Bernie’s
anti-Democratic Party history and rhetoric
Bernie’s
anti-Democratic Party history and rhetoric is more than a little troubling: (1)
Bernie has talked against the Democratic Party from the 1960’s until the
present day, (2) he has been unduly and unfairly critical of JFK (JFK was and
remains a hero of mine to this day), (3) he has been unduly critical of Barack
Obama as recently as last week, (4) he won the Democratic nomination before,
thumbed his nose at it and turned it down to maintain his “independence.” His
criticism has too often been caustic, scathing and holier-than-thou. He has
always talked condescendingly of the two-party political party system in
general and of the Democratic Party in particular apparently refusing to
recognize the key role political parties play in getting legislation passed
through Congress.
He has acted like he
was above the political party system in this country and yet here he is seeking
the help, assistance and active support of the very party he has been so
critical of, the National Democratic Party. Imagine that? And he cannot get a
legislative agenda through Congress without a lot of support from . . . you
guessed it, a political party.
The centerpiece of
Bernie’s campaign is economic inequality. One cannot address economic
inequality in this country without major reforms to the tax code. Taking on the
tax code with its multitude of special interests and defenders coming out of
every of every conceivable hole in the tax code where everyone is seeking to
protect their own little niche would be a heavy lift anytime. Republicans will
automatically oppose any realignment of the tax burden toward the wealthiest
among us.
How will Bernie get
major tax reform through Congress with what will be, at best, a divided
Democratic caucus? It will be divided because, (1) they do not like Bernie and
he does not like him, (2) Bernie has made condescending remarks about them and
their party for decades, (3) he's not a Democrat and refuses to change his
political affiliation, and (4) his interests are divergent from those of the
Democratic Party. If Bernie has ZERO chance of enacting the sine qua non, or
cause cé•lè•bre, of his political campaign, i.e., economic inequality – and he
does – then what is the point of electing him?
For the last 50
years Bernie has consistently launched highly inflammatory, overly harsh and
unduly caustic harpoons aimed at the Democratic Party. His own pyrotechnical
words and statements through the years demonstrate why Democrats in Congress
have never been able to get along with him. His own past statements underscore
what Barney Frank recently said about, “his holier-than-thou attitude—saying in
a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone
else—really undercuts his effectiveness.” A relatively small sampling of his
harpoons aimed at the Democratic Party amply and aptly serve to illustrate the
point:
• “You don’t change
the system from within the Democratic Party.”
• At the Socialist
Scholars Conference in New York City in April 1990, he asked, “Why should we
work within the Democratic Party if we don’t agree with anything the Democratic
Party says?”
• “Is the Democratic
Party a vehicle for social change? It is not,” Sanders told a Vermont crowd in
1986.
• In 1989 Sanders
wrote “Like millions of other Americans, NOW understands that the Democratic
and Republican parties are intellectually and morally bankrupt, and that we
need a new political movement in this country to represent the needs of the
vast majority of our citizens.”
• “It would be
hypocritical of me to run as a Democrat because of the things I have said about
the party." Actually, I agree with Bernie on this one: it is hypocritical
of him to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for president. So why is
he doing it?
• “I am extremely
proud to be an Independent. The fact that I am not a Democrat gives me the
freedom to speak out on the floor of the House, to vote against both the
Democratic and Republican proposals.”
• Year in and year
out, Bernie has insisted that "[t]he differences between the Republican
and Democratic Parties involve no issue, no principle in which the working
class have any interest."
• In the 1970's he
said to a reporter for United Press International that both major parties were
“cowardly.” In an interview with the Valley Voice of Middlebury, Vermont, he
said “there essentially is no difference” between them.
• “Back in those
days [the 1970's],” said Maurice Mahoney, the head of the Democratic Party in
Burlington in the ’80s, “his goal was to destroy Democrats—certainly on the
local level.”
• “One can argue
that the two-party system is a sham,” Bernie said in a talk at Iowa State
University during an event called Socialist Week.
• In 1985 he said,
“I am not now, nor have I ever been, a liberal Democrat,” in a profile in New
England Monthly.
• “The main
difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in this city,” he said in
a 1986 interview in Burlington in July with a Cornell student writing a
master’s thesis, “is that the Democrats are in insurance and the Republicans
are in banking.”
• In the 1986 summer
issue of Vermont Affairs magazine, he called the Democratic Party
“ideologically bankrupt,” then added: “They have no ideology. Their ideology is
opportunism.”
• In 1988 he
stressed: “I am not a Democrat, period.”
• In an op-ed in the
New York Times in January 1989, he called the Democratic and Republican parties
“tweedle-dee” and “tweedle-dum,” both adhering in his estimation to an
“ideology of greed and vulgarity.”
Here's a list of
Bernie Sanders' $19.6 trillion in tax hikes
By Philip Klein
(@philipaklein) • 1/19/16 12:01 AM