The above title speaks for itself. It does not contain my interpretation of Sanders nor that of any Bernie Bro, or Berner or Millenial or Hobbit, either.
The title refers to a quote from a high profile Clinton supporter, Simon Rosenberg, the President and Founder of the NDN, a center-left think tank based in Washington, D.C. It’s mission is to understand and interpret a “new politics” – driven by enormous changes in demography, media and technology, economics and geopolitics” and “explain … and offer innovative solutions to help policy makers and elected officials meet the new challenges presented by these new times.” They are big into studying “globalization and macro-economic policy, clean energy, immigration and border issues, Latin America, US demographic change, and the impact of new mobile technology on civil society.”
Here is what Rosenberg’s bio at NDN has to say about him:
Simon Rosenberg is President and founder of NDN, a leading, center-left think tank in Washington, DC. Rosenberg, a veteran of two presidential campaigns, including the 1992 Clinton War Room, got his start as a writer and producer in network television. He is a leading political thinker and commentator with a unique ability to identify important trends and decipher changes transforming American politics well before others.
… Together with Dr. Rob Shapiro, President Clinton’s Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs and Chair of NDN’s Globalization Initiative, he has fashioned a unique set of messages and policies around focusing on the economic well-being of everyday people based on Shapiro’s early analysis that even as GDP and productivity rose during the Bush years, wages stagnated and incomes declined.
Rosenberg is a member of the Aspen Institute’s 2001 Class of Henry Crown Fellows, and the Advisory Board of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. He won the national election prediction contest held by the Hill Newspaper in both 2012 and 2008. In 2007, he was named one of the 50 most powerful people in DC by GQ Magazine.
Rosenberg and his wife, Caitlin Durkovich, an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, live in Washington, DC with their three children and Tug, a spirited bulldog.
So Mr. Rosenberg has been with the “Clinton team” since 1992. He been named one of the most powerful people in DC. He’s a member of the gosh darn Aspen Institute whose members include Republican billionaires, multinational corporate managers in the finance, real estate, defense and high tech industries, as well as Walter Isaacson, CNN’s CEO and Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, among others. His wife, Caitlin Durkovich, is President Obama’s Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security.
Clinton supporters, he is “one of your own,” and to be honest I’m using that term loosely, since I suspect 99.999% of you do not run in the same political and social circles Simon does. So when he talked to the New Yorker about Bernie Sanders, I paid close attention. Maybe you should, as well. Here’s what he had to say:
Sanders “is tapping into something that is very deep and very profound inside the Democratic Party, which is this discontent with the system that is no longer producing for everyday people,” Simon Rosenberg, a Hillary supporter and the head of NDN (formerly the New Democrat Network), a liberal think tank in Washington, told me. “He has characterized Hillary as a champion of that system and as somebody who is actually a leader of the system, while he is the one that wants to change it.” Rosenberg added, “He’s not being perceived as a leftist. He is being perceived as somebody who is deeply in touch with a sense that something has gone wrong and that the system isn’t working.”
Obviously, he’s no idiot. He recognizes the enormous appeal Sanders has for many people who vote Democratic or lean Democratic in election years. He knows the demographics are shifting, and soon the young people, the same people you so casually dismiss as stupid, idealistic, easy to manipulate and be “scammed” kids are about to become a major force in American politics. Certainly if the Democratic party is to thrive, it will need to attract them in large numbers.
So slam Bernie all you want. Call him a far left Democratic Socialist, friend of Castro (yes, some of Clinton supporters have made that claim) and an outsider not in touch with the real concerns of real Democrats. Mr. Simon doesn’t view him that way. Rosenberg, quintessential Clinton insider, looks at Bernie Sanders and sees a threat to the very system in charge of the party that Rosenberg, the Clintons and other DLC/Third Way/New Democrats helped create in the 90’s, a system that controls the national party leadership to this day, as noted by the very same article in the New Yorker in which Rosenberg is quoted:
Clinton’s 1992 campaign and his Administration reflected two political strains that still define the Party: one is populist, anti-Wall Street, and pro-regulation; the other is more austere, more oriented toward the New York financial world, and more laissez-faire. Clinton’s Labor Secretary, Robert B. Reich, pressed for more government spending, but the top economic adviser in the White House, Robert Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and later the Treasury Secretary, ultimately persuaded Clinton to abandon many of the liberal spending priorities that he championed during his campaign and to focus instead on reducing the deficit. Later, Rubin also pushed to deregulate the financial industry. That polarity remains. Hillary Clinton is surrounded by Rubin’s acolytes; Reich, an old friend of Bill Clinton’s from their days together at Oxford as Rhodes Scholars, recently endorsed Sanders.
It is the same system that allows Simon Rosenberg to hobnob with the wealthiest and most powerful people in America, many of whom support Hillary, but many of whom support Republicans, or who just hedge their bets and support both sides to insure that whichever party is in power, the “system” will keep running smoothly. A system that benefits people like Simon Rosenberg, who caters to policy makers and elected officials, such as — well such as Hillary Clinton who has been one in the past and hopes to become one again in November. No surprise that Rosenberg supports Hillary and has supported her and her husband for a very long, long time.
I can understand why Simon Rosenberg supports Hillary. He has much to gain if Hillary is elected, and a lot more to lose if Bernie becomes the new face of the Democratic Party. What I didn’t expect was for him to be so honest in admitting that, yes, his candidate, Hillary Clinton is perceived by a broad spectrum of Democratic voters as the “champion of the system” that is failing the very people whose votes she is counting on to win in November. I didn’t expect to hear him admit openly and on the record that Bernie Sanders has indeed tapped into the discontent among so many Democrats and Democratic leaning voters have with that very same system they believe has failed them.
So thank you, Simon Rosenberg for your honesty. It’s a rare commodity from anyone these days among our power elites and their courtiers.
