Bernie's Cheap Talk of Revolution

I don't love this talk of revolution. I'm a liberal Democrat and liberal Democrats have never been about revolution but reform. So one takeaway is that: Bernie is not a liberal Democrat.

For years he used to insist on just this point. Now he expects us all to have selective amnesia.

In most cases incremental reform is preferable to revolution. Now I said in most cases. There are exceptions though I'm not at all convinced that this is one of those times.

After all, most Democrats see the President's two terms as very successful for liberalism.

But in any case, Bernie's talk of revolution is very cheap. How many bills has he passed in 25 years?

Obama's former campaign manager, David Axelrod, notes just this:

For now, Clinton is attacking Sanders for straying from his progressive roots on various issues, including gun control, but a better attack might be to ask how he can start a revolution if he can’t get a bill passed after 25 years in Washington, strategists said.

“The truer critique is that his proposals, however well-meaning, are unlikely to happen, so a vote for Bernie is more symbolic statement than a prelude to action,” Axelrod said.

For Sanders, “his sharpest attack is that Hillary is too mortgaged and malleable to be a true agent of change,” Axelrod said.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/01/16/attack-why-next-2-weeks-could-get-nastier-than-ever/78893360/

The only thing I'd add, is that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Bernie has a terrible record on guns-it is not one vote, or two voters, or even three votes. His weakness on gun control spans his entire career. He was elected in 1990 in part because the NRA at the time found him a more acceptable choice than his incumbent Republican opponent who had supported an assault weapons ban. 

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-nra-helped-bernie-get-elected-to.html

The President has urged us to vote single issue on gun control for a few cycles. If this is true it's clear Bernie doesn't measure up. 

But Axe's point is still well taken. Bernie just hasn't gotten much done in 25 years. He's a symbolic feel good vote but that's it. The real change agent is Hillary who got many bills passed in her 8 years in Congress. 

This is what she means by a progressive who likes to get things done. Hopefully she will highlight this tonight. 

I mean this doesn't sound like someone who can get things done-which takes building coalitions out of diverse constituencies, but rather a guy who knows he's right. Full stop. 

"Sanders’s congressional career did not get off to a promising start. As an Independent, he had a hard time landing committee assignments. Garrison Nelson recalls, “Bernie shows up in Washington in 1991, there’s still a chunk of Southerners in the Democratic caucus, and they do not want Bernie in the caucus.” Sanders didn’t help matters by giving more than one interview denouncing Congress. “This place is not working,” he told the Associated Press. “It is failing. Change is not going to take place until many hundreds of these people are thrown out of their offices.” He went on, “Congress does not have the courage to stand up to the powerful interests. I have the freedom to speak my mind.”

"Some of his colleagues returned the favor. Joe Moakley, a Massachusetts Democrat who was the chairman of the influential House Rules Committee, told the A.P. reporter, “He screams and hollers, but he is all alone.” Another Democrat from the Massachusetts delegation, Barney Frank, was even more blunt. “Bernie alienates his natural allies,” he said. “His holier-than-thou attitude—saying, in a very loud voice, he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/why-isnt-there-democratic-socialist.html

I'm a big fan of my reader, Greg, but I know he is a lot more positively disposed to Bernie than I am. 

On the one hand, unlike Tom Brown, he follows me on my Trump Democrat spiel. He has even said he could find Trump an acceptable choice; and compared with the other GOPers that is certainly true. 

But on Bernie, I know that Greg is much more positively disposed. 

"One difference between Bernies Medicare for all bill which he has unsuccessfully pushed 11 times and the republicans numerous unsuccessful Obamacare repeals is that Bernie IS offering an alternative that is quite simple and already in place. The republicans have no plan and don't even want one frankly..... they don't believe in "central planning".

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/richard-weaver-just-undercut-bernies.html?showComment=1452952079991#c6435098466079342726

Right, my point is not that substantively the GOP and Bernie are the same but rather tactically they are. In both cases you have someone continuing to put out bills that are doomed to fail just to highlight ideological purity and symbolism. 

The next Democratic President will have no time for symbolism. As Bil Clinton says, we need change-doers, not change-talkers. 

It's like the saying-it's about 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration? In this case, it's not about an abstract discussion but implementation.