New Hampshire, If You Believe in Progressive Policies, Don’t Be Afraid to Vote for Bernie Sanders. He is the Electable Candidate. D.T. Pugh Follow Feb 7 · 9 min read

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Voters of New Hampshire, it’s no easy task being the first primary in the nation to choose their candidates for President, and after the Iowa caucus debacle, you have more weight on your shoulders. But this year, it seems like as hard a decision as you’ve ever had. Not only will you have to choose from a large field of qualified candidates, but you also have to balance desirable policies you want from a candidate versus who has the best chance to beat Donald Trump in November. If you want progressive policies, and elect-ability, then your candidate should be Bernie Sanders.

If you’ve solidified your support for any of the other candidates, then maybe I won’t be able to persuade you to change your vote to Bernie. If you want politics to go back to the way things were before Trump, then maybe Joe Biden is your candidate. If you want someone who’s younger than Biden but also wants to normalize politics, then maybe Mayor Pete or Senator Amy Klobuchar are the candidates you should vote for. If you’re progressive and you want someone who will fight against corporate greed, then you should support for Senator Elizabeth Warren. But if you want someone who will move the country forward by bringing us universal health care, who will fight against corporate greed and level the economic playing field, all while beating Donald Trump in the general election, then you should cast your vote for Senator Bernie Sanders.

A few pundits and political experts have claimed that Bernie is not electable nationwide because “socialist” or extremely to the left. First of all, he’s polling well nationwide in a head to head match up against Trump. Secondly, Bernie is not “extremely” to the left, but he’s only far to the left compared to the rest of U.S. politics, which sits far to the right. In the United States, we tend to forget that there is a whole world that exists outside our borders. In other industrialized nations, the policies that Bernie Sanders has been touting have been implemented for years, and they are working. Universal health care is one such policy that already exists, and succeeds, in the top economies of the world. So why is it such an extreme proposition for the United States? Sensible gun control measures are in place in many parts of the world, and they don’t see the amount of gun violence that we do here in the U.S. So why can’t it be done here? The United States is falling behind other industrialized nations in the world in public transportation and education, among other things. Why can’t the U.S. compete?

Ever since Reagan was President, there has been a slow erosion of workers’ rights and a loosening of regulations on big corporations that has widened the gap between the rich and the poor. Income inequality is as high as it’s been in one hundred years. Wages are stagnant, wealth is concentrating to the top, and after forty years of “trickle-down” economics, that wealth is not trickling down, and it won’t trickle down until the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Bernie’s policies will not weaken America’s economy, on the contrary, his economic policies will bolster it by supporting the backbone of this country: the middle class.

The halcyon days of the American dream were built on a strong middle class. Those were the days of strong labor unions and higher corporate and wealth taxes. Could we build the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System today in our current political climate? Of course not, we can’t even fix what roads we have. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our healthcare system is bankrupting our citizens and student debt is crippling a whole generation of Americans. We need Bernie’s revolution to bring back the strength of the middle class and fight against those who have an interest in keep the wealth gap as wide as it is now.

“Who’s going pay for it?” is the common refrain from opponents of Bernie’s policies, on both sides. Well, no one seems to ask who’s going to pay for the endless wars we’re engaged in. Nor do they balk at the millions that taxpayers dole out for Trump’s frequent golf outings and parties at Mar-a-Lago. How many of those millions we spend on Trump’s selfishness and opulence could pay for the outstanding medical bills of someone who got sick through no fault of their own? How many of the millions that we spend on missiles, drones and tanks could pay down the student loan debt of a single mother working three jobs to make ends meet? The money is there, but it’s misallocated and fails to enrich the lives of the majority of Americans. And more funds could be more properly utilized for the American people if only the wealthy and corporations would pay their fair share of taxes. How many of the crumbling bridges and roads in America could be fixed with the billions in tax that Amazon weaseled out of paying?

Bernie’s opponents, even within the Democratic party, claim that the American people will never vote for a socialist. But what they fail to understand is that Bernie is a democratic socialist in which the government is run by the people and for the people. It’s the economic system that Nordic countries thrive under. There, they have strong social programs that aid their people’s upward mobility. They have well-run universal health care, education and public transportation, low levels of poverty, and practically no childhood poverty, all while having some of the most robust economies in the world. It’s no wonder they are among the world’s happiest people. Isn’t this way of life what we should be fighting for here? The American people are waking up to see that the socialist boogeyman that was the U.S.S.R. is not what becomes of nations that implement strong welfare programs. Instead, we see that places like Denmark, Finland, and Sweden provide opportunity and freedom while still caring for their citizens.

No, Bernie is not too extreme to be elected, it may only seem that way to our American sensibilities. He is speaking the truth as to what the country needs at this time in history. We don’t look back on Franklin D. Roosevelt as a radical, but by today’s standards, the policies he implemented to get out of the Great Depression would be considered extreme. Despite this, many of the terms of the New Deal are still in place and are as popular as ever. Social security, for example, is one of the most popular bipartisan programs that we have in this country, and going after it is generally considered a political nonstarter. Yet, if a program like Social Security were presented in today’s political environment, it would be considered radical, dismissed. The same would be true for Medicare, implemented under Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was no radical, but he was an effective progressive who was able to get a lot done and his revolutionary policies, like Medicare, like the Civil Rights act, are immutable today.How many people want to revoke Medicare today? Eliminating Medicare is incredibly unpopular among both parties.

Bernie Sanders is not a radical either, we’ve only been conditioned to think he is because the media wants to protect their corporate interests. Senator Sanders is a patriot who wants to move the country forward with ideas and policies that have been shown to work with great success. So many of the issues that America faces have been solved or limited in other successful, democratic and free countries. We would be crazy not to consider them.

But, can Bernie get all this stuff done that he wants to do? Isn’t it better to vote for the candidates who take a pragmatic approach to politics? That line of thinking would have likely been true in politics of the past where both sides of the aisle in congress were acting in good faith to do what’s best for the country. But there’s no room for compromise with one party in congress, only obstruction. The Republicans will not compromise with Democrats anymore, that’s no longer the way things work in Washington. You need a President like Bernie who will fervently push for the policies he sees that are right for the country, because the Republicans are not going to come back to their senses and play fair — not until their party collapses. The only people in congress that Bernie will have to negotiate with are other Democrats who don’t share his progressive agenda, but he’ll push the discussion closer to what is really needed in this country, even if we don’t get exactly everything we want. You can’t start from a place of compromise, you have to fight from the very start for what you think is right to move the country closer to the place it needs to be. That’s what Bernie will do.

Now, you might be thinking, why not Elizabeth Warren? She’s progressive and she agrees with most of Bernie’s policies as well. Personally, I like Elizabeth Warren, and I think she would make a great President, but I don’t think she is electable. Conservatives don’t like her for the same reasons they don’t like Bernie, her progressive policies draw their ire. But conservatives have a level of vitriol for Warren that they don’t have for Sanders that’s inexplicable unless you account for sexism. There are some progressives that don’t like her because they find her inauthentic. They’ll say she’s Hillary Clinton 2.0, or she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing only paying lip service to the progressive cause but will be a corporatist if she gets in power. They worry that she was a Reagan conservative back in the 80’s and would bow to the corporate power structure once elected. That argument falls apart when you see her legislative agenda in the Senate over the last seven years. Consistently, she has introduced bills increase corporate regulations and accountability. You can’t fake what you do legislatively and she gets a lot of heat from both Democrat and Republican corporatists for the policies she’s pushing. She would more than likely win the popular vote — maybe by even more votes than Hillary did in 2016 — but unfortunately that’s not how we elect our President in this country (another fundamental change that should be dealt with to bring America up to date democratically, but that’s a discussion for another time). My fear, however, is that she won’t win the votes in the states that matter the most, with the voters that matter the most. When it comes to white, male, blue collar workers in places like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, she will most certainly run into trouble. As a man, I’ve heard what other men have to say about other women behind closed doors, (especially when they think I agree with them because I’m white and male myself). There’s a fundamental hatred for women — especially for strong, effective women like Senator Warren — among these white, working class, uneducated groups with whom I converse. It’s a limited sample size, and I know the white working class male voter is not a monolith, but we have to consider trends when it comes to the general election. If she’s the nominee, I hope I’m wrong about how she’s viewed by that population of voters. However, I may have said the same thing about Obama and racism in 2008, and I would have been wrong. But sexism still runs deep in these groups, very deep. Despite the fact Warren and Sanders having similar political views that can be backed up by their voting records, I have never heard the same level of vitriol leveled at Bernie as I have against Warren — from both political sides. The worst I’ve heard about Bernie, even from conservatives, is that he’s a nice guy who is misguided about his politics, and a bit eccentric. Warren, in contrast, is seen as a phony and a liar, undeservedly so. Even if someone wanted to vote for her because she represents policies that they believe in, they may not if they are conditioned to hate who she is as a person, whether right or wrong.

So, to the people of New Hampshire, vote for the person who most represents your desires as an American, but do not be afraid to cast your vote for Bernie Sanders. Don’t worry about what the powers that be may say, or the history they may cite as to why he’s unelectable. The only person that can win is one that inspires Americans with hope, and excites the citizens of this country to turn out and vote. His ideas are bold and that’s precisely what this country needs at this moment in history. No one will stand up for what the people of this country need. No one will bring the country together to restore fairness to our economic system. No one will inspire millions to come out and vote. No one has the best chance to be Donald Trump in November. No one besides Senator Bernie Sanders.