One Response To Barney Frank's Attack on Bernie Sanders

[99th_Monkey]

Many Progressives are apparently not buying into Barney Frank's lame attempt
to derail Bernie's candidacy. Woot and Huzza!


IN RESPONSE TO BARNEY FRANK’S ATTACK ON SANDERS
by Cristóbal Reyes * Jul 24, 2015 * Young Progressive Voices

To be clear, this is not the reaction to an attack on Sanders’s viability as a candidate per se; rather, it is a condemnation of Mr. Frank’s suggestion that Hillary Clinton’s current lead in the polls and her “threat” to the Republican Party should grant her the Democratic nomination ipso facto.

While one is certainly entitled to one’s biases, it should nevertheless be considered independent of one’s inclination toward democracy and choice, rather than the dance with the devil from which the existing political system has yet to be freed. That being said, it is in the best interest of anyone crying foul over my choice of words that I rebut (read: rebuke) Mr. Frank’s points one at a time.

Consider, for example, his first contention:

“I believe strongly that the most effective thing liberals and progressives can do to advance our public policy goals — on health care, immigration, financial regulation, reducing income inequality, completing the fight against anti-LGBT discrimination, protecting women’s autonomy in choices about reproduction and other critical matters on which the Democratic and Republican candidates for president will be sharply divided — is to help Clinton win our nomination early in the year. That way, she can focus on what we know will be a tough job: combating the flood of post-Citizens United right-wing money, in an atmosphere in which public skepticism about the effectiveness of public policy is high.”

Okay, so this is more of a thesis than an actual point, but it is nevertheless indicative of what I mentioned so colorfully earlier, so as to not be accused of misrepresenting the former congressman’s argument. He is explicitly calling on the powers that be to declare the winner of a race before the starter’s gun is fired. No other racers need apply. Debates will only, as Mr. Frank condescendingly puts it, make Ms. Clinton “spend most of her time and campaign funds proving her ideological purity in an intraparty fight,” otherwise known as partaking in the democratic process.

Right off the bat, he ignores that these so called intraparty fights are a common means to determine which candidate best represents their respective party. If one were to follow his logic, Mrs. Clinton should have been granted the nomination in 2008, given that she enjoyed a similar comfort in the court of public opinion before being routed by a formerly relatively unknown name.

More: http://www.youngprogressivevoices.com/2015/07/24/rebuttal-barney-franks-attack-sanders/