It isn't Radical if a majority of people agree

I'm going to quote heavily from the following article:

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/11/america_is_ready_for_socialism_massive_majorities_back_bernie_sanders_on_the_issues_and_disdain_donald_trump/

I decided against simply reposting because, there's a word in there that really scares people: socialism.  Frankly, I hate labels and regardless of whether you are a conservative, liberal, communitarian or libertarian, chances are you don't fit neatly into a category.  Instead, what I'd like to highlight are the various issues that a majority of people in this country actually want that Bernie Sanders supports.  These numbers are taken from the "Big Ideas" poll commissioned by the Progressive Change Institute.


Allow Government to Negotiate Drug Prices (79%)
Give Students the Same Low Interest Rates as Big Banks (78%)
Universal Pre-Kindergarten (77%)
Fair Trade that Protect Workers, the Environment, and Jobs (75%)
End Tax Loopholes for Corporations that Ship Jobs Overseas (74%)
End Gerrymandering (73%)
Let Homeowners Pay Down Mortgage With 401k (72%)
Debt-Free College at All Public Universities (Message A) (71%)
Infrastructure Jobs Program — $400 Billion / Year (71%)
Require NSA to Get Warrants (71%)
Disclose Corporate Spending on Politics/Lobbying (71%)
Medicare Buy-In for All (71%)
Close Offshore Corporate Tax Loopholes (70%)
Green New Deal — Millions Of Clean-Energy Jobs (70%)
Full Employment Act (70%)
Expand Social Security Benefits (70%)

Obviously, you don't need to agree with each of these, but if you take a moment to go over this list, chances are you agree with most of these ideas.  For proposals like this, Bernie Sanders is being labeled as "extreme"?  How is it extreme to advocate for issues that most Americans want?  When did it become radical to reflect ideas that your democracy embraces?

Now, you may ask, "How is this possible"? Well, we know how.  First, a lot of people who share the above values don't vote.  Part of the reason is that there is no candidate who actually represents what they want, and when they have voted for a candidate that they believed held the same values that they held, they later felt burned because that candidate didn't seem to reflect what they wanted at all.  To those voters I say: Bernie Sanders does reflect what you value and voters in Vermont haven't felt burned by him. 

Next, a lot of people are simply fooled by Republican talking points.  Frankly, I don't have a problem with people who genuinely don't want the government to negotiate drug prices, or universal pre-K, this is a free country and people are allowed to hold whatever beliefs they want.  But if you allow a Republican candidate to sway you with talk of values, be they of the family or small town variety, I think you are basically getting swindled.  Let's take the attention off specifics to sell people on vague notions that most of us do agree on.  For example, I agree that lazy people should get off their asses, but I also know that lazy people in general have a very small impact on the world, because, well, they're lazy.  

Finally, there are a lot of people who agree with Bernie Sanders' platform, but they will vote for a "safer" candidate, because the knowledgeable experts have warned them that Sanders is "extreme" and "radical."  And so we have come full circle.  If you know what you want, don't be afraid to vote for it.  That is how you change America.

Electability Part 2

It's not easy being a Bernie Sanders supporter.  All the time I hear people say, "I agree with what he says, but..."  They tend to ignore the fact that Bernie Sanders is drawing bigger crowds than any candidate in either party.  The main reason is that most people agree with what he's saying.  When I go line by line and issue by issue in Sanders' platform I get total agreement not only from my liberal friends, but a lot of centrist friends as well.  His ideas are not all that radical, and most people agree with them.  So what's the knock?  He can't win.

It's hard to predict the future, but this attitude seems like an attempt to do so.  My first response is to say that, I disagree.  I think he can win.  He has consistently closed the gap between himself and Hillary Clinton.  He continues to draw bigger crowds than any candidate and he's raising money from more people. Not more money, mind you, but from more people.  Given that you already agree with his platform, why not take a positive view?

Now, let's assume that his likelihood of winning is slim, then I would make a different argument.  The issue ceases to be about "can vs. can't" and becomes about "must."  To illustrate the distinction, I want you to consider the life of the abolitionist, Frederick Douglas.  I'm sure that he concluded many times that any given moment a particular effort might fail, but at no point did he give up the fight?  Why?  Because it was never about whether the eradication of slavery could happen, and it was always about that it must happen.

When we turn the issue from can/can't to must, it changes the stakes considerably.  If you had asked me ten years ago whether marriage equality could happen, I would have probably said that I had no idea.  But I knew for certain that it must happen, and I'm sure that millions of others felt the same way, because that is how change is made. It doesn't come about because people get lucky and things go their way.  It comes about because people make it their mission to make it happen.

At what point in our democracy did it become okay to malign candidates for espousing views that we ourselves hold?  What is so wrong with the concept of truly representative democracy?  There is a large group of people who seem to think that we need candidates who treat us like children, who use coded language that only people in the know can crack, and who always seem to have a "superior" approach to what we, the people, want.  "Trust us," the candidates tell us, "We know best. There's a good reason you're not going to get what you want."  They're right. There is a good reason.  We've put our trust in candidates who do not reflect our convictions and our values, but instead have opted for candidates who simply wear the blue uniform.  Anything in blue is better than anything in red, right?

Here's the thing: there is a majority of people in this country who want what you want, and there are candidates who reflect those values to their very core, and they are not interested in placating powerful interests, because they genuinely believe that a politician's job is to safeguard our democracy against powerful private interests-  candidates like Bernie Sanders.  America used to be more liberal, so of course, it's possible.  But even if the possibility seems unlikely, it's not about can or can't it's about must.  We must elect a president who reflects we, the people.