Bernie Supporters: Beware What You Wish For
It’s nail-biting time for liberals and progressives as the primary season slogs on and neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders have the Democratic Party nomination totally nailed down. Things got ugly this week in Nevada, when Bernie supporters became - justifiably or not - “unruly” after a series of iffy moves on the convention floor by Hillary supporters. Now the prospect looms large of there being boisterous and - if we take “Bernie or Bust” literally - perhaps violent demonstrations at the Philadelphia convention. And beyond that looms the even more horrifying prospect of a divided opposition that would allow Trump (let alone Trumpism) to prevail.
Like many on the left side of the political spectrum, I had a hard time choosing between Bernie and Hillary this year. I can’t write off the difficulty of my choice to a battle between heart and mind; neither of these candidates appeal to my heart. Rather, living in Wisconsin, I’ve seen what can happen when Republicans are ineffectively opposed and as a result come to control all the power centers of government; such one-party rule here hasn’t been pretty (to put it mildly). Bernie impressed me with his clear-headedness and sheer energy at his age (I’m more than 10 years younger and I doubt I could handle his schedule), and I found his positions on the most important issues - getting Big Money out of politics, working seriously to lessen income inequality, and getting rid of “too big to fail” financial institutions - more coherent than Hillary’s. On the other hand, I found Hillary’s position on college affordability and her incrementalism on Obamacare more realistic than Bernie’s more progressive approaches. But I was bothered by her refusal to release her Goldman Sachs speeches; it played right into the Republican conspiracy theories about her and Bill, and would surely weaken her in the general election. Finally, after talking to some more ardent Bernie supporters, I also came to believe that although nearly all Hillary supporters would support Bernie if he became the nominee, a significant number of Bernie supporters would not support Hillary. Whether she could make up the difference with “moderate centrists” was - and remains - an open question, but with Trump (or at that time Cruz) as the most likely alternatives, the openness of that question became decisive for me. So I ended up voting for Bernie, as did most Wisconsinites in the primary (he got 567,936 total votes, more than either Hillary, Cruz or Trump).
Now, as it seems clear that Hillary will become the Democratic nominee, I’m hoping that Bernie hasn’t let his newly developed national popularity go to his head. I’m hoping that he hasn’t deluded himself into thinking that it’s a sign that the country is ready for a “political revolution”; demonstrating that would require that his young supporters actually show up to vote in midterm elections to help elect a new Senate and House. I’m also hoping that his increasingly “dug-in” positions on process and policy are bargaining chips to make Hillary as progressive as he can make her, and not non-negotiable items that will cause a split in the party. Spurred on by Bernie’s remarks about closed primaries, many of his supporters are pressing for all Democratic primaries to be “open”, so that non-Party members can participate. That is a very dangerous idea, since open primaries allow Republicans to cast the decisive votes (see this article, or this one). It would be far better for Bernie to urge all of his independent supporters to become Democrats, and take over the party from within. Now that would be a political revolution!
*Photo of Hillary from nytimes.com; photo of Bernie from newyorker.com