2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: George McGovern strongly called for the redistribution of income -- and lost 49 states to 1. [View all]Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)First of all, McGovern was principally an anti-war candidate running on Americans' disaffection with with the conflict in Vietnam against an incumbent president. In the end, Nixon got no better deal after the 1972 election to end American involvement in Vietnam than he could have gotten the day he took office four years earlier. Nixon used the power of incumbency to take the war issue away from McGovern. The numbers of American combat forces were steadily being reduced and peace negotiations were ongoing. Nixon even sent Dr. Kissinger to the negotiations in Paris, which lent a greater sense of gravity to the negotiations. In October, Kissinger thought he had an agreement and announced "Peace is at hand." Even though Nixon rejected that particular agreement and resumed bombing North Vietnam after the election, the message received by the American people was one of "Chill, I've got this." Thus the war, which McGovern's supporters (your most humble hare among them) thought would continue to be an issue after Labor Day, wasn't.
Bernie is running for an open presidency. If he is the nominee, there isn't much President Obama can do to undermine Bernie's candidacy without undermining his own legacy. Bernie will be running against the last Republican clown standing, who will only have a chance of winning if the corporatist Democrats revolt and run an alternative Democrat on a third party, a stunt that runs the risk of permanently dividing the Democratic Party. I don't think they really want to do that. I hate to say it (OK, I relish saying it), but if Bernie wins the nomination, who else are the corporatist Democrats going to vote for?
That brings us to the "second of all." Second of all, Bernie is not running against something that is going away or can be easily swept under the rug.
What Bernie is running against isn't other Democratic politicians, but the corporate establishment that foots the bill for their campaigns and has corrupted them in the process. Many of us (including your most humble hare) voted for President Obama in 2008 hoping for a change from the established policies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Preppy, which were made bipartisan by Bill Clinton. Bush the Frat Boy took those policies to an ideological extreme and demonstrated how bad they could be. The change we had hoped for under Obama was not forthcoming. Obama continued the same neoliberal policies and got the same results: a widening income gap. Has Obama been a better president than Bush the Frat Boy? Of course he has. My cat, Swashbuckler, would be have made a better president that Bush the Frat Boy. Has Obama been a second coming of FDR? No, he hasn't. Unfortunately, that is what history demanded of him.
Income inequality, political corruption and corporate tyranny are not going to go away between now and November. First of all, these are bigger problems than was the Vietnam War. Second, for eight years President Obama has been a greater part of the problem than he has been part of the solution, starting with his failure to prosecute crooked Wall Street bankers and going up to his negotiating and pushing bad trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the even worse Trade in Services Agreement. The problems that arise from neoliberalism (or supply-side economics, trickle down economics, Reaganomics, voodoo economics, really fucked up economics or whatever name its called) won't be swept under the carpet until election day without the lumps showing, like Nixon did with the Vietnam War during the election campaign of 1972.
Neoliberalism is a monster pig. It's really ugly and no one can just put lipstick on it and pretend it's a nubile young lady named Monique. That monstrous, ugly pig is the pet of some very powerful masters, who paid off the Congressmen and state legislators who are supposed to represent us. Crooked corporatist bribed our politicians. Or maybe bribed isn't the right word since the laws were changed to distinguish a bribe from a generous campaign contribution. The corporatist tyrants have bought our politicians and by doing so have deprived the people of our voice. We know it's ugly and not very many politicians in the last three and half decades have had the courage have been willing to say it, even if we know it. We aren't fooled, but there is no one to tell the truth.
Until now. That is why Bernie Sanders is going to be president starting in January.