BERNIE SANDERS HAS ALREADY WON

A number of men have run for President of the United States and set forth a program or agenda of far reaching ideas.  Some like Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, and FDR accomplished many of the items on their agenda during their terms in office with later successors picking up the banner of those items not immediately addressed, e.g. FDR accomplishing Wilson’s united Nations and Obama seeking to honor Truman’s national health care pledge.

Some of our Presidents have made their agendas the rallying cries of a generation.  Certainly the New Frontier of JFK and the Great Society of LBJ set the tone of the Democratic progressive movement for a decade and beyond.

Some men sought the Presidency offering the nation reform agendas and were not successful in seeking office.  But their agendas became the platform and programs of a political party and were in most cases ultimately implemented.  Henry Clay’s American System became the initial program of the Republican Party as it sought to link east and west and develop a business oriented government.   William Jennings Bryan’s multi-plank platform of social and political and economic reform became the basis of the reforms of the New Freedom and the New Deal. Much of the economic parts of Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism of 1912 soon became the positions of both parties.

From 1896 for nearly one hundred years populist and progressive ideas were the near consensus in our political system. The Gingrich revolution of 1994 was a reaction to those years of social progress and began the politics of personal destruction and the intolerance of dissenting opinion that has led us to today with the GOP facing a probable choice between Donald J Trump (the Mussolini wannabe) and Ted Cruz the Simon Legree of politics.

Because it became the majority viewpoint Progressivism became a defense of the status quo.  And when the so-called New Democrats opened the party to a relationship with Wall Street Progressivism lost its way.

Now a decade and a half into the 21st century comes a public official from Vermont (last heard from when Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys took Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775) who sets forth a progressive platform for the new century.  One that encompasses all the unfinished business of 20th century progressivism, along with updated items, e.g. free public higher education, (at least to community college level where in the past the fight was for high school) and a strong dose of populism that would reign in the banks and Wall Street as Wilson and FDR tried to do.

Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont has offered a vision of what a truly progressive America can look like. He has spoken for programs and ides that people can rally behind.  He has dared to go beyond the label liberal and accept the label democratic socialist which denotes the progressive programs for the 20th century though the Cold War made it politically impossible to label them as such.

And fighting against Sanders are all those New Democrats who, never having seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington argue that the only ideas worth fighting for are those that can be adopted.  Tell that to former Congressman Abraham Lincoln who lost a Senate race arguing against an America half slave and half free and went on to make it all free.  Tell Woodrow Wilson that the League of Nations was a lost cause not worth fighting for as the UN enters its 71st year.  Tell Harry Truman not to jeopardize his reelection by fighting for civil rights for African Americans when he couldn’t pass the bill.  And, tell Adlai Stevenson that no one cares about nuclear testing in the atmosphere (outlawed now by international treaty). 

The Republican Party looks at the discontent of the populace in 2016 and offers a Man on a White Horse (or in a white limo).  Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont  has offered to the young generations of Americans a future they can believe in.  He has offered a progressive/populist platform that millions can and will support. 

Bernie Sanders can and may win the Democratic Party nomination for President. He can and may win the Presidency in November 2016.  But he has already set the agenda for the next  twenty or thirty years of American governance. He has created the progressive bucket-list and the day will come when every item on that list will be checked off as completed. To borrow from the hero of my generation John Fitzgerald Kennedy “All this may not be achieved in the first 100 days...nor in the first 1000 days.. But let us begin.” 

                                                                                        

23 January 2016