The Demorats' Opportunity To Embrace A Progressive Majority

The recent accelerated attacks on the Sanders' candidacy emanating from various representatives from the erstwhile Democratic establishment have reached a fevered pitch and now must be called out. A favored tact has been to drawn a false equivalence with Trump in terms of Sanders' alleged role as an intrusive outsider exacting his will on the established order. A cursory reference to his actual record will reveal that, unlike Trump who had no government experience prior to his entry into elective politics prior to 2016, Sanders has been a member of Congress since 1991, has loyally caucused as a Democrat throughout his career, sponsored or co-sponsored 221 pieces of legislation that became law, and has campaigned vigorously for a wide range of Democratic candidates for 30 years. To suggest that Bernie Sanders is somehow disloyal to and apart from the Democratic Party is to ignore his history of dedicated service to the country from the left side of the aisle. As Sanders often says, his candidacy is not about him but rather merely a reflection of a grass-roots movement that has evolved through recent years to offer innovative solutions to the challenges of our times and to afford the Democratic Party the opportunity to expand their base of support to include an emerging and diverse coalition of citizens that now comprises the majority will of its constituents. The progressive ideas as articulated by Sanders and also by Elizabeth Warren represent the people's desire for fundamental change in our society; it is now time for the Democratic Party to recognize, honor, and embody this movement with courage and pride.

Adapt To Change Or Perish

Hopefully, the rise of the progressive movement as embodied by the Sanders candidacy of 2020 will convince the DNC that the status quo they have for so long tried to protect and preserve no longer has a basis in reality. To think otherwise and opt for moderation when facing the winds of change during this election cycle will condemn the Democratic Party to an even more resounding defeat than it experienced in 2016. For the sake of the country and the planet, adaptation with perspective is the order of the day.

Making Socialism Commonplace

While Sanders' highlighting of a kind of corporate socialism on display during the government's bailout of Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 was spot on and appropriate, his candidacy might be better served by referencing the existing functional, popular, and successful socialistic programs from which all Americans currently benefit. These include but are not limited to publicly funded police and fire services, the construction and maintenance of our roadways, a K-12 educational system, a national network of library services, the National Park Service, the safety net of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Perhaps framing the Medicare-For-All proposal as a cost effective expansion of an already successful publicly funded program, Sanders can put in better perspective the practical benefits of an active socialistic policy that operates as an instrument of the common good. In this regard, he might also underscore the advantage to employers a national health care system will afford. By absolving business owners of the responsibility of providing health care for their employees, it will make available resources to reinvest into the company in the form of higher wages and the resulting increase in production as well as the possible expansion of the company's infrastructure.
In this way, misplaced and erroneous comparisons to Soviet-style authoritarian rule can be dispelled as the a red-baiting and disingenuous tactic it is designed to be. It might also be helpful for the Sanders campaign to emphasize its connection to a long line of American social democratic thought the recent history of which includes FDR, Henry Wallace, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Paul Robson, Keith Ellison, and Robert Reich, just to name a few. The current policy offerings emanating from the Sanders' movement can therefore be seen not as radically new proposals but rather as an extension and result of a much larger continuing body of progressive thought. When viewed in this manner, the corresponding programs of publicly funded higher education, broadened universal child care, the elimination of crippling student debt, and the guarantee of a living wage can now be regarded as policy decisions made in accordance with progressive principles of basic fairness, an adherence to humanistic values, the fulfillment an authentic democratic vision. Going forward, Bernie will be well-advised to bring greater attention to these fundamental elements underlying his movement and message.

Bernie Sanders: The People's Choice

As Democratic elites and their surrogates continue to downplay, minimize, and overtly subvert the Sanders candidacy he nevertheless enjoys widespread support across the spectrum of actual Democratic constituents. He currently enjoys the highest favorable rating from Democrats nationally (71%), by far exceeding his closest rival, and his 19% unfavorable rating is the second lowest behind Elizabeth Warren. Sanders is now on track to receive, at least, a plurality of the votes prior to the National Convention and likely will carry the will of the people into even a brokered convention. The challenge then for the DNC will be to either honor the decision of the rank-in-file electorate or submit to pressure from elites and their influence over the superdelegates who very well may decide the eventual nominee and in the process risk losing the party's base in favor of maintaining a 'status quo' that in reality no longer exists.

Laughing Through The Tears

What I find comical about Barr's remarks regarding White House interference is that he is feigning displeasure over being thwarted from doing his job by the president's tweets when the job in question is to do DJT's bidding in the defense of his favored and convicted cronies! It is as if to say: 'I'm doing my damnedest here to carry out your corrupt intentions if you'd just shut up and let me get on with it'! This is beyond The Swamp...we're now dealing with the deep regions of middle earth where the cauldrons of hell brew new forms of evil duplicity on a daily basis.

The Enduring Base of the Democratic Party

In nominating a centrist, establishment candidate the Democratic Party will on the one hand secure the traditional white, older vote and, on the other, risk losing, alienating, and otherwise discounting the ever-growing progressive base as represented by the under 40 demographic and, in so doing, set the stage for the same result it suffered when offering the centrist HRC in 2016.
The Democrats simply cannot win without bringing out young voters and offering a genuine appeal to POC. In the wake of the disastrous and blatantly racist Stop and Frisk policy employed under Bloomberg in NYC and in spite of his belated and disingenuous mea culpas, his candidacy threatens to turn away the exact base of support required to defeat the incipient neo-fascist currently residing in the White House.
The upcoming election will be decided by the ability of the Democratic nominee to rally the heretofore neglected, disenfranchised, ignored, and undervalued segment of the electorate that stands ready to give full support to a meaningful agenda inclusive of and responsive to the needs and aspirations of those who will come next.