By Jeffrey A. Rendall
Bernie Sanders was the butt of many a joke, but now he’s the Democrats’ go-to campaigner
Who woulda thunk it?
If you needed yet another reminder of just how far today’s Democrat party has slipped into socialist ideological oblivion, simply look at who party members consider “leaders” within their decidedly left-of-center movement these days.
What once was thought to be a party primarily defined by a loose coalition of working class/union white men, lower-income welfare dependents, minority groups and highly educated individuals who’d never worked a day in their lives has morphed into a collection of racial-only single-issue agitators, feminist abortion-protectors and anti-anything common sense income redistributors and outright socialists.
The last classification is the rage in today’s Democrat politics. A growing segment of American voters apparently has little regard for or memory of what happens when so-called “free” societies lose their fear of collectivist movements and turn towards total government control over everything, including thought.
One individual has captured the imaginations of twenty-first century Democrats, and his wild brand of socialism appears to be gaining momentum as we head into another congressional candidate nominating cycle.
“It’s the primaries, stupid!” A wise friend preached it. Democrats are taking the lesson to heart.
In an article titled, “The Energizer Bernie: Sanders building progressive army for the next generation”, Seth McLaughlin reported at The Washington Times recently:
“It has been just over a decade since Mr. Sanders called for a ‘political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally.’ His 2016 presidential bid exposed the gulf between the Democratic establishment and the party’s grassroots base and created real headaches for Hillary Clinton.
“’Not only will I fight to protect the working families of this country, but we’re going to build a movement of millions of Americans who are prepared to stand up and fight back,’ he said. His message hasn’t changed much — and his allies say that consistency is the point.
“’If you don’t yell loud about it and keep working and organizing, you don’t move the Overton window,’ Mr. D’Alessandro said. ‘And that’s what he’s been doing — every single day.’ He said Mr. Sanders’ decade of repetition has paid off in ways that are easy to miss. The party’s language has shifted around him. Lines such as ‘the wealthy need to pay their fair share’ — once dismissed as fringe class warfare — now appear routinely in Democratic mailers and stump speeches.”
Yes indeed. Who can forget how senile Joe Biden devoted parts of his State of the Union addresses to calling for higher taxes on “the rich” because those folks with means, you know, they’re just not assigning most of their wealth to funding bigger government! Under Democrats, of course. It’s the classic socialist pitch, arousing class envy and enough anger to get liars elected.
To Democrats, it’s never mattered whether common sense backed them up. Nah, just tell ‘em what that segment of the public wants to hear and then open up the precincts!
Virginians have witnessed first-hand what happens when citizens are overcome by Democrat BS. It ain’t pretty.
Beyond the basics, what accounted for the surge and sustainability in “The Bern’s” popularity?
I have a hard time accepting it had anything to do with Sanders personally. Americans didn’t suddenly fall in love with bug-eyed wild “senile old coots” in their quest to expose the leader of political Nirvana.
So-called “mainstream” Democrats never really took to Bernie in the first place, either. Hillary Clinton, the literal embodiment of the old Democrat establishment, couldn’t stand him. Sanders famously stood up for Crooked Hill during a party candidate debate in 2016 – “We should stop talking about the damn emails!” — but it didn’t mean the Bern’s outright socialism magically became in vogue.
No, Democrats formerly scurried away from the “socialist” label, figuring the term would translate to instant election losses. The dominant Obama/Clinton/Senile Joe Biden faction preferred maintaining the ruse that Democrats really were the political home base for the “working” man and woman and simply affixed the newer vintage social causes (race-baiting, LGBTQ worship and abortion as their hill-to-die-on) to reuse an age-old formula that worked wonders in the post Ronald Reagan-America.
“How do we fool ‘em today?” The late Rush Limbaugh often postulated about Democrats on his ground-breaking daily radio program, surmising that liberals huddled each morning hashing out a new battleplan of lies, half-truths and fact distortions to rouse the low-information masses and get them agitated and voting.
In the course of their turn to the socialism dark side, Democrats discovered their holy grail of campaigning, namely the healthcare issue. Crooked Hill got the ball rolling early in hubby Bubba Bill’s presidency, introducing the concept of universal government-run (and paid for) medical coverage for everyone, but the Democrat party as a whole wasn’t ready to go all-in to the notion of cradle-to-grave care.
Remember how it was known as “Hillarycare” while Obama was toking up the reefer with the “Choom Gang” in Hawaii as a young adult? (Note: Obama’s choom was in the 70s)
Obama subsequently expanded on the idea when he became president and enthusiastically took advantage of huge Democrat majorities in Congress to pass the original Obamacare, which was subsequently cropped by Supreme Court rulings and new political realities.
Americans didn’t back full government hegemony on healthcare. As evidenced by the Tea Party wave elections in 2010 and 2014, liberty-minded citizens weren’t about to take socialism at its root.
Then came “The Bern” openly pitching “Medicare for All” and various other proposals that injected socialism into the Democrat mainstream, where it’s taken root ever since.
I’ve often wondered if “The Bern” were a decade-and-a-half younger if he would’ve completely commandeered the Democrat party by now. Sanders, for all of his personality quirks, is the most credible of Democrat true believers, even though he still considers himself “independent” and hasn’t officially joined the party that supports his base.
Maybe it’s because of “The Bern’s” persistence and consistency, but there’s something about his apparent sincerity that leads people to follow him. Sanders’ pairing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes for the oddest of strange political bedfellows, as the two travel the circuit spouting about how evil President Trump is and, at the same time, painting socialism as the remedy for all.
It’s been argued before, but the Democrat establishment never quite came onboard with the Bernie Sanders movement. They considered him unelectable, which I think is still true, but Democrats seemingly welcomed Bernie’s causes while rejecting their spokesmen.
It could be said that Bernie Sanders epitomizes the old maxim — if you tell a lie long enough, people start believing it. The problem being there’s lots of documented historical examples to show that adopting socialism leads to disaster. Concentration camps and mass executions could be waiting for those who threaten the new order.
Spurred on by leftist faculties at America’s universities, today’s young people lack the grounding and educational foundation to hear someone like Bernie Sanders and instinctively grasp that he’s full of it. Medicare-for-all could never succeed. How do we know? Because Medicare for seniors-only doesn’t work to begin with.
The Trump administration’s recent fraud investigations have delved into the many and varied abuses of Medicare billing and payments. Just spread those experiences out among everyone and America becomes one gigantic fraud racket. There’s simply no bureaucracy big or smart enough to manage the current Medicare monster, let alone dream of expanding single-payer to all situations.
Medicare-for-All sounds mighty enticing for low-information Americans until they learn that it would mean rationing, long waits for services and ultimately, much poorer care.
All of that on top of budgetary red ink that would make today’s enormous deficits seem trivial. America needs to begin weaning itself off of entitlements, not dig the hole deeper.
The two-party American political system being what it is, here’s thinking Bernie Sanders’ movement will only get larger. From the other side of the spectrum, Donald Trump won two presidential terms while advancing a populist-oriented message combined with traditional conservative themes such as a strong military and stringent immigration enforcement.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, takes an “anything goes” approach to governing. He may be the Democrats’ new go-to campaign guy, but will Americans get wise to him in time to save themselves?
Sanders is the perfect example of a politician who’s never accomplished anything in life while enticing the disgruntled and gullible with the intoxicating elixir of socialism. Only in this case, subjects wake up with a hangover that won’t ever go away, and could be lethal. The way to combat it is with truth and better policies.
Jeff Rendall is editor and publisher of GolfintheUSA.com and has written about golf and politics for over a quarter of a century. A non-practicing attorney from California, he moved to the east coast three decades ago to pursue and combine his interests in all things American history and culture. Jeff has worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and in various capacities in grassroots organizing and conservative organizations and publications, including a nearly two-decade stint at ConservativeHQ.com. Column republishing or other inquiries: Rendall@msn.com .