Watching the course of the Democratic primaries has been instructive, but perhaps for none other than those who considered themselves seasoned “experts” in the field.
Mayor Bloomberg’s entry, we were assured, was a calming wind, one that that would bring some practicality and good old common sense to the campaign, instead of these crazy “progressive” ideas about a just system of taxation, or obliterating a health care system based on mass extortion.
Except it backfired, and badly. Thanks to Mr. Bloomberg’s relentless media assault, all he did was suck the oxygen out of the rest of the field of so-called “moderates,” who were turned into a single non-descript entity and their campaigns shriveled into near obscurity. That left Bernie Sanders as the last man standing. Mr. Bloomberg’s performance in the debate further cemented that outcome.
Judging from the responses I see from the establishment wing of the Democratic Party on my Twitter timeline, you would think Leon Blum was leading in the primaries. And they want to stop Sanders as badly as they want to ditch Trump, it seems. The reason given for this is “electability,” but this rings hollow.
The old-timers just don’t get how modern politics works. They also couldn’t care less if all the Democratic Party offers is just another competing oligarchy, if a somewhat more benevolent one. Unfortunately, it’s just not benevolent enough, and not enough to knock these pukka sahibs off their comfortable perches. The “moderates” aren’t really “moderates.” These guys just want their jobs and influence back.
Sanders and Trump have one thing in common: Like the old saw about the fox who knows many things and the hedgehog who knows one important thing, Trump only knows one thing, and that is how to manipulate his adoring crowds into thinking he made things better for them, even if he hasn’t.
Sanders knows one thing, too: he’s promising things that might actually be meaningful to voters in a way that has some impact, instead of imagining that our manufacturing jobs are returning from China, or that a 0.6 percent increase in a wage earner’s buying power is a victory after decades of emasculation. Warren knows this as well, but the Old Guard saw her as a bigger threat initially, and so, her campaign has faltered, which is a shame. I think she is the better of the two candidates.
And now the corporate wing of the Party, a lot of the Long Island Democrats who are about as “progressive” as Bull Connor, may have to reckon with the unthinkable – A Democratic party that is true its core principles. It’s just too much to process for them. What a pity.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
