An Electoral History Lesson
Lots of flack today re: “Bernie.” As a response to an earlier question re: my opinion on a realistic Democratic ticket, I think a Warren/ Buttigieg (or vice-versa) ticket could win but feel Sanders would condemn us to four more Trump years.
Remember, we’re not talking to a politically sophisticated or informed country as a whole, and Trump supporters are at the bottom of that barrel. They will not be won ever by any non-rightist candidate, therefore any split in the Democratic ranks will be tragic.
Sanders is a self-styled Socialist, for whom only one of his Senate democratic colleagues has voiced support. Even those who feel they do “understand socialism”, have little or no political real-world basis for that belief. Exemplary of this fact is believing that the Green New Deal is a panacea for “what ails us” indicating profound ignorance of how we got here and how deeply entrenched a market economy is in Americans at even the small businessman level.
Using the term Socialism, (Sanders does) by implication and definition means (Oxford English Dictionary):
“A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Regulated really somewhat reflects the concept of a regulated market economy, but most Americans see “Owned” and reject that out of hand.
We have too long a history of entrepreneurial business to simply reverse course. There is way too much money in far way too many hands. The best course would be the agreement that as Wilson said, Regulation in the public interest is appropriate. Theodore Roosevelt, himself a Republican, but also the first to use the Sherman Act to legally limit the public abuses by businesses of the age of robber barons (See Rockefeller, John D.) had said earlier, “ When we control business in the public interest we are also bound to encourage it in the public interest or it will be a bad thing for everybody and worst of all for those on whose behalf the control is nominally exercised.” I think there may well be a great truth in that idea. It is possible to encourage entrepreneurialism while limiting its abuses. Dodd-Frank was a good faith attempt to do that. You saw how quickly Trump backed us out of Dodd -Frank.
Without massive social upheaval, (and I mean literally) the neutral ground would be to fairly regulate what private industry can and can't do. This is what Trump has tried to dismantle to a great degree. Sanders verges on being an out and out Socialist and, in my opinion, almost as reactionary to the left as is Trump to the right. In point of fact, based on anecdotal things from those who actually have worked (or tried to work) with him, he is abrasive and doesn't play well with others. Democrat “centrists” would probably not support him.
To begin, let’s just examine Socialist “electability” today, and because it’s a frequently an accurate bellwether, the historic appeal of Socialism, as most Americans (mis)understand it, in the 20th century.
In 1924, styling himself as a “Progressive,” Robert (“Fighting Bob”) LaFollette, having served as Governor, Representative and Senator from Wisconsin, ran for President. Although nominally a Progressive, his was, admittedly, a Socialist politics far left of the Republican originator of the term (“Progressive”) and 2012 Presidential candidate for president on that party’s ticket, Theodore Roosevelt. (T.R, actually supported universal healthcare!)
La Follette stated that his chief goal was to break the "combined power of the private monopoly system over the political and economic life of the American people," and he called for government ownership of railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, and protections for civil liberties. His diverse coalition proved challenging to manage, and the Republicans rallied to claim victory in the 1924 election. It is note-worthy that Lafollette, while actually winning one state (Wisconsin) and gaining 13 electoral votes in one of the best third-party performances in U.S. history, lost big. He died soon after, a political footnote to all but us history geeks. A footnote to this is that while Lafollette was essentially unelectable, parts of his program resonated and were enacted. The lesson here is that although rigid doctrinarianism usually loses, cooperation with the ability to compromise frequently succeeds.
Jump ahead to 1932. If there was ever a time when Socialism should have “looked good”, this was it. The US economy was in disarray, unemployment at 18% and climbing. Many families were financially bereft of basic needs. Husbands even left their families and became hobos to enable the mother to qualify for such “welfare” as there was.
In the midst of this misery, one might be expected to find a “share the wealth” Socialist ticket attractive. One who did was Presbyterian minister, Norman Thomas. He got a rousing 2.23% of the popular vote and no electoral votes, which was better than his 1928 result of .73% and no electoral votes. Although he ran four more times, he never again came close to 1% of the popular vote.
Why go into all this? Because we can learn from history. As sad as you may consider it, there are two facts of political life in the United States that are historic absolutes: 1) Third parties don’t do well in American elections. Even the immensely popular and progressive Theodore Roosevelt failed as a third- party candidate. In 1992, Reform Party candidate, H. Ross Perot, spent multi-millions of his own and others money proving the same thing. He won exactly no electoral votes yet, had even half his supporters voted for Bush senior, Clinton would have lost badly. 2) Well worth considering dispassionately, as many still refuse to do in the rubble of the 2016 catastrophe, is the fact that just as in 1912, when TR’s third party campaign split the Republican vote and ushered Woodrow Wilson in to the white house, third party voters frequently accomplish what in many cases they may live to regret.
While it’s difficult to figure out what Jill Stein voters thought they might accomplish, it’s a pretty safe bet that what they had in mind definitely wasn’t to place Donald Trump in the White House ……but that’s what they did. In Wisconsin, Stein voters cast more than enough votes, which had they voted Clinton, would have given Mrs. Clinton that state’s electoral votes and thereby the election. Ralph Nader’s Florida “Green” voters, by not voting for (really, really “green” himself) Al Gore, took 97,488 votes from Gore and allowed George W. Bush to eke out a 437 vote squeaker in Florida, which Gore might well have won by more than 97,000 votes, keeping deceased shithead Antonin Scalia and the rest of the USSC the hell out of it. Think about that. No Iraq war, what would Dick Cheyney have had to occupy himself?
So, I hope I have outlined two different but related take -aways. The first, that the tag “Socialist” hasn’t ever played well in America and would become even more pejorative in the morally bereft hands of the Trump campaign, especially if the other candidate (Sanders himself) declares it to be his standard. The second, a corollary, is that, as in 1912, a split party (Taft/Roosevelt) runs far worse than one unified. And finally, it should concern possible Sanders supporters that if he were to be elected, at his inauguration he would already be older than Ronald Reagan, in the early clutches of Alzheimer’s, was when he left office! And spare me the “agism” bullshit. I’m just a year younger that Sanders and healthier, but I would never consider running for a four-year term of anything.
Finally, once the Democratic national convention selects a candidate, of which Sanders is, I believe the least viable, as in the least electable, we must all close ranks in support of whomever that may be, since failing to do so all but guarantees four more years of madness. To me, just the thought of a Donald Trump in a second term, who doesn’t have to worry about reelection, is frightening. Finally, the 33 Senate elections are critical in 2020. A Senate Democratic majority would castrate Trump. I like the sound of that.
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