Sanders has better proposals, that mirror what I would want done. Unfortunately, I’m a fraction of a Democratic electorate that is a dwindling fraction of the American electorate.
Despite Sanders’ claim of a revolution, Democratic turnout is *down* from 2008, with Republican turnout at record highs. There is no revolution. There are a bunch of liberals convinced that there must be some silent majority just waiting to come out of the wings, if only we could tap it. But the sense of excitement we have is more echo chamber than groundswell.
The governing environment of the next four years will look much like the last four years. The question is not who has the best plans, but who is likely to accomplish anything at all.
Sanders believes if Obama had fought harder, tacked more left, been more obviously left-wing that he would have accomplished more. In reality, the moderate health care proposal Obama pushed through was bought at the cost of losing working majorities in the Senate and the House.
In fact, we lost more than that, as the conservative counterwave actually got to draw the districts for the next ten years at the state level.
Had we a parliamentary system, like any sane country, you could probably do this. You bulldoze your stuff through, twist party arms, and see how people reacted to the result. But we live in a system where a minority of voters, providing they are rural and have gerrymandering on their side. The fact that Sanders is not in awe of what Obama has accomplished despite that makes me believe that he has little to no understanding or connection to political realities outside Vermont. The fact he’s called everyone he is going to have to work with part of the corrupt establishment confirms for me he isn’t thinking through his strategy past the convention.
I worry that we’re on the verge of creating a perpetual delusion machine on the Democratic side, where candidates with little understanding of the political realities promise the dawning of a new age (see 2008) get eaten up by the reality that this is a nation of centrists (see 2010) and then start revising history, saying, ah, but if we had tacked more to the left (see Bernie, talking about primarying Obama in 2012).
Sanders can’t accomplish a single thing he promises. It’s mathematically impossible. For me, the fact he does not realize that is disqualifying.
