Robert Reich (Bernie’s Movement)

Bernie’s Movement

Saturday, January 23, 2016

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman yesterday warned Bernie supporters that change doesn’t happen with “transformative rhetoric” but with “political pragmatism” – “accepting half loaves as being better than none.” He writes that it’s dangerous to prefer “happy dreams (by which he means Bernie) to hard thinking about means and ends (meaning Hillary).”

Krugman doesn’t get it. I’ve been in and around Washington for almost fifty years, including a stint in the cabinet, and I’ve learned that real change happens only when a substantial share of the American public is mobilized, organized, energized, and determined to make it happen. 

Political “pragmatism” may require accepting “half loaves” – but the full loaf has to be large and bold enough in the first place to make the half loaf meaningful. That’s why the movement must aim high – toward a single-payer universal health, free public higher education, and busting up the biggest banks, for example. 

But not even a half loaf is possible unless or until we wrest back power from the executives of large corporations, Wall Street bankers, and billionaires who now control the whole bakery. Which means getting big money out of politics and severing the link between wealth and political power – the central goal of the movement Bernie is advancing.

Robert Reich (Bernie’s Movement)

The Supreme Court appointed DUHbya president. The decision was made by “justices” nominated by Republicans. We know Scalia is an absolute mad-dog and Thomas is his shadow. More Republican nominees joined the Supreme Court and they gave us Rich Bastards In Power (aka “Citizens” United). That was a hand grenade tossed into the lap of democracy. We cannot afford another — let alone 3 or 4 — conservative justice to piss on democracy for another generation. We MUST elect a Democrat president. We MUST increase our positions in both houses of Congress. WE MUST.

On this issue, I trust Hillary and Bernie equally. Hillary might be more judicious in her nominee, Bernie might have a better chance of success. I love the notion of nominating Obama.

Why Bernie Sanders’ Misinformed Supreme Court Tweet Matters | ThinkProgress

As a practical matter, any Democrat who wins the presidency in 2016 is unlikely to accomplish much in the legislature. A combination of gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, built in geographic advantages for Republicans and similar factors will make it extraordinarily difficult for Democrats to retake a majority in the House even if they win the White House. Indeed, in 2012, President Obama won the national popular vote by nearly 4 points, Democratic House candidates received nearly 1.4 million more votes than Republican candidates, yet Republicans began the 113th Congress with a 33 seat advantage in the House.

Yet, while control of the House of Representatives is unlikely to change in the 2016 election, control of the Supreme Court very well could be decided this November. When the next president takes office, three justices will be over 80 years-old, and Justice Stephen Breyer will be not that far behind at 78. Notably, two of the octogenarian justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, are Republicans that could potentially be replaced by a President Sanders.

Given the sheer number of vacancies likely to emerge in the next presidential term and the unlikeliness that at major legislation will move forward, the next president’s Supreme Court appointments will likely be their most important legacy — especially if that president replaces a justice appointed by a member of the other political party.

Why Bernie Sanders’ Misinformed Supreme Court Tweet Matters | ThinkProgress

I’m not an idealist or a zealot. I’ve share the frustrations of the last 8 years. We elected a smart, skilled, talented, charming African-American president in what looked like a revolutionary reaction to the dimwit DUHbya and his corrupt cronies. Having lost, they fought tooth and nail no matter how racist or foolish it appeared. Won’t Hillary or Bernie face the same stiff opposition. Sure. Does that mean we give up and vote for Trumpfft? SHIT NO. Bernie isn’t the beginning or end of a revolution. Instead, he could be a key step in a long series. So could Hillary. We know the Republicans will remain a goose-step backwards until they kill themselves. Why not push the pendulum, bend the reed, reach farther than you can grasp at the moment.

Bernie Sanders and the Realists – The New Yorker By John Cassidy

Sanders, as I understand him, isn’t claiming that his ambitious and costly program is realistic in today’s Washington. To the contrary, he says that the political system is so broken, and so in hock to big money, that it is virtually impossible to effect nearly any substantive progressive change. The only way to make big changes, Sanders argues, is to create a mass movement that faces down corporate interests and their quislings. Once this movement materializes, all sorts of things that now seem out of the question—such as true universal health care, free college tuition, and a much more progressive tax system—will become possible.

This, surely, is what Sanders means by the term “political revolution,” which he uses all the time. …

Sanders was careful to place his policy goals in the context of his larger narrative:

That’s what our campaign is about. It is thinking big. It is understanding that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we should have health care for every man, woman, and child as a right, that we should raise the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, that we have got to create millions of decent-paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. So, what my first days are about is bringing America together, to end the decline of the middle class, to tell the wealthiest people in this country that yes, they are going to start paying their fair share of taxes, and that we are going to have a government that works for all of us, and not just big campaign contributors. …

Of course, that goes back to the argument about realism, and the point that Sanders’s main goal is changing what it is considered possible. A more orthodox candidate might well indicate some flexibility at this point in his campaign, saying that his immediate priority as President would be raising the minimum wage, or providing free college tuition, or breaking up the banks, and relegating an ambitious health-care overhaul to the status of future goal. Sanders, however, didn’t get to where he is now by embracing political orthodoxy. He seems unlikely to change tack.

Bernie Sanders and the Realists – The New Yorker