Thursday, June 30, 2016

Bernie Sanders Is Turning Himself Into Someone Responsible People Can't Believe Is Responsible

I am beginning to wonder if his rather idiosyncratic career in Vermont politics has made Bernie Sanders clueless about the issues of this national election, this year.  His continued refusal to endorse the only person between us and a Trump or other Republican presidency over the entirely superficial and symbolic platform is dangerous.  I don't think he has much of a clue as to the responsibility he has built for himself by his conduct and the conduct of those who have spoken for him in the past year.  He continually claims that he has no responsibility, over and over again.  Even today when he is asked about him endorsing Hillary Clinton in time for this election to be won, he disclaims any responsibility to support her candidacy. .  At this point, in his recent interview with Andrea Mitchell,  his refusal to suspend his campaign and to endorse her is most explainable as willful irresponsibility.  In some ways he is still sounding a lot like he did when he talked to Andrea Mitchell talked to him on May 11th.

If he thinks this is good political strategy, he is nuts.

Bernie Sanders' sudden desire to have a platform when, as an independent, he pretty much never had any need for one before, only reinforces that only use of platforms is for people to grandstand over. You would think through his years in the House and Senate, he would understand that a platform has exactly no meaning in real life, that you've got to win a majority in the legislative branch and the presidency to do anything, that is what's important.  There have been great sounding platforms in many parties in the past that have gone absolutely no where because the politicians necessary to make them more than hot air have never been elected.  Look at the Greens and their platforms as they have elected no one to a single office to make those real.  

Sanders is still talking down Hillary Clinton, going into July.  When Mitchell asked Sanders why, when such great liberals as Elizabeth Warren are giving her their full endorsement, he is still talking about contesting conventions over a platform that almost no one will vote on the basis of except a handful of wonks and they probably don't care what it says, anyway.  This is his excuse for not stepping out of the lime light and it has the very real effect of diminishing his status among anyone of any seriousness.  I certainly don't take someone who is running as big a risk with the country and the world as he is,  posing on the platform to do it, as someone who is serious and trustworthy.   His continued implications of mounting a contested convention is grotesque and disgusting.   He is discrediting the left, not promoting it, at this point.  The only reason I can see for him doing that is gratifying his own ego at the expense of, not only the left, but the lives and futures of all of us. 

1 comment:

  1. I saw a statement by Jill Klein where she said her platform/program/what have you, would assure peace and justice and prosperity for the American people; by turning the whole thing upside down and completely changing the system from the bottom up.

    As I've said: no one elects the President to be a revolutionary. Nor would she ever get within a whisker of doing what she says she would do. But if that's what you want to hear, she's not a "politician," she's a "revolutionary," maybe even our last national hope.

    All a matter of whose ox is being gored.

    Jamelle Bouie at Slate has taken apart Sanders' pretensions, and shown that he could have been effective, but he's blown his opportunity and now he's on the back side of the power curve, and trending down. An article at Huffington Post points out how many Democrats can't figure out what Sanders wants, and are less and less inclined to give it to him. At this point he may not even get to speak at the convention, he's pissed off so many people, and he hasn't withdrawn his candidacy or endorsed Clinton. He's also lost all but his most hardcore supporters, which the Clinton camp (and so the party) have written off as non-Democrats to begin with (so, no loss).

    He's Ross Perot redux: a cranky old man who rounded up a following (well, even Ted Cruz has done that much, not to mention Donald Trump) but was never a political force to be reckoned with. When he's gone, so is his "movement."

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