I am not a supporter of Bernie Sanders. I don't dislike him. There are more than a few kernels of truth in what he says, especially when focused on the issue of income inequality. He is a much better public speaker and campaigner than I think the DC Establishment has given him credit for. He is a much better and more clever a politician than the Clinton campaign appears to grasp.
However, I think he would be a terrible leader for the country and the Democratic Party. There is a risk that he could be an unmitigated disaster as President. After listening to a few of his speeches, I find that he lacks nuance, lacks an appreciation for incremental progress, fails to acknowledge what the Democratic Party has achieved under Obama (and previously under Clinton) in difficult political environments, misunderstands the complexity of running a large country, and has not demonstrated a capacity to identify policies that the country can accept.
Bernie Sanders is marketing authenticity by painting the world in black and white terms. In doing so, he speaks in broad brushes and dares not dive into the details of what he would do or where he really stands on the Obama Administration. He voted with the President (and with Hillary Clinton) well over 90% of the time but you couldn't tell by listening to his speeches. He made a speech at Liberty University in which he talked about people not having health insurance and didn't even acknowledge that there is a thing called the Affordable Care Act which he voted for and which has helped millions of people get affordable health insurance. Why then is Sanders giving the ACA the cold shoulder?
In my view, it's because the ACA represents a good example of thoughtful, far reaching change achieved through basically working with the system we have and reforming its inefficiencies rather than tearing it up and replacing it with untested models. The ACA is an example that center-left politics can really work to change people's lives for the better. That, however, is not what Sanders is selling.
Sanders' gambit is clever politically, because it draws clear contrasts, but it's dangerous because he is feeding voter cynicism instead of trying to explain why it exists. It is intellectually dishonest on his part.
The reason why we have gridlock--why our government has been unable to adequately address income inequality--is because the American people only gave 2 years to the government that actually cared to do something about it. The Democratic Congress and the President, between 2009-2010, rescued the American economy, saved American jobs, passed and implemented financial reform, dramatically reformed health care, expanded investments in alternative energy and infrastructure, and placed a great foundation for recovery and growth. However, the people who showed up in 2008, didn't show up in 2010 and that brought with it the neanderthal tea party and a Congress committed to austerity and hurting the poor and middle class.
Since then, we haven't had the level of federal spending that we have needed to fully lift people out of poverty and restore prosperity to the middle class. We've still succeeded as a nation because the budgets that are passed continue to be allocated to the priorities that Obama set. However, those priorities are underfunded, and we have incurred a high opportunity cost for not having the Speaker's gavel in Nancy Pelosi's hands.
What that tells a long-time registered Democrat like me is that change is possible through our current political process if the voters are smart enough and committed enough to stick with the people who have demonstrated a capacity to achieve progress.
Bernie Sanders doesn't speak to that. He says that the system is broken and we need to tear it up in fundamental ways and start over. I can see his point on certain issues like higher education, but not across the board. Furthermore, I cannot believe that most Americans would ever accept that level of drastic change. Even people who directly benefited from the ACA have had a hard time accepting it as positive change. Rather than advocating, as Elizabeth Warren has, to double down and further consolidate and improve upon the gains made by Obama, Sanders takes advantage of the cynicism and fills that vacuum of trust with bombastic, idealistic statements about fixing income inequality as a moral imperative, without reference to a policy framework that actually works.
Hillary Clinton is my choice to lead the nation because I believe she is a pragmatic progressive who is a thoughtful and committed policy wonk who knows how to get things done. I do think she needs to make some critical changes in how she approaches this campaign and the challenge that is posed by Sanders, but I know that if she got the job as President that she would be very good. Joe Biden would be similar to Clinton and Obama and that's fine by me too. Joe might be a better matchup against Sanders because he oozes passion and can provide a stirring defense of the Administration and of the approach that we can achieve progress through our existing system if we are committed to reforms and committed to supporting smart people who can deliver change in pragmatic and effective ways.
There should be 100 Bernie Sanders' in the Congress with a Democratic President, not 1 in the White House with 100 tea partiers.