Bernie or Hillary? We'll Know Soon, No Fooling

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this is the most contentious primary season in a generation. Leaving alone for a moment the “Real Estate Developer” as at least one pundit calls Trump, refusing to use his name, Democrats are having their own argument among themselves. The idea that outsiderness is the flavor of the day can be applied to Bernie Sanders despite the fact that he’s been in Congress for 26 years. After all, though he usually votes with Democrats, officially he has never been elected as a Democrat, preferring to run as an Independent in Vermont, one of the most liberal states in the nation. He is a Democratic Socialist and proud of it. 

Sanders does not waver in his insistence that America can afford to give every citizen free health care, free tuition at state universities, paid family leave, an increase in Social Security benefits, while simultaneously rebuilding our infrastructure. Bernie says it would cost 18,000,000,000,000 over 10 years, that’s 18 trillion, 15T of which is federal spending—1.5T/yr when the annual federal budget right now is 3.2T. It would almost double federal spending. Republican heads just exploded: to them, Sanders proves Romney’s contention that they just want “free stuff.”

To pay for it, he would….raise taxes, mostly on the wealthy, on corporations, and on the financial and banking industries, because as he likes to say, we bailed them out, now it’s their turn. But he would also raise taxes on just about all in order to pay for “Medicare for All” and family leave. I’m not sure how the almost 50% whose health insurance is paid all or in part by employers make out. He doesn’t explain how he would convince Americans to willingly give up their private insurance policies, when just a few years ago Obama was vilified for promising Americans could keep their insurance plans if they liked them, yet only some 5% or less could not and screamed bloody murder. His projections of future economic growth are also considered a fantasy by most economists, and without the 5.3% growth rate he predicts, a rate not seen since the 1980’s, enough tax revenue would not come in.

He acknowledges that in order to achieve sweeping changes like this, it would not be enough simply to elect him President, since Republicans in Congress have not been willing to so much as close a corporate tax loophole for many years. No, he says it will take a “political revolution.” I don’t know how deeply his followers have thought through how unlikely this revolution is, but I know that when you are caught up in what feels like, and may indeed be described as “a movement,” it is easy to delude yourself that each success is inevitable and each setback is caused by a conspiracy (media isn’t fair, Democratic Party is against him, the system is rigged). 

Sanders’ opponent in his quixotic adventure is Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady to probably the most investigated president in American history (at least most investigated for false or inconsequential misdeeds). After 25 years of almost nonstop media coverage of Republican smears and phony scandals, her image is tarnished. Among liberals, this is compounded by her vote to support use of force in Iraq, a mistake she explains was that of believing Bush’s promise to pursue continued weapons inspections. Using a private e-mail server while Secretary, which the FBI is reportedly still investigating, also hangs over her candidacy. Bottom line: her credibility is doubted by the majority of voters despite the fact she polls as the most admired woman in the world, year after year.

One of Bernie’s biggest arguments against Hillary, which he applies to all politicians, is that because they have their own Super PACs often funded anonymously by big corporations or billionaires, they are corrupt and cannot be trusted. Only he and Chump (my preferred alias for the Donald) claim they are free of influence because Bernie takes only small donations from individuals and Chump spends his own money. Hillary agrees with Bernie that Citizen’s United (the Supreme Court ruling that treats corporate political spending as ‘free speech’) should be overturned, but maintains, as Obama did, that until it is, she must take donations from many sources to compete and will not allow these donations to influence her policy decisions. Bernie suggests otherwise, though he stops short of a direct accusation and has not produced any instances of her changing a vote due to a contribution. He is a master of skepticism and innuendo, inviting his chuckling admirers to just imagine how good her speeches must have been to earn her hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech. It's a lot of money, but not out of line for speakers of her renown: Colin Powell, a former Secretary of State as well, and not in political office, so presumably “not corrupt,” earns between $100,000-200,000 per speech.

As I write this, Bernie has won several Western caucus states with staggeringly good numbers and is claiming a path to the nomination, though Hillary has over 250 more “pledged” delegates (delegates won in primaries/caucuses) and 450 more superdelegates (elected officials, party chairmen and such). The delegate count is 57%/43% in Hillary’s favor, 67%/33% if you include super delegate endorsements. Bernie has been strong in some parts of the country and among some demographics, particular young people, white men and in caucus states, but there are only a couple of caucus states left. Hillary has been very strong among African Americans and in the South, but the South has largely finished voting. 

Bernie has to win consistently and strongly to win the nomination. If Hillary wins even just a couple of the remaining states or wins some with strong numbers, Bernie can’t catch up in the pledged delegate count, and unless the political revolution he needs reveals itself now, it’s going to have to wait for a future election. To quote FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, the statistics ‘wonder boy’, if Bernie manages to surpass Hillary in pledged delegates, “this scenario would represent such a massive sea-change that superdelegates really might have to reconsider their positions. You might even say it would require a revolution, a profound rejection of Clinton and the status quo.”

We should know by April 26 when we will have results from NY (April 19), Pennsylvania, and several other Northeastern states. If Bernie hasn’t significantly closed the gap by then, I think Hillary can claim the nomination.

And though I’m publishing this on April Fool’s day, I ain’t fooling.

Trump and Sanders are Populists. So What?

The rise of Donald Trump and the candidacy of Bernie Sanders have brought up a label of which I was ignorant, Populism. I had to look it up and read some history to come to an understanding. I had thought of Populists as adhering to popular ideas, wanting to change the establishment or status quo, or not being ideological, which is about right, but misses the history and connotations.

The first "Populist" movement spawned a political party in the 1890's that Bernie Sanders could have led: “ ‘The fruits of the toil of millions,’ the Party declared in 1892, ‘are boldly stolen to build up the fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind.’ The Populists also called for a secret ballot; women's suffrage; an eight-hour workday, direct election of U.S. Senators and the President and Vice President; and initiative and recall to make the political system more responsive to the people....The Populists embraced government regulation to get out from the domination of unregulated big business. The platform demanded government ownership of railroads, natural resources, and telephone and telegraph systems.” (Copyright 2016 Digital History)

But Populism came to be viewed  “as merely empathizing with the public, (usually through rhetoric or "unrealistic" proposals) in order to increase appeal across the political spectrum…. Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell define populism as an ideology that ‘pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice’.” (Wikipedia: Populism). That certainly describes Trump.

The common thread that seems to unite Sanders’ and Trump’s Populism is what many see as unfulfillable promises. Campaign promises always contain an aspect of aspiration. If the economy is bad, the candidate promises it will improve. If there is trouble in the world, the candidate promises security. If we are engaged in an unpopular war, the candidate promises to end it. What a savvy voter does and what a healthy campaign process and debates are supposed to do, is to expose and evaluate the plans the candidates have to solve the problems or improve the economy.

Chump tells the voters to trust him, his skills as a successful businessman who negotiates great deals will make America Great Again, as in, respected and feared by the rest of the world, which will then make favorable trade deals with us.  The grand gesture (or crime) of rounding up 11 million illegal immigrants and sending them out of the country and constructing a wall on the southern border to keep them out, along with barring Muslims from entering the country will solve our immigration problem and open up jobs for American citizens he promises. Bellicose pronouncements that he would be willing to torture foreign prisoners and kill the families of terrorists without regard to international law and norms gives some people a sense that he would be a strong leader who would keep Americans safe. In short, he “otherizes” people who are not like his most fervent supporters, less educated white males and their families, and he makes what many believe are unfulfillable promises.

Sanders, on the other hand, does not demonize groups of people, he demonizes the elites: Wall Street investment firms and bankers, greedy corporations, and politicians who he accuses of being corrupted by the money these people and groups spend on their campaigns or pay them in speaking fees. He makes promises to provide free healthcare for all, free college education, and other reforms that will require new taxes or elimination of tax breaks adding up to several trillions of dollars in coming years. Most economists regard his projections of costs and revenues to be unrealistic, and even Bernie acknowledges he couldn’t pass any of this legislation without a “political revolution” — support so YUGE, that a new Congress would be elected, not only of Democrats, but of leftist Democrats willing to basically remake the American economy to be more like the European one. 

On the corrupting influence of money, Trump and Sanders are remarkably close. Trump doesn’t talk about solving the problem, he just notes that he’s rich enough that he can’t be corrupted. It’s not clear how he would persuade those he accuses of being corrupted to pass the laws he wants except through his superior abilities as a negotiator and a leader.  Sanders promises to change the campaign finance laws, which at this point would either take a Constitutional amendment, or a Supreme Court willing to overturn their ruling on Citizen’s United. 

Are they right that U.S. politicians are corrupted by the influences of huge campaign contributions and unlimited spending of PACS and issue groups? I’ve been reading Jane Mayer’s new book, Dark Money, and it’s easy to conclude from that that the money the Koch’s and other billionaires are spending on elections is changing how America is governed, putting tax, regulation, and environmental protection averse Republicans in charge of Congress and state governments. It’s harder to prove that these politicians wouldn't hold these views regardless of dark money, though she does show instances in which some have changed their positions in order to gain the favor of wealthy individuals or groups, evidence of quid pro quo. Bernie Sanders asserts that Hillary Clinton is similarly tainted by having accepted speaking fees and donations from Wall Street firms and those who work there. 

The bottom line is that Populism is too general a description to give a voter information about a candidate. You could almost substitute “Panderism” for Populism. A Populist candidate panders to the aspirations and/or to the fears and prejudices of the voters without necessarily offering realistic plans for achieving those goals. The young and the less educated are perhaps more attracted and vulnerable to such appeals—the young to the aspirational candidate, the less educated to the promoter of fear and what some have described as an attraction to authoritarianism. I shouldn’t have to say that I am not equating Sanders and Trump in any other way. I would only vote for Trump if I had a gun pointed to my head (and, at my age, might not then….I don’t fancy living in a world with him in charge). I will willingly support Sanders for president, but at the same time fear he will lose badly, or winning, face even greater opposition than Obama as president. My hope is that the great American middle will step up and elect Hillary and usher in an era of pragmatism and effective government. Yes, that is likely a pipe dream, as she is likely to face as much opposition, if elected, as any Democrat from Republican politicians. 

Hillary could certainly learn from the Populists and start making sweeping generalizations about the amazing progress a Hillary Clinton presidency would bring! One thing is clear about what American voters want at election time: an inspirational leader who will promise a better future.