How the Democratic Party Establishment Suffocates Progressive Change

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/22/how-democratic-party-establishment-suffocates-progressive-change

As with the extremism insinuation, the unelectability charge lacks foundation. Polls show Sanders beating all the potential Republican nominees, and beating Trump handily.

The third charge is lack of qualification. The reality is Sanders has a 50-year history of political involvement, working his way through the political ranks serving people. He was mayor of Vermont’s largest city; then Vermont’s representative in Congress, where he co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus; and after that became a senator for Vermont. That seems to be exactly the career and CV a president should have.

Lastly, Sanders has been dismissed as selling unrealistic pipe dreams. Social Security would be a pipe dream if we did not already have it; so would Medicare and public education, too. There is a lesson in that. Pipe dreams are the stuff of change.

Rather than an excess of pipe dreams, our current dismal condition is the product of fear of dreaming. The Democratic Party establishment persistently strives to downsize economic and political expectations. Sanders aims to upsize them, which is why he has been viewed as such a threat.

November will be a time for Democratic voters to come together to stop whoever the Republicans nominate. In the meantime, there is a big lesson to be learned.

Today, the status quo defense mechanism has been used to tarnish Bernie Sanders: tomorrow it will, once again, be used to rule out progressive policy personnel and options.