Rural Ruminations

From this perch in Vermont, it is fascinating to watch the mainstream Democratic Party try to deal with Bernie Sanders and his candidacy.  Clearly, those Democrats don’t know who Bernie is, how he functions or what his real goals are.   Perhaps they are not about to make public any such knowledge, fearful that such admissions might irreparably damage their already damaged candidate of choice, Hilary Clinton.

Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, is contemptuous of Democratic Party ideals and has an agenda. He is, by his own claim, a Social Democrat, presumably in the European mode.  As mayor of Burlington, Vt. he pushed for the election of members of his own Progressive Party to the City Council.   He has just contributed to the election campaign of a current Progressive candidate for election to that Council.  It is Progressive Party candidates he supports, not a Democratic Party candidates, despite the fact that he is running on the national stage to be Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.

What does all this mean?  It means, quite simply, that Bernie Sanders has little interest in the Democratic Party other than to use it to accomplish his own Progressive political goals.  In the beginning of his campaign, he probably saw his candidacy as a wedge he could use to move the Clinton candidacy to the left, and he certainly has already accomplished much in that regard.  Further, his stated campaign goals are to create a single-payer healthcare system and increase Social Security benefits.  According to  the non-partisan, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center that could double the national debt.

More recently, Sanders’ success in the State Primaries and caucuses seems to have convinced him that he has a real shot at becoming the Democratic Party candidate and may have resulted in his recent inclination to go after Clinton in a more Trump-like fashion.

Trump’s rude, ugly and tough approach to his rivalry with Clinton could represent an important message for Sanders.  If we believe what has already been written about Mr. Sanders, such an approach would seem to be in character for him.  In an August 25, 2015 article on him by Paul Heinz in Seven Days, a widely read Burlington weekly publication, he is described as follows:  ”According to some who have worked closely with Sanders over the years, “grumpy grandpa” doesn’t even begin to describe it. They characterize the senator as rude, short-tempered and, occasionally, downright hostile. Though Sanders has spent much of his life fighting for working Vermonters, they say he mistreats the people working for him”.

“As a supervisor, he was unbelievably abusive,” says one former campaign staffer, who claims to have endured frequent verbal assaults. The double standard was clear: “He did things that, if he found out that another supervisor was doing in a workplace, he would go after them. You can’t treat employees that way.”

Sanders’ strategy shows that he believes he has a reasonable shot at beating Clinton at the Democratic Convention.  He has done well in recent primaries and has focused a great deal of energy in recent days on convincing Democratic Superdelegates currently pledged to Clinton that they should switch their votes to him at the Convention. Clinton has recently been slipping in polls measuring a future presidential race with Donald Trump.  That fact may prove to be a powerful ally in Sanders’ ongoing attempt to recruit those Superdelegates, particularly as polls have Sanders doing better than Clinton against Trump.

The Clinton Camp must be concerned about the Sanders candidacy.  The issue of the Superdelegates has to be unsettling for them.  Even if the Sanders’ ploy doesn’t work, the aftermath of a possible Sanders defeat at the convention has already gotten their attention.  It is fascinating to listen to national leaders of the Democratic Party reflect on his competition with Clinton, saying that in the end, Sanders will convince his supporters to support Clinton.  And they say this in the face of poll results that indicate that something in the neighborhood of 40% of Sanders supporters say they will not support Clinton if she becomes the candidate.  Can she win without them?

There is no valid reason for mainline Democrats to believe that Sanders will avidly support Clinton, or, for that matter, much of anything that those Democrats would like to see supported.  Sanders is not a Democrat, never has been.  His goal, if he cannot win the candidacy, appears to be to force radical change in the existing Democratic Party, moving it as far toward “Social Democracy” as possible.  That is not a goal that is compatible with mainstream Democratic philosophy.