On the Naked Capitalism blog, Lambert Strether has posted a really insightful analysis of the Corruption & Healthcare issues in the Clinton-Sanders race. It’s truly a must-read...go read the whole piece.
If you need a little taste, here’s my tl;dr excerpt:
CLINTON: So I think it’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out…
Shorter Clinton: “You say I’m corrupt. Prove it!” In longer form, Clinton makes the strong claim that “you will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received.” This claim can be disproved with a single example. Here ya go.
Let’s look at what Elizabeth Warren has to say on Clinton and the bankruptcy bill; note the appeal to those burdened with student loans. (Many of you may have seen this, but it’s well worth a second look. The video was “blasted out” to the press “almost instantaneously” by the Sanders campaign, to whom we should give credit both for being both better at oppo and more agile than we might think.) Here it is:
Well, so much for “artful smear.”
…
Note how narrow Clinton’s definition of corruption is: Money in exchange for a vote. That is the criminal definition of corruption — the quid pro quo — as we’ve seen from Zephyr Teachout, but corrupton as the Framers understood it, as an infection in the body politic, has a far broader definition: “The self-serving use of public power for private ends.”[1] Clearly, using one’s official position as a former Secretary of State and a likely future President to collect $675,000 from Goldman is exactly that. And I’m amazed how many Clinton supporters, at least on the Twitter, simply refuse to see this. Do they believe, as Yves asks, that Goldman is investing in Clinton with no thought of return?
Lambert goes on to describe how single payer was considered during HillaryCare & ObamaCare and then discusses the theories of change embraced by Clinton (trench warfare) & Sanders (breakthrough) followed by a truly artful conclusion:
So a Sanders theory of change doesn’t have to be that hard: Don’t replicate the Democrat’s strategic failure — I’m being very charitable here — of gutting a movement once built. We know how to do the right thing; so do it. Change is hard; but the theory of change is not hard.
And this brings me right back round to corruption. The Democrat Party and, more importantly, its voters and constituents, are not faced with a choice between Clinton’s incremental, insider-driven trench warfare strategy, and Sanders’ breakthrough, outsider, movement strategy. The first cannot work; the second can. Why?
The insider strategy founders on corruption. You saw that in Warren’s video on Clinton and the bankruptcy bill. When Clinton’s private interests changed after her transition from First Lady to Senator, she flipped on policy to favor her new Wall Street contributors constituents; “the self-serving use of public power for private ends.” And exactly the same thing will happen with any insider strategy today; corruption will defeat it.
A movement strategy is the only way forward. And we already know how to do it!
Now, really, go read the whole thing.
p.s. In case i’ve quoted too much, please point me to the guidelines & I could try to edit it down a bit more.