Month: April 2016

In publishing the last blog, in which I attempted to argue that supporting Bernie Sanders at this point would likely cost us democrats the elections, I encountered considerable push back from supporters of Senator Sanders. Some of it was more worthy of a Red State debate (“Another idiotic statement from a S’Hillary supporter”), but much was well reasoned, fair and articulate. The primary criticism was that my concern that Bernie’s self labelled “socialism” would not engender the phobia I fear. Or, rather, that it would only do so among a few ‘uneducated people’, and that I had better educate myself about “democratic socialism” before I am mistaken for a Trump supporter!

Okay, perhaps a fair point. Rather than concede the point, however, or “walk it back”, I would like to reframe the concern.

It is true that “democratic socialism” takes pain to differentiate itself from the traditional “Socialism – writ large” to which I alluded as the potential rallying cry of the far right. Centrally state controlled, so called Marxist Leninist socialism, socialism with government coercion, socialism which we associate with USSR, China, Korea and Venezuela is not what is meant by democratic socialism. I doubt that the attack ads will take the pains to make the distinction, but that, I concede, shouldn’t make us quail at the mere label.

What, then, is “democratic socialism” and would it be a likely target? I confess the accused ignorance, since before Sander’s candidacy I was not familiar with the term. Does it envision, as I believe most Americans really would oppose, government takeover of private industry and property? Or is it more like Sweden, a free market economy with a strong safety net? I guess it depends on whom you ask. Wikipedia defines democratic socialism as existing within a democratic state, but does define it as public ownership and control of the means of production. In this country that would mean public “assumption” (take-over might be seen as too pejorative a word) of private industry. The Democratic Socialists of America softens that view somewhat, saying that most commercial and consumer oriented business would not need to be publicly owned and democratically controlled (I guess Mom and Pop can heave a sigh of relief!), but that in a large society as ours energy and large industry would need to be placed under public control. Still democratic, but envisions “worker cooperatives” owning the major industries.

So, is Bernie really a democratic socialist? Many don’t think so, and argue that his positions are really more like the European social democratic societies, where there is no question of the elimination of private property, but multiple public services such as health, transportation and education are publicly owned and universally available. That is, I believe, to all of us a much more palatable position.

Why then does Sanders not publicly and unequivocally state that this is the kind of “socialism” he means, by definition not really socialism at all! Noam Chomsky says he is not at all a socialist, really more a New Dealer! So, here is my “walk back”, or more properly, my reframing of the argument I made in the first blog, namely that the onslaught of negative advertising “tarring” him with the sobriquet of “socialist” and tying it to Marxist socialism would make him unelectable. It is probably fair to say that if Bernie clearly defined what he means by democratic socialism, clearly and consistently drew the distinction between that and the more coercive centrally planned socialism with which we often associate the word, and, most importantly clearly and consistently affirmed that he did not intend to go for a public assumption of private industry, then those attempts to brand and label him, as insistent as they certainly will be, would have minimal effect to the majority of people who might consider voting for him. I will grant this reframed point to those of you have insistently and articulately accused me of “socialiso-phobia”.

I will then continue to assert that the fact that Bernie has not made that distinction, and that he has continued to vilify big business, wall streets and billionaires (does he include Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Case and Mark Zuckerberg in that lot) makes him an unnecessarily polarizing figure at at time when we need someone to reconcile and find common ground. The right has shifted to the right. If the left shifts to the left, then what kind of victory can either side have? One in which slightly less than half the country (namely the losing side in the coming election) hates the other, thinks them completely alien to their own value systems? Haven’t we had enough of that?

The last 7 years have shown us what systematic ideologues can do in a government which was designed to reach consensus. And the only reason we aren’t essentially in total standstill is that eventually the ideologues are outvoted by those who really do want to do something practical. For me, many of the things which are so often brought up as criticisms of Hillary are, at least in my mind, points in her favor. She speaks to Wall Street? Great, do you really want a President who won’t? She has worked with Republicans. Great, should we have an ideologue who prefers demonization to dialogue? Haven’t we had enough of that from the other side?

In future blogs I will explore in more depth than I am able to at present the factors leading to the vast income inequality which has grown over the last 33 years (since early Reagan). That will require some research and some reflection, it would better serve the dialogue to argue from principle and fact than personality and passion, at least I believe.

Several people responded to the blog by asking why I would support Clinton (I guess they had never met a Clinton supporter?!). I will refer them for the moment to her record on most of the issues important to us all.

Thank those of you who responded to these very early attempts to articulate my concerns, both to those who took the time to ask important direct questions and even those who, in my mind, responded ….from the heart, shall we say.

I think, I hope, there is room for more dialogue. Again, I continue to believe that those goals which all democrats seek, fair and more progressive life for each individual in this country is far more likely to come to us when we field someone who looks for consensus, dialogue, diplomacy and common ground, and if that is your shared goal, then I think the choice will be clearer.

Republican party establishment are currently rallying against Donald Trump partially because they are convinced he would not win in a general election, but would instead bring their party to a much larger defeat. They also appear to believe, as do most of the rest of us, that if by some mishap he were to win, he would be a poor choice as a president and would take the country in a bad direction.

I suspect many imagine that those of us on the Democratic side have an opposite view of our current dilemma, namely that many of us think that while Bernie Sanders might have challenges in a general election, if elected he would make a great president, and take the country in a good direction.

I will argue that this view is not correct. Bernie Sanders, lovable though he may be, and noble his intentions, would have no chance against anyone (but Trump), in a general election, and if elected he would, I will argue, be exactly the wrong president, and would bring the country in a bad direction. I will assert that our best chance as a nation, and our only chance as Democrats, is to unite behind Hillary Clinton. She, and only she, can both win a general election, and lead the country forward, and I will plead, that before it is too late, Democrats, and then we as a nation, embrace this obvious best choice.

I base my assertion and plea on the following arguments:

1) Our country is polarized as never before, and this polarization, a house ‘divided against itself’, cannot profit from further division and polarization. Only through coming together to find some common ground can we move forward.

2) The Republican party and super PACs will not run against sensible, lovable, honest to a fault Bernie Sanders. They will run (and already are doing it) against (in large, blood soaked Gothic letters) – “SOCIALISM” -(imagine a dreadful augmented chord in the back ground!). Socialism is not a good political-social-economic system, has never worked for an extended period of time, and would not work in our country. The countries which Bernie supporters tout as ‘socialist’ are, in fact, not. They are capitalist democracies with large social safety nets. Sweden, for example, has twice as many billionaires per capita as does the USA, and both Canada and Finland have 60% as many. A strong democracy with an active private sector, but one which, like Sweden, Norway, Finland or Canada fosters a solid public sector service and safety net, is exactly what a strong centrist / progressive like Hillary Clinton would have the best chance of developing.

3) The “billionaire class”, whom Bernie dines out by relentlessly attacking, would not be served by committing whole fortunes to oppose a reasonable centrist democrat. The funds against Clinton (I) and Obama measured in the hundreds of millions, not billions, after all. Against their sworn enemy, vowing to shear them to the skin, the “billionaire” class (including a few hundreds of millionaires) would be motivated, and understandably so, to pour literally billions, if not tens of billions, into defeating the democratic ticket, if for no other reason than as a simple business investment. Hard to run against tens of billions of dollars of negative advertising.

4) Poetic and lofty as Bernie’s ideals are, when directly asked he has rarely come up with a plan with any possibility of coming into being for doing any of the things he promises and recent interviews, for example this weeks to a New York paper, suggest that he has not carefully considered the practicalities of his plans.

For these reasons, I will argue, Bernie Sanders is not only nearly impossible to elect, but would not be an effective president, would not lead the country in the right direction for this present time. I hope that readers will allow my effort to argue these assertions. I believe I can do so concisely, and that they will support my plea for support for Hillary Clinton.

I) The polarization of the nation will not benefit from further extremism on the two ends of the spectrum

The phrase which propelled President Obama into national attention was that “we are not red states and blue states, but the United States of America”. Would that this fantasy could have had a chance of succeeding. Of course we blame the right, those rabid Republicans who pledged, virtually from day one, to oppose any agenda the president set forth. And, true, many in the right wing party elite were dead set against any expansion of the government’s role as promulgating the general welfare, especially one which use private funds to do so. However, the President’s approval rating, still quite high in the aftermath of the inauguration, started to plummet, and give rise to a the whole galvanized obstructionist tea party movement, after he was successful in pushing through the Affordable Care Act. Now this coalescence of antipathy was not because “Obamacare” is a bad bill. It is, in fact, a relatively moderate series of compromises, considering what Progressives would have prepared. But it was labelled by its opponents as ‘Socialized Medicine’ , it was predicated on increasing (albeit still very limited) control of a very large industry, and the very image of it as a left wing social socialism- like government encroachment on private enterprise has served as a rallying cry for almost a decade, even though it works – well – better than what we had before, at least for the millions of newly insured.

The debacle of this roll out, the clear and relentless move to the right it started and has continued (loss first of the House, then the Senate, the rise of fairly extremist candidates to prominence) was, in my view, clearly not predicated not on the merits of the bill. The fury raided against it came from the ability of its detractors to label it as an imposition from the left – as Government “socialism”. Never mind Medicare, image is reality, and this time, the image was painted as left wing and intrusive, far out of proportion to its real merits.

Retrospect is 20/20, of course but some of us wish that a move toward the provision of wider access to quality and affordable health care had been framed and presented in such a way as to enjoin support from all sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps it could have done that, presented and rolled out in a less polarized way. I am glad we have the ACA, It is possible that it could have come about no other way, but in some ways it was a Pyrrhic victory, one which cost much to attain. In looking for other clear social needs, such as broader access to higher quality education, for example, or a more livable wage, it would seem, given the history, that the path to achieving those goals better lies through the hard work of building consensus and common cause, rather than waving another Red Flag (pun intended) in front of a still snorting bull ( analogy to the right wing not, necessarily, intended).

Put bluntly, in an already far too divided nation, in a house far too divided against itself to long stand, it is incumbent on us to find leaders who can show us our common identity, not make us feel even more estranged from each other.

II) The GOP and its surrogates will run, not against Bernie Sanders, but against “SOCIALISM”. Socialism is public, i.e., government ownership of the means of production, but it connotes far more darkly to many Americans.

Those of us old enough will remember that, in some measure, George H.W. Bush did not run against Michael Dukakis. He ran against Willie Horton. And soundly defeated him. Now, I know that is not telling the whole truth, and, in many ways, George HW Bush turned out to be a decent man and a strong president, although I do not agree with his politics. I do not mean in any way to disparage his legacy, as I doubt he even conceived of that very nasty yet very effective campaign tactic. The fact remains though, that the model of providing an easily crushable abstract target, when the real candidate is not so easily dismissed, is a tried and true, and effective practice.

Bernie Sanders is lovable. He is funny. He is honest. In many ways he makes a lot of sense. He is unquestionably a very decent human being. Probably the ‘nicest guy’ in the race (‘guy’ generic). His fans can’t get enough of him!

How about Stalin? Is he as nice? How about Mao? Kim Jong-Un? All heads of Socialist States. U.S.S.R means, remember, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea describes itself as a “Socialist State”. Hugo Chavez pushed a leading western economy into misery with his United Socialist Party. (In the name of decency I will not expand or translate the initials NSDAP) It seems to this observer clear that when the Republican Political machine decides to attack Bernie (as they are not doing now, praying he will be the nominee) they will not go after nice honest guy Bernie Sanders. They will run against Socialism writ large, with its historical record of tyranny, oppression, poverty and failure. USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela, they will not fair well under a withering right wing onslaught. They weren’t (aren’t) the kinds of places Americans would like to live.

But wait, you scream, what about Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden?

Every one of those countries has a thriving democratic capitalist economy. Sweden? AstraZeneca, Electrolux, Ericsson, H&M, Ikea, Skype, Solvatten, Spotify… Finland? Nokia Oyj,(12 billion Euros per year), Neste Oyj, 11 Billion), UPM-Kymmene Oyj (10 Billion) there are 57 private industries in Finland with yearly revenue great than a billion Euros (in a country of 5 million people). Norway has 20 companies with yearly turnover of greater than 25 billion. Canada….but let’s stop. Point, I hope, made, but if not clear, let me make it clearer:

Socialist countries have, in many instances, and at least are popularly perceived as , tyrannical miserable failures. Conservative press is already virtually tying Bernie Sanders to those debacle, and he hasn’t even won the nomination yet! We don’t like “socialist” countries.They don’t tend to run well. Those countries which Progressive point to as “socialist” are not socialist, they are thriving world class capitalist democracies which have enough of a social conscience to provide strong safety nets, and provide public services in the way of health and education, something which we should, no question do.

But Ted Cruz’s super PACs are not going to run against social conscience in a capitalist democracy. They are not going to run against nice compassionate, funny honest Bernie Sanders. They are going to run against Soviet, Chinese, Korean, Cuban, Venezuelan “Socialism”.

How to express what “socialism”, the word, will mean to many of the American people? Well, to be fair, it is not about totalitarianism although, as argued above, it will be represented that way. But it is about redistribution, and to a degree which most might find troubling. Let us take those students in elite universities who are so vocal in their support for Bernie. Shall we tell 9, or 8,or even 6 out of every ten students, say, in the Ivy Leagues and the major universities in each state that we are going to ‘redistribute” their education by trading them for students in small local community colleges and trade schools? Isn’t that socialism? Well, maybe not. But that is what it feels like to many. The attacks from the right wing will not trouble themselves too much on the exact details of economic theory. They will make sure everyone sees this election as leading us toward….pick your own scary image…”SOCIALISM” (sound that weird augmented chord again…)

Dirty trick? You bet. But it will win. And they will have plenty of funds to do so, because…

III) The “Billionaire Class”, when put on notice that they are to be Public Enemy #1, will spend, well, billions to protect their interests.

Wouldn’t you? What would you spend to avoid losing, say, half, or three quarters of your net worth?

There are, according to Forbes, 540 US billionaires, whose average wealth is about 5.8 billion dollars. Let’s say that, under assault by Bernie Sanders, who has clearly identified them by class as the primary target, ten percent of them decide to band together and invest ten percent of their wealth to protect themselves. A conservative assumption, 10% spending 10%. That would mean 54 people spending 580 million a piece, which would provide a modest war chest for the Republicans of, oh, say, 31 Billions dollars. Now, that is only some 30 times more than President Obama had to fund his campaign, still it is not a trifle to surmount.

IV) Bernie Sanders rhetoric is not backed up by cogent coherent plans.

What would it take to make a massive reorganization of the tax code? Well, for one thing it would take a clear majority in both the House and the Senate, in the Senate a supermajority of greater than 60 seats. That is not inconceivable in the senate, it would require a net seventeen of the 34 seats up for election to switch from Republican to Democratic hands. Of course that is more than any election in the last eighty years, and half again as many as the next highest, which was over sixty years ago. It is possible, but is it likely? Is it likely that 60 senators would be both democratic and feel sufficiently isolated from the “corrupt money politics” which Bernie decries to vote for a truly revolutionary change in the tax codes? And, what if, but some miracle (and it would require a miracle) they did?

Does Bernie have a coherent plan? All of Bernie’s platforms sound pretty cool on the surface, and some of them, the one’s shared by Hillary Clinton, are quite excellent. Rebuilding our infrastructure. Great. Should have been the key of Obama’s program, I agree. Reversing climate change. Raising minimum wage. But, then, let’s see. “Taking on Wall Street”. What does that mean, exactly? When asked in a recent NY Daily News interview exactly what he meant by breaking up the banks which were too big to fail, he several times admitted it was “something I have not studied”. I will leave it to the individual to judge whether the impression that he was clearly out of his depth in discussing the details, methods and approaches to the financial institutions, and these is his main theme. Again, not saying he is not well meaning, but it is hard, based on the times he is pressed to provide details, not to wonder if he sometimes isn’t, as as been suggested, thinking with his heart more than his head. Lovable, yes. Dependable in these time? Hmm. Worth risking against Ted Cruz or John Kasich. Or Paul Ryan, Or Mitt Romney (Trump is not going to be the nominee, by the way….news flash…that train seems to have left….)

Bernie Sanders is clearly a caring, funny, personable, impeccably honest, fair minded guy, one who cares about and has fought for the down trodden. He is full of integrity. One cannot criticize his character on iota. This is by no means a personal attack. I believe his running as far as he has as served our country well. But now it is the time to get real.

In the current divided, divisive and adversarial climate, the way he describes himself and his opponents is polarizing and incendiary. His candidacy would be a target and a rallying point for a massive campaign, not against his niceness, which is laudable, but against Socialism, which is not. And that campaign would be massively funded by those who have been labelled public enemies and targets, and have a lot to lose, and a lot to protect it with. And, even if he were, but some strange confluence of situations (an increasingly unlikely Trump candidacy, or third party run, or frank revolt of the entire right wing of the Republican party), the likelihood of anything but gridlock and conflict is minuscule.

Can we really take the risk?

Hillary Clinton may not have always been right on every issue, but she has moved consistently to make government work better for those who need its service. Ultimately, perhaps with a little more evolution and a little less revolution, we can still have it all. Better than….nothing.