and 2008, they stayed home in 1994 and 2010 and as a result suffered landslide defeats in those midterms.
I doubt it. Do people think that because Obama hasn’t been able to accomplish much in his second term that means they shouldn’t vote for Democrats anymore?? Or, put another way, who do the people blame for the lack of political movement right now? Do they blame Obama, do they blame Congress, or do they blame the Republicans/Democrats in general?
Also, I think that if Sanders were to actually get elected, something I believe is extremely unlikely, it would mean a substantial shift in the US voting public…and that would probably mean that Congressional Democrats, at least, would have to take notice and at least pay lip service to. It also might mean an equal shift in the next mid-term elections.
But if Bernie won they would have to take notice. You can’t posit someone like Sanders winning and not the radical shift in the voting public that this would entail. Congressional Democrats would HAVE to be seen supporting the president.
Of course, to my mind the absolute worst thing that could happen to the Democrats would be for Sanders to get elected AND to be able to push through the kinds of programs he seems to want to push through. I think the best outcome you could hope for is the if Sanders gets elected you get a stubborn Republican faction fighting tooth and nail and not allowing anything to get passed, since you could point to the Republicans as being the ones holding things back…just like the Dems are doing right now with the current Republicans in Congress and Obama.
Factual question: how practicable is that distinction? I get the impression, as a foreigner in a different political/governmental system, that there is more legislative intervention/interference in administration in the US. Things that, in this country, would be done by an MP raising an issue with the officials and ministers concerned, and them acting (or not) to deal with it administratively or by secondary legislation, seem often, in the US, to be dealt with as a matter for legislative initiatives by the legislators anyway. So how much room to manoeuvre would a President have without Congress passing laws to say s/he can’t do this or that?
In the US, the executive power lies in one person. There are limits by law, but the President is in charge of all of the government’s executive functions. So if the VA has secret waiting lists and is failing to serve the veteran population, it’s up to the President to fire people, change procedures, that kind of thing. Now if he needs more money, then he has to go to Congress.