Sanders Is Changing the Democratic Party
Single payer is a long shot, but this is how big ideas happen in America.
By Jonathan Bernstein
Bernie Sanders introduced the latest version of his single-payer health care plan Wednesday, with few details and only vague ideas about financing it. Jonathan Chait, in an excellent column, argues that this means single-payer is “zero percent closer” to passing, given that many Democrats have liked the idea for years but they’ve never been able to solve the policy and political problems involved in transitioning to it.
Chait has a lot of smart things to say about Sanders’s weaknesses as a policy-maker. But “zero percent” isn’t quite correct, and in fact this episode is an interesting window into how U.S. political parties work and why they are so important right now.
American political parties — the Democrats, in this case — are whatever their politicians, governing and campaign professionals, formal party officials and staff, activists and donors, and party-aligned interest groups and the partisan press want them to be. The most important way these party actors determine what the party will be is through nominations, with the most important of those being the presidential nomination. But conflict and cooperation over the party continues between…
