Greg Sargent, in his article, is talking about a challenge in Hillary’s recent appearance on Face The Nation, and it echoes what many of us have been saying all along, all campaign long. Hillary is a “Progressive who wants to get stuff done.” Her plans, proposals, agenda are strongly Progressive. Thus, her “challenge” to Progressives is made with the knowledge that her Progressive ideas are in sync with where most of us are, so helping Hillary govern on those Progressive values (and the people she’ll lean on in Congress to make that happen are people like Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, and, yes, Bernie Sanders) is a natural extension of the campaign itself.
On Face the Nation, Hillary Clinton was asked if she’s trying to nudge Bernie Sanders out of the race, and offered a reply that, at first hearing, sounded like a standard-issue denial. But buried in her answer was an interesting challenge to progressives — one that suggests a way for the Sanders movement to reconstitute and reinvent itself after the primaries are over:
“I’m three million votes ahead of Senator Sanders, nearly 300 pledged delegates ahead of him. He has to make his own mind up.
“But I was very heartened to hear him say last week that he is going to work seven days a week to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t become president. And I want to unify the party. I see a great role and opportunity for him and his supporters to be part of that unified party, to move into not just November to win the election against Donald Trump, but to then govern based on the progressive goals that he and I share.
Unity achieved by governing on Progressive goals we all share. There is very little what divides the two candidates when it comes to Progressive goals, which is why the Elizabeth Warren endorsement of Hillary won’t ring hollow or fake, but truly from the heart and with full conviction. As was her strong praise of Hillary’s Wall Street plan when it was unveiled:
Elizabeth Warren praises Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street plan
Back to Greg Sargent’s article:
“We both want to raise the minimum wage. We both understand you have got to rein in bad actors on Wall Street and in corporate America to make sure they don’t wreck Main Street. We have a lot of the same goals. And I hope we can unify around them.”
Hillary’s minimum wage plan differs very little from Bernie’s. $12 minimum wage, but adjusted for inflation every year so it grows with cost of living , and support for $15 minimum wage in states/counties/cities that have relatively high cost of living and want to go higher than the $12 floor, plus support for workers going up against large corporations fighting for $15, such as McDonalds or CVS or CITGO. In addition Hillary wants to close the restaurant loophole where restaurant owners are allowed to pay servers only $2.13 (the restaurant minimum wage right now) and expects tips to make up for the short fall.
As for Wall Street, Hillary’s Wall Street plan has been praised by many Progressives, and is seen in many ways as better than Bernie’s, also by Progressive analysts. Either way, definitely an area unity is clearly possible. Heck, Sherrod Brown, one of the most Progressive members of the Senate, was asked to and helped create Hillary’s Wall Street plan, as he announced a month ago. I wrote about that in this diary:
Sherrod Brown on why he backs Hillary: Gets stuff done. Trust her on Trade/Wall Street, I HAD INPUT
Back to Sargent:
Clinton did not merely call on Sanders and his supporters to help unify the party in order to defeat Donald Trump in the general election. She also called on them to be an integral part of her governing coalition.
I don’t know how sincere Clinton is about this, but in a way, it doesn’t matter. Because this effectively functions as a challenge to Sanders and his supporters — to exert as much influence as possible over her agenda as president.
This is important. The idea here is not “Vote for Hillary because Trump is so bad”. It is “Let’s get together in unity on Progressive goals, Progressive ideas”. Yes, defeating Trump is obviously the big short-term goal on Nov. 8, but beyond that working together on a Progressive path forward is the long-term goal here.
All this could accrue to the party’s benefit over time. But we don’t know if that will happen. We don’t know what will happen to the spirit and ideas Sanders has unleashed after he loses. And as Brian Beutler argues, this suggests a possible way forward. While Sanders “seeks nothing less than the wholesale transformation of the Democratic Party into a vessel for social-democratic politics,” a more modest outcome is possible. Sanders could try to
extend the intra-liberal debate he sparked during the primary about the ideal scope and architecture of social policy into governing season. He’ll keep pressing the question: What should a country provide its citizenry, and should it provide those things to all, or only to some, on the basis of need?
Bottom line is that Hillary is confidently inviting the Progressive wing of the party to work together with her on pushing Progressive goals forward, making it a big part of the government if she wins the Presidency. And, no doubt almost all Progressives are already ready to go on this — people like the aforementioned Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Tammy Baldwin, Cory Booker, and (hopefully) incoming Senators like Russ Feingold, Tammy Duckworth. The idea behind the invitation is that Bernie Sanders will join in as well and become part of a strongly Progressive push in government that will come as a function of a Hillary win, a (likely) Democratic Senate takeover, likely inroads in the House and the appointment of a Progressive judge to the Supreme Court to give Progressives/Liberals an actual 5-4 Supreme Court majority for the first time in 40 years.
Trump and his outward toxicity and quasi-fascism is giving us a great chance to move the Progressive movement forward more rapidly and more severe than would otherwise be the case. Let’s not let small differences stand in the way of making that leap as pronounced as we can possibly make it go. Hillary’s strong coalition of Women, African-Americans, Hispanics, people over 35, Democrats, LBGT could mesh perfectly with Bernie’s coalition of Millennials and Independents for a maximizing of the short-term goal of beating Trump decisively and devastatingly, and maximizing the long-term goal of moving Progressive values further ahead in a strong and lasting way.
About Greg Sargent:
Greg Sargent writes The Plum Line blog, a reported opinion blog with a liberal slant -- what you might call “opinionated reporting” from the left.
Follow @theplumlinegs