I finally got around to reading Bernie Sanders’ speech on the meaning of Democratic Socialism. I hope it gets wide circulation on social media. I think that a lot of people who’ve never had a positive thought about socialism will be surprised to find themselves shaking their heads mostly in agreement with what Bernie had to say.
I could critique the speech for how effective I think it will be, but I think I’ll just make a personal observation. I find myself bored and mildly annoyed by the incessant references to billionaires and the “One Percent” and Wall Street bankers. I probably need to take some time to sit down and reflect on why this kind of talk doesn’t resonate with me. It’s got to be at least partly because I grew up in the New York suburbs. Half my friends’ parents taught at Princeton, but the other half worked in New York as lawyers, advertising executives, brokers, and bankers. And most of them (nearly all of them actually) were Democrats. Most of the ones who were temporarily taken in by Reagan have returned to the fold after the spectacles of Kenneth Starr, the Iraq War, Terri Schiavo, Katrina, and Sarah Palin. I don’t really feel like these folks are responsible for wrecking the country, yet it certainly seems to them that Sanders is putting the blame at their feet.
Still, Sanders’ rhetoric is probably most effective when it is burning the hottest. I don’t think he scores a whole lot of points when he spends a third of his speech talking about statistics. What probably resonates the best is precisely the stuff that puts me off.
What I like about the speech is the strong moral voice he uses. I think it was clever and effective to invoke Pope Francis on several occasions. When he talks about taking care of children and the elderly and women who have just had a child, that’s what resonates with me. When he talks about people working harder and harder for smaller and smaller pieces of pie, that’s where I start nodding in agreement.
So, really, I don’t know how to judge the speech. I’m basically a Democratic Socialist in the Scandinavian mold, so I naturally am closer to Bernie on policy than I am to most mainstream Democrats. I’m not the one who needs convincing on the policy front. What I need convincing on is that it’s worth taking a risk on Sanders winning the nomination and either losing a winnable election or winning a bobbie prize where he’ll be unable to deliver on any of his promises.
To convince me this is a risk worth taking, I need to see that Bernie can win the argument he’s making in this speech. On that front, I think he did a decent job but, as I’ve said, I can’t really judge it. What I disliked is probably the most effective part.
What I liked?
It’s probably just preaching to the converted.
If Bernie Sanders’ campaign contributes to rehabilitating socialism as an ethos I reckon we all owe him a debt of gratitude. And I’m guessing he’s on to it. It seems ironic that the oldest candidate is arguably also the most contemporary. I think we are seeing a glimpse of the future and I am glad of it.
And, also, if I’m ever going to support a seventy-four year old, Jewish socialist from Brooklyn for the presidency it had better be this one.
Who else among the POTUS candidates has exhibited the energy and vigor that Sanders has? The thirty year younger Rubio can’t even bother to show up for his day job. And I’m not sure Cruz and Paul are much engaged in their jobs either. Most of the others don’t even have a day job.
How many of the others have built a competitive campaign in six months? Take away the big money donors to their SuperPacs, several wouldn’t even be around. Reduce their disproportionate reliance on large money (maxi) donors to that of small donors as Sanders has done and more of those campaigns would have to fold up their tents.
Take away their private jets, luxury hotel rooms, speech and appearance coaches, personal service pamperers, and how many of them could maintain an appearance and speech schedule like Sanders? Most of them remind me of hot-house flowers with legions of sycophants catering to their every need and being carted around on litters like Chinese emperors of yore.
The others may be chronologically younger than Sanders, but their heads seem stuck in a past and that past wasn’t so good the first time around.
So, I’m forced to overlook Sanders age and hope he can keep it up and a majority of Democratic primary voters wake up and see that the old guy is not only the best of the lot, but also very good.
Bernie Show Up to BET Forum …
Guess they didn’t feel the Dr. Ben.
It’s an enormous contribution – and seemingly ignored by what passes for left blogs. Truly incredible that he has rescued the word and made it appealing to the young.
What is Booman found repetitive is in fact the strength of Bernie’s appeal: his relentless focus on class and economic inequality. Compare his focus to a speech by Clinton or another watered down liberal. His message is simple and his positions are obvious.
In contrast a Clinton speech is a laundry list of proposals without any real connection – in part because her core audience is in many ways the audience Booman describes in his background – which as the son of two college professors is similar to my own.
His reaction to a Sanders speech was the same I had for decades. I know too many people who are part of the 1% – and that has always made me uncomfortable about Sanders. As Dionne noted last week – what animates elite liberals isn’t economic injustice – they are too insulated to truly get the reality of day to day life for working people. And they have little in common with working people anyway.
I was struck though by how completely removed the speech was from any history of self described socialists. No mention of Debs, a specific repudiation of an old socialist tenant: nationalization of the means of production. Not a word about imperialism.
So the Sanders socialism is a watered down version: but even in that state it is refreshing to hear, and what he offers is something new in American Politics.
I must confess amazement that the rag tag hippies I knew in Vermont in the early 80’s have achieved so much. They aren’t the most likable crowd – they were always true believers with a cause – and Bernie isn’t really that likable a guy.
But the only message right now with a pulse on the left of center in America is theirs.
No mention of Debs in that particular speech, but by no means a repudiation.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/425839/bernie-sanders-documentary-eugene-debs-stanley-kurtz
What I need convincing on is that it’s worth taking a risk on Sanders winning the nomination and either losing a winnable election or winning a bobbie prize where he’ll be unable to deliver on any of his promises.
And Hillary will be able to deliver on any of hers, whatever they are? Also, why would he lose a winnable election? Because the Democratic elites would sabotage him. He’d put a hurt on their gravy train after all. Just look at the way even the supposed leftish press is treating Corbyn.
I find myself bored and mildly annoyed by the incessant references to billionaires and the “One Percent” and Wall Street bankers. I probably need to take some time to sit down and reflect on why this kind of talk doesn’t resonate with me. It’s got to be at least partly because I grew up in the New York suburbs. Half my friends’ parents taught at Princeton, but the other half worked in New York as lawyers, advertising executives, brokers, and bankers.
The second half answers the first half. You grew up among privilege. Most of the country has not. And plenty of people have been screwed over by Wall Street. Does it matter what party Jamie Dimon is registered to if he’s running a criminal enterprise?
The bankers, lawyers, management consultants that Booman knows and I know have been about one thing over the last 30 years: figuring out ways to screw working people.
That truth: inescapable after a financial crisis created by bankers and enabled by Wall Street lawyers strikes too close to home for elite liberals.
But it was my investment banker friend at Goldman who profited from the creation of mortgage derivatives. It was the roommate in college who works at McKinsey in “Business Process Re-design”: another way of saying he figures out how to screw the workers.
And it was the Wall Street lawyer that knew them and enabled them.
Namely me.
We struggle with the reality of how we make our living – so of course we find Bernie off-putting.
We struggle with the reality of how we make our living – so of course we find Bernie off-putting.
In capitalism, we are ALL compromised to some degree; we each have a line we will draw, say we won’t cross it, and have to deal with the choices we did make.
For example, I refuse to be in anything involving LEO type jobs, such as policeman or FBI; the military; or the DEA.
However, I am an aerospace engineer by degree, so it was extremely likely I would be working for BAE, Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, General Electric, Rolls Royce, General Dynamics (had an interview with their submarine division out of college), or any other maker of death and destruction. The makers of the drones such as the Switchblade? AeroVironment? A lot of their main engineers graduated from my alma mater, and would come back recruiting us talking about how awesome it was to “be back doing the things we did in school” (playing with “model/toy” airplanes).
Luckily, that’s not what I do now, and now I’m involved in the patent system. But there again, another example of being compromised in the capitalist system. Our patent system is in many ways a source of inequality and allows the rentier class to take money from smaller businesses in each sector. The TPP greatly expands IP around the world, hurting developing countries access medicine. But I make peace with myself saying it’s the courts who have fucked up the patent system, and that by being on the inside I can make a difference by rejecting erroneously broad claims. But work with the system I do, and compromised as a result I am. What’s going to happen when young(er) radicals start to call for the destruction of our current way of doing IP? Will I fight with them, knowing they’re (likely) correct? Or will I fight against them, protecting my own self-interest and job? Interesting times…
That wasn’t his point. Since I’m from the neighboring state (New York), I can vouch for the fact that there are many wealthy people in my state that support the more-or-less New Deal policies that made it possible for them to prosper. I well remember my wealthiest uncle, who grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (not exactly a wealthy neighborhood). He was as liberal as they come.
Here’s the video link to his speech.
It’s a good speech. Bracketing FDR’s policies and accomplishments around his economic positions was effective. But it does fall short of its titled billing because it’s not tight enough. Too long and too many of the repetitions aren’t necessary. The GU forum necessitated inclusion of foreign policy (and it was well done), but it also detracted from the theme. That could easily be a separate speech — FP, trade, and socialism.
(On what many liberals might consider a superficial note, looked to me as if Bernie has visited a decent tailor. Hey, I also notice the substantial amount of money that goes into Clinton’s clothes, jewelry, and make-up.)
She’s just stunning.
It does seem he attacks the wealthy a little too much. Still it is part of who he is. I don’t think he has much of a chance. Hillary now figures she has him on the ropes and so she is awaiting her coronation. Bernie really did need a ground swell of popular support and he tied it to the one percent argument. And what has materialized has not been enough. I think his proposals for an increase in the minimum wage, educational help, rebuilding infrastructure and single payer health care would have greatly helped raise the middle class. Odd but I think he had a chance to reach the white middle class even in some red areas. Money, organization and Paris have silenced his appeal.
Well, I’ve heard this speech by Sanders many times before, so, yes, it’s long and seems to repeat ideas and lines I’ve heard before from Sanders. To a new listener it would be more provocative and enlightening, and parts of it are inspirational. Shame he’s not younger and sexier but much of what he says has credence because of his age and experience not just in politics, but by his evident attention to the full panorama of life in the United States over the past fifty years. Not just the foibles of the rich and famous, but the experience of the uncelebrated middle class and the poor. As a result, he’s not just authentic, he’s authoritative. And unlike any politician I can think of since I started voting in 1976, he knows macroeconomics well enough to articulate it and make it accessible to the public.
So, his candidacy presents a rare, maybe unique opportunity in American presidential politics. One that, were he to win, would transform the country, like Roosevelt. His cabinet alone would shake Federal operations to their foundation. Most folks in a position to effectively promote his candidacy know it and are afraid of the prospect for reasons several commenters here have mentioned. Not that they’re cowards, just that they can’t imagine their place in that truly new country; how uncomfortable it would be for them. Watch and listen to Sanders and you know when he’s elected it’s going to be a very bad day for those that thrive on the corruption in the system as it exists now, the very “wealthiest Americans” Sanders talks about repeatedly. They’ll hate it, they’ll ignore it, they’ll laugh at it, they’ll fight it every inch of the way. And the fight will cost them and weaken them. That’s the fundamental power of Socialism and Sanders alludes to it pretty clearly when he describes it as a political revolution. I’ve heard it all before, but it was an excellent speech.
It wasn’t a socialism speech. It was a ‘socialism’ speech.
There wasn’t anything remotely like Labour’s old Clause IV.
That’s Labour — Fabian, gradualist, parliamentary. Not even remotely revolutionary.
And even that is unmentionable today
Right Davis. Nevertheless Bernie Sanders is more than worth encouraging. He’s not the whole deal but he’s the only candidate who is at least maybe half of it. In recent times no one has succeeded in getting this kind of message out as well as he has. My admiration. Mr. and Ms. WJC and HRC? You ain’t seen anything yet.
BooMan, At least 90 % of the US people definitely did not grow up around the kinds of people you did (and probably 0.000000000001 % – I don’t how many zeros grew up in or near Princeton). So that’s what Sander’s keeps going on and on about. If your social and financial circles now or in the past might feel a bit offended, let them realize that they are—YES—part of the problem—as we all are.
People in the Democratic Party go on-and-on about (rightly, in my opinion) about how Traditional America needs to stop having its ego stroked and having cultural unbirthday parties thrown every week about how they’re exceptional and chosen and have unlimited providence and they’re at the forefront of human culture and instead get a cold hard dose of reality — that America is not great and the reason why it’s not great is that it’s pandering to their cultural delusions even at the expense of mortgaging their future. That the only way forward to stop them from being degraded to the status head kulak with the prettiest burlap-sack dress is that they swallow their pride and think about the good of their neighbors and children.
That said, a lot of the Democratic Party’s socially liberal, neoliberal/neoconservative elites need a speech like that twice as hard as the modern day Archie Bunker does. The analogy needs to paint a different endgame than King Vermin of Shit Mountain, but they’ve been getting neurosis-soothing cultural blowjobs a lot longer and harder than Traditional America and to an even worse future for the planet.
The presence of and legitimation of this sort of rhetoric in US politics is necessary. The fear of Democrats to use this rhetoric for the past 30 years is part of the reason that we are in the fix we are in. They ceded the rhetorical ground to the ever crazier. And still are not standing up to call out the craziness. Why did 47 scared-rabbit Democrats capitulate to the craziness of Syrian refugees? Don’t they know that they are going to lose in 2016 anyway if they are that endangered? Did they learn nothing from the decimation of the Blue Dogs and New Democrats over the past three cycles?
It’s going to take more than just Bernie saying these things. He’s provided the opening for down-ticket primary candidates to start saying these things, tighten up the rhetoric, and keep the class issue holding the identity issues from fragmenting.
Bernie has been saying “billionaires” because “the 1%” turns out to be too broad. But there are areas in which the 1% have the power to dominate everyone else with their view of government and their claim on welfare through tax breaks. Moat people who decide wages and salaries are in the 1% unless they are struggling small businesses. Most of the people who have had salary inflation, like specialist physicians, sought-after university professors, and top administrators are in the 1%, and their inflated salaries have come at the expense of repressed wages and salaries all down the structure of their organizations and corporations.
More people need to be saying and more people need to understand that the government did not cause this except to the extent they kow-towed to Corporate America.
We will see how far Bernie’s style as a fuddy-duddy uncle allows the message to get through. But he could use some help from other candidates saying the same message. It is time to end the New McCarthyism.
Democrats never did use this rhetoric.
Some did, before some interest groups and discrete constituencies.
Some did, in particular Congressional districts, or regions.
But the party? Qua party? Never, except, maybe, one long weekend around the time Humphrey-Hawkins got passed.
Me, I remember a Senate Democratic caucus in which both John Stennis and Ted Kennedy sat, side by side. Gene McCarthy and James Eastland. David Boren and Paul Wellstone. And the same in the House.
There was no Democratic Golden Age, no social-democratic Eden from which Dick Morris expelled us all with flaming sword.
Of course you don’t want to hear about the economic redistribution of wealth from the working middle class to the billionaires and the one percent. This is the fact that has been and must remain ignored by the Democratic Establishment and Hillary for business to remain as usual while the destruction of the middle class and inequality only gets worse.
The working middles class became convinced that giving the corporatist everything they wanted would result in some kind of trickle down mechanism that would stabilize and better their economic situation. What they actually got was wealth going only to the top and their former jobs going overseas. FDR told us that we cannot have freedom until we have economic security. That idea resonated then and it resonates now, except with the Democratic Establishment.
Polls already show that Bernie would win the general election with a wider margin than Hillary because of a more energized Democratic base and Republican cross over votes. Nominating Hillary is the greater risk of losing a winnable election.
The fact that the Democratic base went to sleep while the DNC and Democratic Establishment lost both houses of congress and so many state houses that regaining that territory is almost impossible is a problem for Democrats created by corporatist Democrats. Bernie calls for a political revolution to take on the corporatists to make Democrats once again the party of the people.
The corporatist did not ruin our country by making us the wealthiest country on earth. They just took the freedom of economic security from large numbers of people who live here. People are angry and the corporatist should worry.
Here’s the thing, at a gut level a huge proportion of the population knows that economically they’re lacking something that seemed to exist for their parents and grandparents. Yet, to articulate what they feel has been lost, they look to external measures of well-being. Stuff, including vehicles, and even housing and on those measures, they are no worse off than their parents/g-p were and most are better off.
What they can’t see are the changes over the decades is measures of economic security. Jobs a bit less secure, real wages for the working class at best keeps up with inflation and for low wage workers it doesn’t even do that, twenty year mortgages to thirty year mortgages and then interest only mortgages, three year car loans to four, five, six and seven years to leasing, credit cards instead of savings to handle bumps in the road, medical care from a tiny portion of income to a 9.5% standard for insurance before co-pays, etc. Then there’s the issue of quality. Today when something breaks, in half or less the time a similar product did in the past, it can’t be fixed and new today is practically obsolete by the time it leaves the store.
My kids are in their mid 20s and doing just fine except they don’t have an important thing I had back in the early 1970s. That thing is an affordable college education. They choose not to run up a huge debt for a degree to get a job that doesn’t exist. They have far too many friends they work alongside of doing the same low wage job who have degrees. Tuition free Community College and State Universities will change their lives and they are very energized by that. Without the debt they will do the academic work and take the chance on finding that job.
You are right that large numbers of people know they’re getting screwed. Those people learning the truth, placing the blame where it actually belongs, is explosive, so much so that we might actually make progress toward making our economy work for everyone. That takes a political revolution.
The question is how to go about it. Bernie does not speak in the abstract. All of the issues Bernie has chosen to make part of his campaign are already wildly popular, things that will make all our lives better and provide a brighter future for our children, things that every Democrat should already support. The next generation might make it to be better off than their parents.
The thing I look forward to the most under the leadership of Bernie Sanders is a management change at the DNC. We became the party of the people with FDR and it lasted more than 40 years. Let’s do it again.
CA CC and state colleges were only “affordable” back then if one could live at home and home was near enough to a college that transportation wasn’t a killer.
What was great about CCs (and still is even with the “fees” per unit) is that one could take one or two academic (transferable) courses per term. For anyone that thinks they might one day pursue a college degree, one evening (morning/afternoon/Saturday depending on work schedule) per week isn’t much of a burden. Plus, regardless of future choices, the knowledge acquired is an asset.
Here’s my argument that I’ve been making for the past couple of months: demographics are destiny and Bernie’s watered-down demographic socialism is the only platform that’s even attempting to engage the white working class and/or less hardy members of the Democratic base.
If the Democratic Party doesn’t win the House in 2016, they’re fucked — and given the march of climate change, the human race is in for a whole heap of trouble. HRC’s formula can win the Presidency, but it won’t win the House in 2016 and certainly won’t keep the Senate in 2018. Hell, if HRC wins without getting the House, there’s a good chance that the Democratic Party will fall to pieces in 2020, especially if there’s an ill-advised war or economic crisis.
Basically, the argument is between near-certain, slow-rolling doom by voting for HRC or taking a risk with unknown odds on Sanders. Considering that the failure state of Sanders isn’t that much worse than the victory state of HRC, I say it’s a risk worth taking. And until HRC shows that she’s capable of winning the House in 2016 under her own power — which even her closest boosters and supporters have largely given up on — that will be the calculus going forward.
“Basically, the argument is between near-certain, slow-rolling doom by voting for HRC or taking a risk with unknown odds on Sanders.”
This seems wrong-headed analysis to me on multiple levels.
The President and their Executive Branch has a ton of power which is independent from Congress; it doesn’t end at Executive Orders. Control of the Federal Agencies is a very important power. And the nominations of Cabinet officials and Supreme Court judges are controlled by the President and the nominees almost always make it through Senate review.
Any political Party in leadership would run into trouble if there were a “ill-advised war or economic crisis”. The chances of those things happening under a Clinton Administration would be vastly reduced in comparison to the chances of those things happening under the Administration of any of the 2016 GOP POTUS nominees.
And I don’t see evidence that the chances of winning back the majority in the House and Senate are increased with Sanders as the nominee in comparison with the chances of winning back Congressional majorities with Clinton as the nominee. You’re making an assertion here which is not backed up by polling that I’ve seen. In fact, current polling shows that the big African-American turnout for Obama would be far more likely to happen for Hillary than Bernie.