There isn't a millimeter of distance between Bernie and me on nearly every issue, thus I will energetically support his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President.
However, I would have real fears for the general election with him as our candidate. But I want to change that, and Bernie just might be able to start the process of accomplishing that change.
I was listening to Thom Hartman this afternoon talking about Bernie. Bernie emphasizes that we spend far too much money on the military - as much as the rest of the world combined. A woman caller commented that we need that money for "Progressive Programs." I totally agree, but I fear that the American electorate does not. Many, many otherwise decent people have a real problem with what they perceive to be welfare. They have been brainwashed by their media of choice into believing that most people of color are bloodsucking welfare whores and drug addicts. They are convinced that spending on the kinds of things we progressives support is simply a process of stealing money from them and giving it to people who refuse to work like they do.
We are never going to get the kind of government we need/deserve until we quash this abominable attitude. But we have a long way to go on that.
The perception is that all we progressives (and they know Bernie is one) want to do is give away more money to poor, unproductive, people - and by poor people they understand that to be people of color (other than white).
I'm not just talking about Tea Baggers on the extreme right. I'm talking about rational, reasonable, well educated people who find the Tea Party to be mostly stupid and reprehensible. They are probably what we could refer to as "the middle" in American politics today. They believe that there needs to be a balance and that welfare spending is completely out of control.
My hope is that Bernie is in this to educate people about these things. I have high hopes that he will run a campaign that is completely free of negativism toward Hillary. I hope that he is able to teach the general electorate that we spend way too much on our military. I hope that he is able to begin the process of getting people to realize just how miserable life is on the meager welfare that our country provides its poorer citizens, and that most of the spending they consider to be welfare is not welfare at all.
I think that this is exactly what he is seeking to accomplish, and that is why I will wholeheartedly support him.
But I have a question: As I considered the impossibility of getting middle of the road Americans to vote for a true progressive, I got thinking about research into people's perspectives on welfare. Does anyone here know what research has been done on this?
I would like to ask every welfare hating American several questions:
1. In your opinion are there any Americans that genuinely NEED welfare?
2. What kind of person should get welfare from our government?
And then, I would like to see people shown a series of pictures along with a story of the person, telling of their circumstances, how they came to be in that condition, and have them pick from choices as to what level of assistance each person should get.
The picture of the person shown could be randomly assigned to stories as they are told. Some of the pictures would be of a black person, some of a Hispanic, and some of a white person. The interesting thing would be the effect that the picture had on the response as to how much assistance would be given to the person.
If a study anything like this has been done, I would love to see the hear about it. I suspect that showing a picture of a black person would cause the response of white people to be much less generous, but I could be wrong.