Neil H. Buchanan, Newsweek: "Nation isn't ready for what Bernie Sanders supports"

[DCBob]

Unlike the progressives who have gone with Sanders, however, I have been unable to convince myself that his candidacy would be good for the Democratic Party or for liberalism in general.

His answer to the question, "How will you get anything done?" is always, "We need a political revolution in this country." Yes, we do, but it is not happening this year, and if Republicans win the White House and/or maintain control of the Senate, things will become much worse than they would under a Hillary Clinton presidency

http://www.newsweek.com/nation-isnt-ready-what-bernie-sanders-supports-451424

===============

Bernie is a good man with a good message and has connected with a large segment of the voting population but clearly its not enough to have a real revolution. He has certainly has set things in motion and perhaps the next election it could happen.

[merrily]

1. BALONEY. The PTB are not ready for what Sanders supports. The rest have been past ready for decades

[DCBob]

13. Regular Democrats are also not quite ready.

I think the biggest problem with Bernie's revolution is that it seems too risky given the current political climate. We cannot risk losing it all the Republicans. The revolution will have to wait until we beat back the monsters at the door.

[merrily]

27. Baloney. Bernie is NOT less likely to win a general than Hillary. To the contrary.

Also, I have never participated in an election when the same things were not said. People are not buying it anymore.

Those who are desperately clinging to the status quo for whatever reason better at least come up with some new lines. The ones you're using are worn out. Like or not, they will not work this time.

[pangaia]

2. god, not this again.

[merrily]

28. I KNOW, right?

[FourScore]

3. BREAKING: BIASED MSM PRINTS HIT PEICE ON SANDERS N/T

[merrily]

29. That news has been breaking daily for two years.

[whatchamacallit]

4. Dangling the 'maybe next election' bullshit carrot

The party has proved once and for all that they will never let someone like Sanders win. For the interests that dominate our politics there will never be a next time. I know this crap is floated to stem the coming party bleed out. We are not buying it.

[DCBob]

8. So you give up if Bernie fails this year?

Now that's some real "bullshit".

[whatchamacallit]

12. Nope, I don't give up on my desire or efforts to make this a better country than

the shithole plutocracy it's become, but I do give up on viewing the corrupt party apparatus as the means to do it.

[Armstead]

5. Eight years of ennui and gridlock and endless hearings...

And continual theft of the nation's wealth to the top

By that time people will either be politically comatose or ready for a different kind of revolution -- not the kind Bernie is referring to

[DCBob]

9. We shall see.. I do believe it wont be anything like that.

[Armstead]

11. I hope you are correct

[Corporate666]

14. Wealth is created and destroyed

not just passed around. It is created by individuals. It doesn't belong to "the nation", it belongs to the people who create it.

You can argue that those creating it at the lower levels aren't getting to keep enough of a share of what they create, but to portray it as a pile of wealth that "the top" is stealing is just incorrect.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Kennedy comes to mind

[jillan]

7. Of course not. That means the well oiled funding machines would be shut down. Change is always hard.

[Major Hogwash]

10. Newsweek = Newspeak.

Owned by the great MSM.

I wonder why they chose this week to print this garbage?

[kstewart33]

17. Oh, hog wash.

Per usual, hate the message, attack the messenger.

[Major Hogwash]

19. The MSM hates the Progressive, supports the Warmonger.

They also ran filthy, disgusting stories about Obama in 2008.

[kstewart33]

25. Major, respectfully that is ridiculous.

How can you classify thousands of newspapers, websites, and cable news and interview networks as all completely hating progressives?

That's like saying that every single citizen south of the Mason Dixon line loves barbecue.

Geez, get a grip.

[JackRiddler]

15. Nation doesn't care what obsolete Newsweek says.

[Ferd Berfel]

16. Translation: Newsweak - The Corporate Media and the Riight wing oligrarchs

are not ready for Bernie. But we knew that

[brewens]

18. I remember Gary Bauer on with Bob Novak one day after Gingrich and his bunch took

over the House. He was a religious right leader, I think running the Family Research Council at the time, for anyone that might not be old enough to remember him.

So he's on advocating for his agenda and Bob is trying to talk him down. Bob manages to be pretty condescending about it too. It's like, just calm down Gary, let us get some tax cuts and a republican in the White House first, then maybe we'll get to your agenda. By the way, thanks for the votes sucker! They fall for it every time.

We used to have a few things that Bernie is proposing, like no tuition for college. Now we never had universal health care, but I think we were closer to it before. In effect anyway. Anyone that had a half-way decent job had good medical, and it was easier to get a good job. Too many people were still left out but we were able to afford to a lot better than we're doing now.

We can for sure get Wall Street and the banks under control if we want to. We can stop the endless wars and looting by the top and close the income gap too. Nope. It's not time to wait longer, it's time to keep pushing.

[Major Hogwash]

23. Great post. I remember when MSNBC had Pat Buchanan, Robert D. Novak, and Bauer on all the time.

But, after MSNBC had all of those right wingers appear on all of their programs when they tried to skewer Obama in 2008 like a shishkabob, I ripped the cable out of my house and I have never regretted it.

Chris Matthews' program was the worst program I ever watched.
He never let anyone finish their own sentence.

[jfern]

20. The 58% he gets in some general election polls are ready

[DCBob]

22. That's a decent argument.

However, I suspect many of those will be scared away from Bernie once the GOP hit machine focuses on Sanders if he were to become the nominee.

[HooptieWagon]

21. The nation wants more war, more fracking, more corruption?

If the nation so obviously wants those things, why is Camp Weathervane in such a panic? Clinton will win easily with the voters who support that shit, right?

[MadBadger]

24. I agree and thats why I'm going with the pragmatic choice of Hillary

[oldandhappy]

26. We'll never know.

I am not ready for status quo but that is what I will get.

[thesquanderer]

30. This is not exactly a great endorsement of Hillary.

The article basically says "no we can't, so we might as well not even try."

The author essentially puts forth that nothing really good can come out of the next administration regardless of which of them were to win, but at least a sucky Clinton presidency won't reflect badly on the entire liberal movement, whereas a sucky Sanders presidency would. What an endorsement that is.

The Obama years demonstrated what happens when we get excited about transformative leaders. Obama was actually, as I have argued many times, a Clintonian triangulator extraordinaire. On economic policy in particular, he disappointed over and over again.

The problem is that he was viewed as a genuine liberal, giving Republicans the opportunity to block his initiatives and then to say that every disappointing thing that has happened in the past seven years is proof of The Failure of Liberalism.

Hillary Clinton is not running as a transformative, revolutionary politician...When things fail, it will be because—and everyone will know that it is because—Clinton could not get the Republicans to budge.

To put it differently, the only surprises during a Clinton presidency will be upside surprises. She will likely accomplish a few things that progressives will like, but not many. What she will not do is tarnish progressivism, because Sanders's candidacy has made it crystal clear that she is not a progressive.

Unlike Obama, Clinton cannot be held up as proof of a lie, because unlike Obama, Clinton's election will not have been built upon an unfulfillable dream of transformation.

...
any failures on her watch will not undermine the longer-term changes that Sanders and his backers support

And how inspirational is this?

being the candidate who promises to be as good as the moment allows (and nothing more) is often exactly what we need. Hillary Clinton is that candidate.

Sign me up! No wonder there's an enthusiasm gap.

I think the fundamental flaw in his argument is summed up in this one:

His answer to the question, "How will you get anything done?" is always, "We need a political revolution in this country." Yes, we do, but it is not happening this year

Why do people think it has to happen in a year? When would it EVER happen in one year? Maybe after national riots or something. Is that what we need to wait for?

What we need is to start moving the conversation and start taking the first steps. The next president potentially has 4 congresses to work with. 4 congresses ago, Dems had the majority in both houses. No one expects Sanders to achieve all his goals in a year. But if he can achieve even half of them in 8 years, the country will be a lot better off than it is today, and we will be on a good path to be continued by his successor. If we never take the first step, we'll never get to the destination.

A Clinton victory guarantees that it will be at least 8 more years before we can take that first step (because after 4 years either she is re-elected, or she is replaced by a Republican).

[Eric J in MN]

31. Yes, electing a president with big goals would be a great step towards achieving them.

We should think beyond the next 8 years.

[DCBob]

32. I think it's more like..

..Bernie hasn't made the case strong enough to convince Democrats he could pull it off.

[thesquanderer]

33. True, he could make more of a point that it won't happen overnight.

Mostly it's implied. Stay involved. Demonstrate, call your congressional representatives, and if they don't support what you want, vote them out. That's the political revolution in a nutshell. It's actually very simple. In a way, so simple that it's surprising it's never been tried. But then, if your plans are not very ambitious, I guess there's no need.

It's comes down to getting elected on that premise, and then using the bully pulpit to help keep the voters motivated.

[Orsino]

34. tldr; because not enough people are voting for Sanders, Sanders won't win.

Waste of pixels.