Bernie or Bust, yet again

Lincoln, FDR and, soon, Bernie, one of America’s greatest presidents

Bernie put his fist in the air and said, “Revolution” and he said “Too big to fail is too big to exist.” If he did nothing else, with these two actions, he changed America for a generation.

Lincoln was willing to compromise, offer easy terms to the South, throw Black America under the bus, promote colonization, use racist dog whistles to win an election, a whole lot of not so nice stuff. Through all that, however, he insisted that slavery was bad and had to end one day, one solid basic moral position on which he was not willing to compromise. Doesn’t sound too radical now, but at the time… war!

FDR was a pragmatist. He listened to the conventional wisdom about deficit spending way too much. He caved into racism by interning Japanese Americans. But he believed the government has to serve the people in general and cannot simply be a tool of powerful big business interests. Doesn’t sound radical now… but at the time…

Bernie is like FDR and Lincoln. He’ll compromise. He’s a moderate, reasonable, saavy, professional politician. But he has core beliefs and has not wavered from the basic tenets of his beliefs. A great leader doesn’t simply win an election or a war. A leader embodies a ethos. Bernie is a living, breathing testament to the belief in economic democracy.

Two presidencies, Abraham Lincoln and FDR, represented so profound a change in the dynamics of politics in the United States that those administrations still mattered on election day decades after both men had died. The presidency of Bernie Sanders in 2020 could create a similar generation or two generation long wake, reverberating into the distant future.

Although the Founding Fathers were against political parties, we have had two parties pretty much from day one. The fact of winner-take-all elections in America works to ensure that there can only be two parties competing in the long term and that factional disputes will have to be settled more within parties than between parties. Unless some constitutional change occurs to allow proportional representation, the US will revert to a two-party system.

In every period of a two party system, one party has had the upper hand. Before the Civil War and Lincoln, the Democratic-Republican Party also called “Democratic-Republican” or “Jeffersonian Republicans” and later simply the Democratic Party, had the upper hand on the Federalists and, later, the Whigs. After Lincoln, the Republicans dominated federal and local government until FDR. The only Democratic president after Lincoln who won fair and square was Grover Cleveland, as Woodrow Wilson was elected in a fluke election when Theodore Roosevelt decided to run on a third party line. Even with Roosevelt’s idiosyncratic decision, Republicans were 11 to 4 over Democrats in presidential elections from 1870 to 1932. Republicans also did well in state government and in the senate. In short, a party that only came into existence in 1856 managed to dominate politics from 1860 to 1932. The Democrats, who had dominated before the war, played second fiddle the whole time.

FDR changed all that. In 1929 before the crash, the Republicans controlled the White House, the senate by 17 votes and the House of Representatives by 104 seats. In 1933, after FDR’s election, the Democrats had the presidency, the senate by 23 seats, and the house by more than two to one, with a massive 126 vote advantage.

FDR made mistakes, got criticized from the left and right, and maybe his New Deal didn’t really end the depression; the war did that. But no one doubted that he and his party under him were for the people, even if the New Dealers didn’t always know exactly what to do. The people liked work relief, social security, electrification, etc. They knew who to thank and the Democrats held the presidency for 20 straight years, and 28 out of the next 36 years. Democrats maintained control of the senate for until 1981, except for four years, so 44 out of the next 48 years. Democrats controlled the house until 1995 except for four years, so 58 out of the next 62 years.

Obama once said Reagan was a “transformative” president. Naturally, Hillary tried to smear Obama with this comment in the 2008 primary, claiming that Obama “said he likes Reagan,” when in fact he was merely saying that there was a shift in political dynamics in 1980, as he analyzed recent history. But Reagan is nothing like Lincoln or FDR. Only four years after he left office, the Democrats won the popular vote in six out of the next seven elections.

Obama was certainly not a transformative president. The following statement really isn’t an opinion: from 2008 to 2016, Barack Obama failed as the leader of the Democratic Party. He raised plenty of money for the DNC, more than any political organization in history. Here is a further article about DNC fundraising from 2003 to 2017. Yet, the Democratic party hemorrhaged seats and ended up with a lower percentage of state, local and federal offices than at any time in the party’s history since 1924. Over 1000 seats, two thirds of the states, the senate, the house and the supreme court: under Obama’s leadership, the Democrats lost everything. Trump’s presidency seems unlikely to change the fundamental dynamics of politics for very long but may simply “soften up” the already creaking and wobbly two party system that has existed for decades.

The reason Bernie’s 2020 presidency could reverberate out for a hundred years is that unlike Obama, Reagan or Trump but more like FDR and Lincoln, Bernie’s political vision is actually coherent, makes sense in terms of the general historical trends and will make a difference in people’s lives. Also, as in 1860 and 1932, in 2020 the traditional parties will have a very small share of the electorate and a huge chunk of people will be up for grabs. If what grabs them then proceeds to actually work and make their lives work, they will stay with that party for life, and their children will continue to have positive feelings about that party.

Clearly, as in the US in 1860 and in France in 2017, a new party can sweep in and assume party out of nowhere. However, Macron in France is 80% marketing and spin, like Obama, and 20% stuff that won’t work. Nothing he will propose will really matter to the people. Only Bernie’s vision of redistribution can actually improve the lives of the great majority. All this centrist, corporate, free-market spin is just that: lies meant to keep people from voting themselves a raise. If the people of America want a raise, they should vote themselves one and not worry too much about how loud the oligarchs and billionaires tell their corporate media to cry and shriek in pain.

The Republicans of 1860 were a mixed bunch but basically they stood against feudal, archaic and completely regressive institutions like slavery and in favor of a more modern government. That ideology is not all spin and marketing. The transcontinental railroad, more freedom, the homestead act, an end to gridlock over slavery in Washington: there were tangible benefits to the Republican ideology over the regressive, local, medieval Democrats. The New Deal was not simply a slogan. Social security, jobs, banking insurance, safe food and drugs, rural electrification, etc.: these things actually make life better.

It’s not enough to be charming, like Obama, or offer something new, like Macron, or win in a landslide, like Reagan: if you want to change the trajectory of our civic life, you actually have to cut through the spin and improve people’s lives. Bernie’s program would do that. Once people have free college, higher minimum wages, better infrastructure, government healthcare and the rest of it, it’ll be 80 years before they think about changing horses.

The Trump show will end one way or another and both parties, Democrats and Republicans, will be weak shells, each with no more than about 20% hardcore support. If anyone other than Bernie or someone with his agenda takes advantage of the situation, we face chaos. Redistribution through constitutional means is the only path to stability and improvement. Every other kind of politics, including the platforms of both Democrats and Republicans, is 100% nonsensical spin and marketing that will have no effect on the real problems facing the people. Any kind of right-wing populism won’t work because the right won’t clearly target the real enemies of the people: the domestic elite, most significantly the American rich.

So, Bernie or Bust it is, once again.