

Bernie Sanders in Philadelphia 4/16

(Image by Rob Kall) Details DMCA



Bernie can get a lot done without the support of the House of Representatives, and it's almost certain that his coattails will help down ticket Senate candidates to take back the senate and reduce the Republican advantage in the House.



That means that Bernie will have a majority advantage to get appointees authorized through the Senate.

Debunking Hillary's Stickiest Memes-- Tried & Tested, and Gets Things Done . This section is adapted and expanded from another article I wrote,

As president, Bernie will be able to do things that Hillary would never do. He can replace agency heads who Obama appointed who have deep ties to big corporations with genuine advocates for reform. For example, he can get rid of former big Pharma, Monsanto and other corporate lobbyists and executives currently running agencies, and replace them with heads of organizations that seek to make the environment safer or who advocate for consumers. Hillary will not do this. She'll walk in Obama's footsteps and appoint lobbyists and executives from the companies she is indebted to for campaign contributions. Bernie can appoint finance advisors like Paul Sachs, who also advises Pope Francis, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, or visionary economics thinkers like Gar Alperovitz, David Korten and Richard Wolff. He might even appoint public Banking advocates Ellen Brown or Mike Krause, who have been working to get states and cities to do what North Dakota has had for almost a century. Bernie can get a lot done-- a lot of meaningful changes done-- very quickly, putting together a circle of advisors and appointing people who don't need confirmation right away. It is very likely that Bernie's coattails, with his strong youth, independent and even Republican support, will broadly carry down ticket candidates, far better than high-negative Hillary. He'll very likely have a Democrat controlled senate, so he'll be able to get his agency appointees quickly through congress. They'll be able to start cleaning up the agencies that have been lobbyist influenced for 16 years. Hillary will owe all those lobbyists. (If there's another debate, I'd like to see questions about appointing lobbyists and past corporate execs posed to both candidates.) Can Bernie make a difference for Black Lives Matter right away. Absolutely. He can appoint a DOJ Attorney General who sets policies that protect people from rogue police. He can pardon people from federal prisons. I don't know. Can he pardon anyone in jail? If so, he could pardon thousands in jail for Marijuana possession. Can Bernie get Medicare for all? I doubt it will happen at once. But he can facilitate it. In Canada, it started with one province. In the US, marriage equality started with one state, then another, until a critical mass was reached. The same will probably be the case for single payer, medicare for all healthcare. It could start with one state, maybe Vermont, or Colorado or California. Knowing that the president WANTS IT, and will help in any way he can may increase the motivation for some state legislatures and governors to try. And Bernie may be able to use other executive powers or powers of agencies he controls. Can Bernie get free tuition for public colleges and universities? It might take two more years into his presidency for the Bernie revolution to win the House. Then, anything is possible. But he can also use his veto power to pressure key members of congress.

Bernie routinely talks about implementing a fifty state strategy, which is what Howard Dean when he was running the DNC, until Obama replaced him with hacks Tim Kaine and Debra Wasserman Schultz, whose DNC leadership led to the disastrous elections of 2010 and 2012. That strategy will help take congressional seats away from Republicans in gerrymandered districts. If the Bernie revolution makes it to the White House and Bernie keeps the revolution going, unlike Obama, who totally threw away the powerful bottom up base he'd built (probably taking the advice of Rahm Emanuel, who hated and vilified progressives.)

When Hillary and her reptilian surrogates lie and defame Bernie, saying he can't get things done, they are really projecting their expectations of what Hillary can or can't do. And that's realistic. Hillary doesn't have the coattails to win the senate, and could cost the Democrats the White House as well.