There’s a lot hand-wringing about Sanders right now. Generally the discussions I see boil down to this:
- His politics are preferable to Clinton’s
- He doesn’t have even a hint of corruption about him
- Nobody really seems to like Clinton
- But Clinton can get stuff done
And it all goes downhill from there.
Regarding politics, the graphic to the right sums it up nicely. In fact, if you’re old enough to remember Clinton’s husband’s presidency, he had a “nudge, wink, who else you gonna vote for?” attitude when he signed DOMA, gutted welfare, repealed Glass–Steagall, implemented NAFTA (which I’m OK with, but most Dems are not), and so on. And he had a questionable relationship with the truth.
So far, Hillary Clinton appears to be supporting her husband’s legacy, not Obama’s, including the tenuous relationship with honesty. In fact, the main difference appears to be her complete lack of charisma.
Clinton’s strength isn’t credibility, connecting with voters, or her politics; her main strength is that the DNC is backing her. It’s like being famous for being famous.
And then Bernie “who the fuck is this guy?” Sanders comes out of nowhere. Despite the previous media blackout of his campaign, the DNC Chair’s curious Democratic debate schedule favoring Clinton, and massive numbers of superdelegates who have already pledged support of Clinton, Sanders is giving Clinton a serious run for her Wall Street money.
So far, Sanders appears to be a teflon candidate. He started the race stating that he was a Democratic Socialist and his scant media coverage kept yelling “socialist” over and over, but Americans didn’t blink. Clinton keeps trying to pound him over foreign policy issues, but her hawkish attitudes don’t sit well with a generation of new voters who grew up in an era of perpetual war. Even lingering questions about his religious beliefs don’t seem to hurt him.
So why doesn’t Sanders seem to stumble? Clinton should reread her husband’s playbook: it’s the economy, stupid.
Except it’s more complicated than that. The US is an oligarchy (“rule by the rich”). Unless you are very, very wealthy, your opinion has no impact on how your elected federal officials vote. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that with the massive amounts of money necessary to acquire federal office, the system favors those who are effective at fundraising over those who are effective at governing. To be effective at raising money, you generally need rich people and corporations to supply that money and they give that money to politicians who vote the way they want them to. Thus, we have a system guaranteed to breed substandard politicians.
Despite the “recovery”, half of Americans are living in poverty, Europe has displaced the US as the primary force behind world growth, job recovery has been part-time work, and the American Middle Class is disappearing. And what’s happening to the money? Turns out it’s still there. While Americans struggle, the rich are getting richer and fighting like mad to keep things that way. Further, since they’re the only ones with real influence on national US legislation (see the “oligarchy” link above), the rich are winning. The game is rigged and Americans know this.
This is why multi-billionaire Donald Trump is surprising the hell out of the tone-deaf Republican party. His tax plan claims that many lower income Americans will owe nothing in taxes. He propses a change in US-China trade relations that will balance out China's protectionist policies and return jobs to American workers. He's claiming to stop immigrants from taking American jobs. He’s also claiming he’ll raise taxes on the rich, go after hedge fund managers, and claims he’ll put an end to insanely high CEO salaries. For those who would never consider voting for a Democrat and with the gutting of the US economy, you’re damned right Trump’s going to be popular.
And that’s why Sanders is popular, too. He’s hyper-focused on the needs of middle class and poor Americans. He’s fighting for them instead of corporations. He’s dealing with income equality head-on, he wants to end perpetual war, he wants to give our children a chance at a college education, he wants medicare for all, he wants middle class jobs back by spending to rebuilding the crumbling US infrastructure (hello, Keynes).
And his Democratic challenger? Clinton is part of the machine. She and her husband are seen as part and parcel of a broken system that favors the wealthy. Clinton earns a minimum of $225,000 per speech and has been vacuuming up the cash from Wall Street, but won’t tell anyone what she told Wall Street. It’s no surprise that she voted for bailing them out. She is just fine with Glass-Steagall being gutted, allowing banks to make risky investments with your money. She’s repeatedly refused to say anything about the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the Keystone Pipeline until her silence became too great of a political liability. People perceive Clinton as there for her corporate backers and that she’s fundamentally dishonest.
So what does that mean? It means, amongst other things, that if you’re picking a candidate to go up against the Republicans, you want Sanders.
If Clinton wins, some Sanders supporters may cross over to Trump. If Sanders wins, the Clinton supporters might be upset, but they’ll vote Sanders before they vote Republican.
So that’s the point of supporting Sanders: even though Clinton is the anointed one that the party has chosen (regardless of the will of the people), Sanders is simply more electable. Clinton is a gamble (and it doesn’t help that she’s under investigation by the FBI over her email server).
And that’s where Clinton pulls out her final weapon and aims it at Sanders: Sanders will accomplish nothing as president, but Clinton, with her experience and contacts, will be a very effective president. Now that’s an interesting statement. Clinton’s last, best weapon is effectively saying “Clinton can get things done because she’s part of the machine that America detests.” Anyone who is seduced by that argument is the sort of person who somehow thinks that the Democrats and Republicans might spontaneously vote against their best interests and fix a hideously broken system. National-level congressmen have multiple ways of getting phenomenally rich, most of which are not available to the average person. They can legally engage in insider trading on pending legislation. If they vote the right way, they might get cushy board positions when they “retire” from politics. Around half of all them accept lobbying jobs as soon as they’re legally able, usually earning more than $2 million a year.
No, they’re not going to vote against that and neither is Clinton. Republicans and Democrats fight each other, providing a distraction to the real problem in America: it’s no longer a democracy.
But what if Sanders became president? Even if can’t implement his ideas, he’s still got the veto (historically, only 4% of vetos are overridden). That’s an awfully big club. Given that Clinton has a number of advisers who are actually lobbyists working to overturn financial regulations such as Dodd-Frank and she and her husband earn millions working with them, it’s hard to believe that she’s going to turn on them. Sanders already has. He’ll use his vetoes to shut down corporate-written legislation. He’ll at least stop the worst of the abuses.
Maybe Sanders won’t be very effective in fixing America, but Clinton will be very effective in not fixing America.