Bernie's focus on the working poor.

[Tom Rinaldo]

He is right, he has been right for decades, and just how right he is will soon be apparent to everyone. The Covid 19 crisis drives that point home in literally sickening details: Our failure to ensure a livable national minimum wage. Our failure to secure paid sick leave for all Americans, and of course our failure to provide readily affordable health care to all Americans, now stand as stark measures of the failure of our society and of our leaders to protect our nation from severe adversity. Every person who waits until their medical condition hits a crisis stage due to financial pressure now endangers the life of even the most affluent Americans living inside of gated communities. Every person who shows up at work sick because they desperately need that money endangers the life of even the most powerful Americans among us. Every person who is now homeless, every person who gets evicted from their homes as our economic crisis worsens, is a ticking time bomb for the further spread of this pandemic.

This is ultimately all going to pile many trillions of dollars onto the national debt, but no matter how much emergency spending we now undertake it will come up woefully short. A pound of cure will not buy us what an ounce of prevention could have. America will not be made whole. We do not have the economic and public health resiliency that we need to weather what is now upon us without extreme suffering that will scar and set back generations to come. This is what happens when a social safety net is woven with grade D thread and holes large enough for babies to fall through.

I say this whether or not Americans in our collective wisdom determine whether Bernie Sanders is best equipped now to become our next President. Maybe he's not, but damn it, he was right.

[betsuni]

1. Those failures are because of Republicans.

[Squinch]

2. Yet he did nothing about it for decades.

[appalachiablue]

3. K/R Thanks for this super truthpost.

[handmade34]

4. sometimes I think

Bernie is his own worst enemy... his message is good... his inability to work well with others and his demeanor is not

[TwilightZone]

5. "he has been right for decades"

Then why hasn't he done anything about it? I don't mean to be glib. My question is a serious one. If he's been right for decades and hasn't been able to convince more than a handful of his peers to support his agenda, what makes Sanders supporters believe he'd be able to do so as president? The presidency doesn't come with a magic wand.

That might be the most significant difference between Sanders and Biden. Sanders has never been able to build a coalition to actually *do* anything. His ever-present need to play the outsider makes him the less-likely candidate to get things done, simply by default. He's had decades to convince people and then build coalitions to get things done, and has accomplished next to nothing.

By the way, John Conyers introduced a Medicare for All bill in 2003 and every year since, but I don't see any Sanders supporters *ever* give him credit, even though his bill was the basis for Sanders' parallel bill in 2017, introduced 14 years later.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Sanders got a foothold in politics against the prevailing political grain.

Sanders first entered Congress in 1991. In 1991 Bill Clinton was the National Chairperson of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and one year later Clinton was elected president . Four years later, in 1996 Clinton proclaimed that "the era of big government is over"during his State of the Union address.

Sanders saw his personal popularity inside Vermont increase consistently but, prior to Howard Dean, no politician from tiny Vermont gained much national respect, certainly not a supporter of Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition" when being positioned as a "New Democrat" became all the rage. He was ideologically poorly positioned to make alliances inside the then prevailing national Democratic Party, even if he wanted to. His was not the message that the mainstream Democratic Party was then eager top embrace. Prior to stepping forward to run for President in 2016, due in large part to his politics Sanders had no major financial backers and no ready access to national media.

It is relevant to note that it was because of Bernie Sanders that Community Health Centers became a key component of the Affordable Care Act, and the role that they are playing now is crucial in the fight we are waging against Covid 19. I have no problem giving credit to John Conyers for his Medicare For All bill dating back to 2003, but of course Conyers too was not able to move it forward to become law. All great progressive movements have antecedents to acknowledge. I an happy to acknowledge Eugene Debbs and Norman Thomas also. Great credit obviously is due to FDR and LBJ and to Organized Labor and to MLK Jr's Poor People's Campaign. Martin Luther King Jr. didn't pass legislation, rather he advocated for and organized around grand ideas. I believe Bernie's greatest contribution has been as an advocate for grand ideas that he has helped build a movement for.

Progressive ideas have existed since before the American Revolution. Thomas Paine is a personal hero of mine. I don't care when and where they originate though I always honor those who push for them against the prevailing political grain. Getting progressive legislation passed into laws that matter is critical, but so is raising the public profile of such issues so that a constituency forms to fight for the passage of that legislation. Bernie Sanders did not "invent" all of the planks from his 2016 presidential campaign, but he promoted them effectively on a national stage and now much of what he ran on as an outsider then is considered to be mainstream Democratic Party policy dogma, or at least no longer seen as unrealistic to contemplate working toward.

[gulliver]

7. Sanders is more like focusing the working poor on himself.

He doesn't have a supply line for what he is telling them he will deliver.

[mvd]

8. Right on. K&R

We should have had paid sick leave before the virus. Now the amount of workers affected would be too low, but we needed to get something through now and the Repukes would stop a more sweeping bill. Bernie has been right on so much, in my opinion.

[showblue22]

11. Kamala Harris spoke on the debate stage about paid sick leave

This is not "Bernie's fight." This is the fight of all democrats and you know that.

[mvd]

13. Why diminish Bernie's role?

Don’t we need some positive threads? I never meant to say no others have had the idea.

[showblue22]

14. He talks about it but he has power

and hasn't done anything. He's a senator. Why does he not write things up and coalesce support?

[mvd]

20. He has done something

He has brought it to people’s attention. As one Senator, he can’t do it all. He does NOT have that power.

[MineralMan]

9. Sanders would do no better getting his proposals through Congress as President

than he has done as a Senator. Presidents can propose things, but Congress must turn those proposals into law. Unfortunately, Senator Sanders has been very ineffective as a Senator and has not formed coalitions in that body that could push proposals through.

Presidents have limited powers. Unless they have the ability and personality that can assemble real coalitions, they find it difficult to make things happen. Sanders inability to bend or compromise would limit his effectiveness as a President.

Is he right? It doesn't matter if he gets nothing accomplished. In this country, incrementalism is the only effective path toward change. That is amply demonstrated by our national history.

That is also why Bernie Sanders cannot win a presidential election. He simply would not get the support of voters, who recognize the ineffectiveness of his overall approach toward governing.

That is why I support Joe Biden for President. He understands the processes that work in this country. His goals are achievable. Bernie's are not. It is that simple.

Finally, Bernie Sanders has only about 30% of support from voters. That is simply not enough to get elected, or even nominated, apparently.

[LizBeth]

10. I am seeing Pelosi upfront and center addressing the issue in real time, not Sanders.

[showblue22]

12. Yep.

This notion that only BERNIE is right is downright sickening. It's love for the man not the policy.

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. Of course he's not "alone". No one ever is

But it has been at the core of his message for his entire career. Bernie was never a so called "New Democrat" espousing Democratic Leadership Council type proposals for the big issues in America. I never said everyone else was wrong, I said Bernie was right. And I stand by that.

[mvd]

21. It's like he can't get credit for anything from some

Yours is a good thread. It is a shame the way it has turned out.

[iwannaknow]

15. Great post!

[H2O Man]

17. Recommended.

[Happy Hoosier]

18. Bernie is not the only one who wants to help the working poor.

The idea that others in the Democratic party have chosen different tactics to pursue that help is not a sign that only Bernie cares.

[NCProgressive]

19. The working poor are voting for Biden