A PHILOSOPHY
“…the social contract is broken. Government has proven itself incompetent, and our elected leaders are driven only by greed for wealth and power. Corporations are no longer loyal to their employees or their customers, just their stock price. Executives no longer do what’s best for their companies, just themselves. Enron, Worldcom, AIG, Countrywide, JPMorgan. The list goes on.
“Modern banks have wrecked the economy. They’ve grown so large that they can gamble everything on a roll of the dice, and the government has no choice but to bail them out. They’re sucking money out of the middle class. They’re set up now just to profit themselves, rather than facilitate production and innovation, which is the role they’re designed to perform.
”Nobody cares about the people. Even the people don’t care about the people, they only care about themselves…”
Bernie Sanders’ opening remarks in a debate with Hillary Clinton?
No. The words of a fictional character in a debut novel by Nicholas Petrie of Milwaukee.
Bernie sees his campaign for the Presidency as a call to arms for a political revolution in America to equalize the power of money, to get government to work again as the arbiter between that power and the needs of people and to provide some sort of level playing field of opportunity again.
He calls his views progressive, but the media views them as the philosophy of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
And so where does that leave Hillary?
Does she refute his arguments about the power of the monied few, the lack of government action, the influences which seem to have silenced government completely?
No.
Does she claim that Bernie is wrong in his belief, for example, that the power of the private health insurers and the pharmaceutical industry raises and sets prices without regard for anything but profit?
No.
Does she claim that Bernie is wrong about the power brokers on Wall Street and in the corporate world contributing enough money to political campaigns to literally own them and the men and women who are running for office?
No.
Does she claim that Bernie is wrong when he rails against the fact that Big Business totally controls the tax system so that they can hide trillions of dollars in plain sight in Europe and Asia to avoid taxes?
She does not.
Hillary, with a mind for policy and a range of experience unparalleled in our time, simply asks Bernie how he thinks his ‘revolution’ can work in the political climate that has existed in Congress for years.
In effect, Hillary is not questioning any aspect of Bernie’s philosophy because no liberal can…whether as ideologue, advocate or humanist. All she is asking is how this agenda can take place.
For instance, Hillary questions whether Obamacare can be improved by ‘starting again’ to realize its original intention…to echo the Medicare system which works so well and actually can control prices by establishing a public insurance company to compete with private insurance companies. She knows as he does, that such a change will NEVER pass in the current Congressional environment. She knows as he does, that the President was told that if he insisted on establishing a public insurance policy he would never pass any new health care initiative. And he capitulated because he wanted to expand and extend health care coverage to as many Americans as possible rather than lose it all in a fight he could never win.
Because she knows that ‘all or nothing’ ends up being nothing. And Hillary is not about ideology but about reality.
HISTORIC CHANGE
The old adage “If you don’t know history, you are bound to repeat its mistakes” works as old adages do.
America has been here before. Government controlled by massive business interests built on trusts, cartels, monopolies owning the railroads, steel mills, mines, manufacturing. Then – at the beginning of the 20th Century – we called them Robber Barons. Nothing subtle about that.
The capitalist system run amok…existing to profit those who could monopolize it. Laws they influenced and passed to help them do just that.
Obviously nothing new. The circular course of history. So while the ‘coat’ looks new today, it really is just a coat disguised by technology, new techniques of manipulation, greater amounts of money (all magnified by inflation) and those who enter public service because it is probably the only way they can make a living. Their only real talent: getting into and staying in office…no matter what!
How do we get out of this place? Leadership. Public involvement. Laws that equalize.
Once there was a Teddy Roosevelt working right in the face of the monied class he came from to bust trusts and monopolies…pushing back against that power and control and winning.
This was a leadership based on getting things accomplished not just espousing a great cause and genuinely human beliefs. Without the ability to make change happen, oratory (as we heard from candidate Barack) and outrage (as we hear from candidate Bernie) produces nothing but great expectations which can so easily be dashed by the failure to deliver.
What must happen is a series of endless negotiations to build a consensus necessary to put things right again. The Roosevelts were powerful leaders, as was Lyndon Johnson in our time. Bullies when they had to be; magicians when that was necessary. But they had to get Congress to agree before laws they wanted were passed. They knew how.
There is every evidence that Hillary does too.
But here’s a simple truth: no one – no matter how smart on one hand or beautiful on the other – has it all. When it comes to campaigning Hillary is not Bill. Not even close.
THE NOMINATING CAMPAIGN
There is about Bernie’s campaign an air of surprise. Hillary was such the obvious favorite that the Democratic Party seemed unable to stir any opposition to the idea of her. Because he knew that she would never campaign as a liberal ideologue advocating for a ‘revolution’, Bernie had the entire liberal population at his disposal. He was able to verbalize his list of undeniable truths with little chance that Hillary or anybody else from the Democratic Party would publicly disagree. And he was right.
Hillary, on the other hand, knew that she could be comfortable with Bernie telling his liberal truths without any opposition while she concentrated on the “how” of doing things and not the “why” they must be done. It almost seemed like two sides of the same coin.
They both were right and seemingly comfortable until Bernie started gaining the support and donations of young men and women stung by student debt, the difficulty of finding jobs no matter their college degrees and the absolute lack of fire and energy driving the truths of what they believed about the economy, government and the status quo.
That unexpected success built an ‘edge’. Bernie steadfastly repeats and repeats and repeats his refrain. Like a hit record-maker he is quite comfortable singing those same lyrics again and again as he watches those ‘sales’ mount.
Hillary is stunned by his success. Has she truly failed – as she did with Obama – to recognize that a portion of the country needs to hear the “music” it wants to hear. Neither Bernie nor Obama before him explained in any detail what practical steps must be taken to have their message come to life.
And because this time there is only Bernie and not 11 other guys to dull the message, it is possible that Bernie’s ‘one note’ as important as it might be, will become something else: an indicator that that’s all there is.
A smart high school senior on his way to study public policy at American University said it best after the last debate…
”You know I like what Bernie says. And so do all my friends. It’s important. But he keeps saying it again and again, word for word and that’s all he says as if raising taxes on the rich will solve everything and he can order it without Congress stopping him. He’s got to know better than that.
“But Hillary puts everything in context knowing how much must be negotiated and how hard that work is though it must be done. There is so much detail in her programs…in her speeches. It’s like Hillary is talking about reality and Bernie has us all dreaming.”