Thursday, October 22, 2015

Bernie Sanders' Consolation Prize

Maverick Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent
senator and self-proclaimed socialist who caucuses
with the Democrats (he fits right in!) may not win
the Democrats' presidential nomination, but he may
yet win their future.

Like the British Labor Party's recently elected
party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Sanders turns off
many voters and even makes some Democrat
party bigwigs uncomfortable, the latter not so
much for his political views and ideas but for
being rather raw and unbridled in his expressing
them. The former simply want no more to do
with socialistic, Big-Government-knows-all-and-
is-the-solution-for-everything presidents after
suffering through two terms of the present one.
But Sanders may yet leave his mark on the party
which he caucuses with, as may Corbyn in
regards to his party. While in agreement with
the Democrats on many issues: taking an
isolationist view toward foreign policy, at the
very least being "hands off" on the Middle
East leaving our only true ally there, Israel,
to fend for itself against an increasingly nuclear
Iran and a host of cabals of radical Islamist thugs;
The U.S. stepping down from its longtime lead role
in world affairs; increased subsidies for, among other
things, college; a $15/hour minimum wage, and
higher/more taxes on the most productive people
and on businesses of all sizes, Bernie isn't quite
"one of the gang" in the Beltway club. He is not,
for example, a full-fledged member of either of the
two major political parties, and he can be a bit too
forward, too impolitic, for the Democrats' comfort,
thus putting pressure on the Dems to either take a
"me too" stand alongside Sanders or to downplay
Sanders and his ideas, thus alienating much of the
party base which has slid ever-leftward in recent years,
with the Dems along for the ride. Sanders is merely
capitalizing on the party's leftward tack.

Again, Sanders merely caucuses with the Senate
Democrats; he is not a full member, let alone a holder
of a leadership position, unlike Corbyn of the U.K.
Labor Party.

However, Sanders can still influence the Democrats'
platform and policies for years to come even without
winning the party's nomination, let alone the general
election. For a start, Sanders already provides the logical
end point of the party's progress to the far reaches to the
far Left; Everything is free! Well, at least until April 15
rolls around and the bill for it all comes due. Meanwhile,
payments in another kind will be collected, such as the
forfeiture of our rights and liberties as government
encroaches all the more upon us with its endless regulations,
taxes, and consequential erosion of our freedoms. A most
precious and priceless currency, to be paid for the growth
and empowerment of the do-all state.

Thus Senator Sanders would win a heck of a consolation prize
in the process, a prize which would rival the top prize in terms
of magnitude and importance. It would be like a dormant bomb,
with its timer set for its explosion, and that fateful time being
whenever another Democrat is elected president. The Democrat
Party of today is not at all your father's Democrat Party, and it
will be even father removed from it in the future, thanks in no
small part to Bernie Sanders.

Pretty good going for a presidential candidate who is not in a
party leadership position and is not likely to win election to
the presidency.


MEM



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