On Monday Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor in the Bill Clinton administration, wrote a post on his blog outlining why Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is a better candidate than Hillary Clinton for those seeking real change in our nation’s political system.
I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have.
But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.
The upcoming election isn’t about detailed policy proposals. It’s about power – whether those who have it will keep it, or whether average Americans will get some as well.
Reich went on to note that Bernie Sanders is the one candidate in the race who wants to change the status quo and give more power back to average citizens.
Somewhere in all this I came to see the volcanic core of what’s fueling this election.
If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who are working harder than ever but getting nowhere, and who understand that the political-economic system is rigged against you and in favor of the rich and powerful, what are you going to do?
Either you’re going to be attracted to an authoritarian son-of-a-bitch who promises to make America great again by keeping out people different from you and creating “great” jobs in America, who sounds like he won’t let anything or anybody stand in his way, and who’s so rich he can’t be bought off.
Or you’ll go for a political activist who tells it like it is, who has lived by his convictions for fifty years, who won’t take a dime of money from big corporations or Wall Street or the very rich, and who is leading a grass-roots “political revolution” to regain control over our democracy and economy.
In other words, either a dictator who promises to bring power back to the people, or a movement leader who asks us to join together to bring power back to the people.
You don’t care about the details of proposed policies and programs.
You just want a system that works for you.
The rise of Bernie Sanders has not come from acting as an authoritarian dictator, but from a growing movement of people who are attracted to his ideas, which noone else seriously addresses. Robert Reich, someone with experience in working for the Clintons, here is following up on his endorsement on in mid-January with 170 respected economists who work in influential institutions (see https://berniesanders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Wall-St-Letter-1.pdf ). These are not pie-in-the-sky ideas.
If you look at history, what the Sanders campaign to me is doing in many ways parallels what FDR faced in his 1932 campaign running up against Al Smith and the DNC establishment. Guess who Wall Street wanted way back when…