PUTNEY — An often-repeated criticism of Bernie Sanders and his campaign is that he has been an independent all his political life and therefore is not a “real” Democrat.
OK. Got it. But I'm not sure that would overall be a liability today for a candidate running with Democratic Party support in the general election.
In fact, a Sanders candidacy would bring back parts of the so-called Obama coalition, along with a larger percentage of the white and Black working-class vote. Hillary Clinton, ironically, won the working-class vote with huge majorities of the Black working class.
The intersection of Democratic populist ideas and opinions, with the working class in mind, have always been light years ahead of the corporate controlled professional class that currently runs the Democratic Party.
Because the working class has been abandoned and ignored by the Democratic donor class as a deliberate conscious choice, the vulnerabilities these voters experience have been exploited and manipulated into the vicious, hateful scapegoating by fascist leaders and media.
The fascist movement in the U.S. has always been with us, and its current form, Trumpism, will not be moved by a weak-minded centrist. He or she will be co-opted and absorbed by the disassociated, childish, rambling man.
The clouds of confusion and distraction that the fascist right brings will wither when the Democrats provide the clarification and hope of a progressive counter-narrative. Anything associated with a corrupted Democratic Party, and a return to a level of apolitical contentment that never was, will bring a negative reaction to a false hope of normalcy.
Those who are well-established within the current political order are likely to be among the last to recognize the shifting sands. Sanders' ideology of democratic participation of all classes particularly irritates the monied professional-class donors who push for Biden as an imitation of Obama.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have the vision and ideas to bring a sane, people-oriented governance to the United States. Ideologically, Bernie is a New Deal/Franklin D. Roosevelt Democrat and endorses the ideas and vision of the Democrats which created the middle class.
The oligarchic-plutocratic-kleptocratic model of distraction, economic exploitation, media control, negative messaging, destruction of democratic norms, and - ultimately - environmental destruction has been well-established. An antidote to that poison is government that works for all the people.