Why our country needs Bernie Sanders

Dear Friends,

Our political system is broken and corrupt.  The old saying that the world is run by those who show up is no longer true with respect to our political system.  Now the correct saying is that the United States is run by those who show up and those with money, and we are not sure for the moment which of those two groups will win.

Even I was shocked by the recent article in The New York Times reporting that 158 families have given half of all contributions to the 2016 Presidential elections so far (here).  Although I should not have been shocked since I already knew that the Koch brothers were planning on spending as much if not more than either of the two major political parties for 2016 election cycle.  Congress does not represent the interests of the people.  It represents the interests of the oligarchs who fund the process and pay the lobbyist.  Just one example is the power of the gun lobby, fronted by the NRA.  Consistently +90% support background checks and a majority support stronger gun control legislation, yet Congress will not even give new laws consideration.

How does Congress get away with not taking action on things that the vast majority of Americans want and support?  People do not vote and big business spends billions of dollars to buy the system.  In the 2014 midterm elections only 36.4% of eligible voters actually voted.  It was the worst turnout percentage since 1942.  The United States ranks 31st out of 34 top industrialized democratic countries even using our 2012 Presidential year election (53.6%).  Belgium was first with 87.2%.  If Americans had voted in the same percentage as the Belgians in 2012, there would have been 200 million votes cast instead of only 129 million.  That is 71 million more voters.  Just to put that in perspective, President Obama beat Mitt Romney in the popular vote by 5 million; President Obama got 65.4 million votes.  Just think what would have happened if those other 71 million people had voted.

There are a lot of what are referred to as safe districts.  According to Chris Cillizza's analysis after the 2012 elections in the Washington Post (here), 38% of all Congressional seats are "safe"; that is to say the current incumbent won by at least 67%.  Clearly gerrymandering has had a big impact on the creation of these safe districts and while both parties have gerrymandered districts, the Republicans have done a much better job.  The Republicans have also been able to enact voter suppression legislation at the state level.  But Republicans also do a much better job of getting out their supporters to vote.  Higher voter turnout has always helped Democrats.  Getting everybody to vote would certainly make those "safe" districts much less safe particularly when you consider that the incumbents have moved so far right to protect themselves against Tea Party primary challengers.

People do not vote because they see no reason to vote.  The Democratic Party during my lifetime has been on a steady move to the right, accelerated under the Clinton administration.  Remember in 1960, the last year that President Eisenhower was President the highest income tax bracket was 91% and the country was doing very well economically.  This move to the right has coincided with increased political contributions by big business and the very wealthy, accelerated by the Citizen's United decision.  The Democratic establishment disowned Obamacare rather than educating the people about the good that it would do.  The Democratic establishment has and continues to pursue a strategy of being Republican light because they are too uncomfortable with real change and bold ideas.

The October 19th "All in with Chris Hayes" had a segment about the electability of a democratic socialist (Bernie Sanders).  The two guests were John Nichols who was not endorsing Bernie Sanders but who has great confidence in the American people's ability to embrace new and bold ideas and ended with the idea that perhaps the person with the boldest ideas will be the winner.  The other guest was Matt Bennett a Clinton supporter and advisor who could not imagine changing the narrative that the Republicans have crafted that government is bad and cannot solve the problems.  If you accept the Republican narrative, you have lost the battle.  Here is link to that segment.  It is very thought provoking.

Hillary Clinton is at best an incrementalist.   She will not dramatically increase the number of people voting.  Bernie Sanders has clearly demonstrated that he can and is getting some of those 71 million people that did not vote to become involved in politics because there is a difference between a political revolution and more of the same establishment politics.  Money can only be defeated by huge voter turnout and engagement, and Bernie is the only candidate with a chance to do succeed.  He can get this country headed back to being a democracy.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal