Posted on 10/06/2015 7:44:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Bernie Sanders must be smiling. Right now, the RCP average of polls [1] shows that in the upcoming New Hampshire primary, he is besting Hillary Clinton by 41.0 to 29.7. And in the Iowa caucus polls [2], Hillary Clinton sees Sanders closing in quickly as she wins by a slim 37.3 to Sanders’ 31.0.
On Morning Joe today, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Mark Halperin attributed Sanders’ growing strength to his consistent message and his authenticity. They are correct that his message is both authentic and consistent, but it is new and fresh only to the thousands of college students who pack his rallies, the most recent one in the Boston area. As Margaret Talbot writes in the current issue of The New Yorker [3], “He’s been talking about the injustices done to working people by unequal income distribution for more than forty years.”
Why are the young, who seem to make up the bulk of the crowds that turn out for his rallies, so smitten with him? First, his socialist message and analysis dovetail greatly with much of the history and politics they learn at colleges from their aging New Left professors. Particularly in American history classes, they have been inundated with “history from below,” where they learned that progress was made as a result of the people’s struggles against their oppressors; the capitalists are the villains, and leaders of the Socialist Party like Eugene V. Debs are the heroes.
Now, as one interviewee told Talbot, “socialism was ‘getting a bit of a P.R. makeover’” by Sanders, and is no longer the “damning label” that it is to his opponents. Indeed, as she notes, a 2011 Pew poll revealed that to voters under 30, 49% have a positive view of socialism compared to 46% who view capitalism favorably. Summing up Sanders’ policy proposals, she writes:
Most of his policy proposals have to do with helping working people and reducing the influence of the wealthy. He would like to break up the big banks, create jobs by rebuilding infrastructure, and move toward public funding of elections—and provide free tuition at public universities. (This program would be subsidized, in part, by a tax on Wall Street speculation.) He wants to end the “international embarrassment of being the only major country on Earth which does not guarantee workers paid medical and family leave.”
If one goes to his official campaign website and looks at the policy proposals [4] he espouses, one finds that he proposes scores of different “tax the wealthy” programs that he promises will end income inequality. For example, he favors increasing the minimum wage in the next five years to $15 an hour throughout the country. He believes in the much-exposed myth that “women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns.” And of course, he favors a single-payer health plan, or “Medicare for All.” How are all of the programs to be financed without breaking the bank? There is, of course, a simple answer: tax the wealthy more, which will provide all the funds necessary to finance these entitlements.
Sanders also favors one thing that resonates with the students who pack his rallies: “Making tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout America. Everyone in this country who studies hard,” he says, “should be able to go to college regardless of income.” At another place on his website [5], he emphasizes how different his proposal is from that presented by Hillary Clinton; he favors tuition-free enrollment. Clinton, he says, offers tuition to be paid by middle-class students, with different rates according to family income. Also, her plan insists that students work to help finance their education, something that students whose parents are wealthy will not have to do. They will have to work “10 hours a week, in addition to keeping up with their coursework.”
Horrors. Evidently, Sanders does not seem to realize that 10 hours a week is very little, and that every student who attends college can afford to lose some partying time or socializing time and still have a great deal of time for fun as well as studies. I worked far more than those hours, managed to be very active on campus and did very well in terms of grades. But why not offer students the sky and not expect anything from them? One former student tells Talbot “how refreshing it was to have someone point out to us that…some things aren’t a privilege, they are a right.”
This reminds me of an old socialist phrase meant to be sarcastic: “When the revolution comes, we’ll all have apple pie.” Author Said Sayrafiezadeh writes in his wonderful memoir “When Skateboards Will Be Free [6]” that when he was growing up, he always wanted a skateboard. He would ask for one every year, but since his mother was working as a full-time activist for the Socialist Workers Party for a paltry salary, she had one standard response: “By the time you’re fifteen, socialism will have arrived, and then skateboards will be free.” He turned fifteen, socialism never came and the price of a skateboard had gone up.
In Bernie Sanders’ fantasy world, almost everything Americans need will be free; entitlements will grow and new ones will be created. The issue of our unsustainable debt and growing deficits does not concern Sanders or his base. In their world, the rich will pay for everything. If not them, perhaps the People’s Republic of China will pick up the tab.
same reason as Santa is. He gives out presents
Because he’s an ultra leftie, and a “believer” who appeals to the Dem/Socialist base. It’s just that simple.
How is Bernie Sanders still a Senator?
Because people are stupid and don’t realize that socialism hasn’t worked once in all the times it’s been tried? Oh that’s right. Bernie can do it better.
EASY! He's NOT Hillary!
Because he promises them an extended adolescence where the Government will replace the Parents as the source of extending their free ride.
You can get half the voters to vote for you if you promise that you’ll steal from the other half.
Top Three Reasons Bernie is Doing Well:
1) Because the campus hipsters think he’s cool.
2) Millions of Public school teachers are Marxists or Feminazis and therefore love the fellow Marxist, Bernie.
3) The rest know Hillary and the Clintons are untrustworthy, corrupt, and a bad joke.
For the same reason the 50% brain dead voted in Barry...
Anyone but Hillary.
FREE STUFF !!!
And, as contrasted with Hillary, who these liberal radical young people perceive as NOT sufficiently liberal/radical, it’s a no brainer that they support Sanders.
Also, people who haven't been taught that there;s no such thing as a free lunch or actual history, especially the bloodthirsty killing and freedom crushing that accompanies Socialism think, “Wow, free stuff!” and gladly enter the Iron barred wagon from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Only Dick Van Dick and Benny Hill won't be around to save them.
There is no comical saxophone music in North Korea when they come to take you to the concentration camp.
Americans on both the right and left are DESPERATE for a president that will put American citizens first and not everyone else in the world.
Trump and Sanders are both being fueled by this.
Because there is an ever growing segment of “adults” who are stuck in perpetual adolescence, who don’t want to work hard, study hard, or risk anything. They want someone to take care of them and that someone is government.
In short - they’re losers.
Because they think he’s the candyman.
Well lets see. Democrat voters are leftists and Republican voters, over the last presidential and mid terms, backed guys that are pro abortion, believe in global warming, supported or helped invent Romne...er Obamacare, hate conservatives and a lot of other fully hard left positions. 70,000,000 Republicans or so.
And you can SERIOUSLY ask why an open socialist is popular? He represents the demonstrated values of the the majority of American voters.
Sanders is popular because he is sincere and honest. He is also WRONG, but he is candid and he has never tap danced about who he is.
EVERY establishment politician is struggling right now. People have hit a saturation point with glib, disingenuous hypocrisy.
Sanders benefits from the dumb earnestness of his failed notions.
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