I didn't see that one coming. I thought Bernie would pull off Nevada but not by 30 points. It was a slaughter, with the moderates left to pick up the scraps in the state. I'm fascinated by all these Latinos and Blacks turning Bernie's way. I don't know what they expect to gain from his nomination, but I guess they think some of his "Democratic Socialism" will trickle their way.
Bernie appears to have tapped into the same deep-seated anxieties among Social Liberals that Trump was able to tap among Religious Conservatives last time around, but is it enough to carry him through the primaries and beyond? Many Democrats have taken the maximalist position on health care. They want to see a single-payer system that has been dubbed "Medicare for All."
On the surface, it only seems fair. We pay into Social Security and Medicare with our very first paychecks, but aren't able to collect until we have one foot in the grave. In the meantime, we have to sock money away in 401K plans and cover our health insurance, despite the 15 percent cut the federal government takes from every paycheck in the form of Federal Insurance Contributions or FICA for short. As a young person, you wonder if it will be there waiting for you when you turn 66 years and 2 months, the current official age of retirement. Assuming, of course, you live that long.
However, it takes much more than just providing universal health insurance to bring medical costs down. The federal government has to control the entire health care system. What Bernie doesn't tell his supporters is that most hospitals in Europe are public. Doctors, nurses and administration staff are paid through the government. The pharmaceutical industry is similarly state controlled. It would require a huge overhaul of our health care industry, which just isn't going to happen. Not in our lifetimes anyway.
In fact, Bernie doesn't tell you much of anything. He just plays on emotions and has managed to channel these emotions into votes. Democrats are falling prey to the same "exaggerated hyperbole" Trump so effectively used on the Campaign Trail 2016. Bernie has no plan, just a bottomless well of ideas that he trots out at rallies to stir the masses.
Now, I'm all for thinking big but you have to offer a path to get there. Liz, bless her heart, has done that but she has failed to gain anywhere near the groundswell of support that Bernie has. It seems no one wants to get bogged down in details, or hear Joe, Amy and Pete tell you how impractical it all is. This makes it very easy for Bernie, who likes to claim these progressive ideas as his own even though they have been floating around for decades.
The problem comes in November. What turned many persons to Trump in 2016 was all the unrest on the streets. Bernie threatens to make it an even more raucous convention this time around with all his Berniecrats dictating the platform. This is eerily reminiscent of 1972 when George McGovern offered a very progressive platform only to see major dissent in the ranks and a huge victory for Richard Nixon in the general election.
Given that there are a whole lot of folks that don't like Trump, this opens the door for a third party candidate who would appeal to Independent voters and moderates of both stripes, who make up the lion's share of the electorate. Bloomberg is ready to fill that vacuum. You think he will honor that pledge he made last month if he sees all those voters just waiting for a moderate candidate to steer them between the Scylla a Charybdis of American politics? I highly doubt it.
Bernie is too high on his "revolution" to see the ramifications of his nomination. In a three-way race with winner-take-all in virtually every state, the Trump campaign must really like its chances at this point.
As I have said before Bernie should have never run this time around. There were plenty of younger candidates to carry his presumed mantel, but he chose to ignore them. He made this election all about himself, even if he likes to tell his rabid supporters it is about them. Only he can give them what they want. Sound familiar?
It's really hard to figure these campaigns. Emotions give way to anxieties and there is very little sense to be made of it all. To think that Democratic voters would favor a 78-year-old curmudgeon over much younger, more dynamic candidates is a real mystery. Why for instance didn't Latinos get behind the much more sensible and articulate Julian Castro? Why didn't Blacks get behind Kamala Harris or Cory Booker? Why aren't women supporting Liz Warren or Amy Klobuchar? Why aren't white men voting for Joe Biden? What is it in Bernie that they see?
Your guess is as good as mine. To me, Bernie is just a big bag of hot air, but he has been able to touch a nerve and now we have to brace ourselves for his possible nomination. It's still not too late, but the alternatives are equally frightening -- a 78-year-old megabillionaire and a 78-year-old shameless politician inventing stories of being arrested when he went to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
What's wrong with Pete or Liz or even Amy? Are they too bland? Or, do we just call out the elephant in the room and admit that most Democrats don't think a gay man or straight woman can beat Donald Trump so they will vote for Bernie or Joe or Mike instead. This is truly sad, and represents the end of the Democratic Party as we know it.
We have let ourselves become ruled by our fears and loathing, so wrapped up in this idea that if we don't get Trump out of office the world as we know it will come to an end. We no longer look at the alternatives with a clear eye. We discarded so many viable candidates without even a glance. We have let ourselves become completely governed by our emotions, easy victims of the grotesque reality show that television and social media have become. This has become "bat country."
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