Black Agenda Report, Topic: Bernie Sanders Puts Forward a Program That Could Split the Democratic Party
Link: Bernie Sanders Puts Forward a Program That Could Split the Democratic Party | Black Agenda Report - by Glenn Ford
Excerpt:
"Bernie Sanders last week unveiled a 10-point legislative agenda that he believes will galvanize the Democratic base in much the way that Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract With America” propelled the GOP to its biggest electoral sweep since 1946 . The Vermont senator’s wish list is genuinely impressive in sweep , a full-blown progressive domestic platform for his expected second run for the presidency in 2020. But the immediate obstacle to Sanders’ proposals for Medicare-For-All, tuition-free public higher education, expanded Social Security, a $15 an hour minimum wage, “bold action” on climate change, fixing the criminal justice system, comprehensive immigration reform, progressive tax reform, a $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul and cheaper prescription drugs, is not Donald Trump’s GOP troglodytes -- it’s Nancy Pelosi and her corporate Democrats, who answer to a much higher power: big capital.
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For a thoroughly corporate party like the Democrats, single payer is Armageddon....
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Nancy Pelosi insists that she’ll only go along with legislation that is “pay-as-you-go,” that doesn’t raise the debt -- a still-living legacy of President Obama’s “grand bargain” with the GOP. Full implementation of Sanders’ entire 10-point plan, including several trillion dollar items, is impossible under the bipartisan austerity scheme, and more impossible still without big cuts in the military budget, unless Congress drops all pretense of debt limitation.
That’s why I have nothing but the best of wishes for Sanders’ 10 point plan. If Sanders can get the presidential momentum going again, he can force an extended national conversation on Medicare-For-All, tuition-free public higher education, expanded Social Security, a radical roll-back in mass incarceration (an expensive proposition if combined with “investments in jobs and education for our young people”) and the rest of his domestic agenda. With these core issues shaping his message, every step closer he gets to the nomination brings the Democratic Party nearer to the split that is necessary if a mass social democratic party is to come into being in the United States.
Not being a social democrat, I won’t be a part of that party, but the welfare of the nation and the world requires that the two corporate parties lose their monopoly on electoral politics in the belly of the superpower beast. And, despite the deep imperial streak in the American psyche -- including lots of Black people -- even a Bernie-type social democratic party would find it necessary to oppose gargantuan U.S. military budgets, just as the Green Party does, today.
So, kudos to Bernie Sanders. Hopefully, his progressive10-point plan will blow the Democratic Party to pieces, over the next two years, so that a mass politics that is not owned by white corporate men can finally exist in the U.S. Sanders doesn’t have to win the White House to bring about this historic “creative destruction.” He just has to wreck the Party. If the Party sabotages him in the primaries, as in 2016, then progressives will get another chance to do the right thing, and say goodbye to the Democrats. Or, if Sanders wins, hopefully the corporatists will follow the money and run away to the GOP, or form their own Third Way party, and leave the Democratic carcass to the poor folks. Any split will do the trick, as long as the result is a non-corporate mass party."
Excerpt:
"Bernie Sanders last week unveiled a 10-point legislative agenda that he believes will galvanize the Democratic base in much the way that Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract With America” propelled the GOP to its biggest electoral sweep since 1946 . The Vermont senator’s wish list is genuinely impressive in sweep , a full-blown progressive domestic platform for his expected second run for the presidency in 2020. But the immediate obstacle to Sanders’ proposals for Medicare-For-All, tuition-free public higher education, expanded Social Security, a $15 an hour minimum wage, “bold action” on climate change, fixing the criminal justice system, comprehensive immigration reform, progressive tax reform, a $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul and cheaper prescription drugs, is not Donald Trump’s GOP troglodytes -- it’s Nancy Pelosi and her corporate Democrats, who answer to a much higher power: big capital.
•
For a thoroughly corporate party like the Democrats, single payer is Armageddon....
•
Nancy Pelosi insists that she’ll only go along with legislation that is “pay-as-you-go,” that doesn’t raise the debt -- a still-living legacy of President Obama’s “grand bargain” with the GOP. Full implementation of Sanders’ entire 10-point plan, including several trillion dollar items, is impossible under the bipartisan austerity scheme, and more impossible still without big cuts in the military budget, unless Congress drops all pretense of debt limitation.
“Bernie can’t bring himself to confront the military budget in any substantial way.”
That’s why I have nothing but the best of wishes for Sanders’ 10 point plan. If Sanders can get the presidential momentum going again, he can force an extended national conversation on Medicare-For-All, tuition-free public higher education, expanded Social Security, a radical roll-back in mass incarceration (an expensive proposition if combined with “investments in jobs and education for our young people”) and the rest of his domestic agenda. With these core issues shaping his message, every step closer he gets to the nomination brings the Democratic Party nearer to the split that is necessary if a mass social democratic party is to come into being in the United States.
Not being a social democrat, I won’t be a part of that party, but the welfare of the nation and the world requires that the two corporate parties lose their monopoly on electoral politics in the belly of the superpower beast. And, despite the deep imperial streak in the American psyche -- including lots of Black people -- even a Bernie-type social democratic party would find it necessary to oppose gargantuan U.S. military budgets, just as the Green Party does, today.
So, kudos to Bernie Sanders. Hopefully, his progressive10-point plan will blow the Democratic Party to pieces, over the next two years, so that a mass politics that is not owned by white corporate men can finally exist in the U.S. Sanders doesn’t have to win the White House to bring about this historic “creative destruction.” He just has to wreck the Party. If the Party sabotages him in the primaries, as in 2016, then progressives will get another chance to do the right thing, and say goodbye to the Democrats. Or, if Sanders wins, hopefully the corporatists will follow the money and run away to the GOP, or form their own Third Way party, and leave the Democratic carcass to the poor folks. Any split will do the trick, as long as the result is a non-corporate mass party."
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