No, Sanders is not trying to boot moderates out of the Democratic Party and erect a progressives-purity test. He just objects to Clinton’s misrepresenting herself as a progressive Democrat when she is, by her own fairly recent and proud description, a moderate Democrat.
I’ve been a fan of New Republic senior editor Brian Beutler dating back to his days as a Salon writer, but in a piece today called “Bernie Sanders Will Be Unelectable If He Keeps This Up” he misinterprets the essence of Sanders’s current criticism of Clinton as a fair-weather progressive in a way that I think needs quick rebuttal.
Clinton has been campaigning on the claim, which she makes repeatedly, that she’s a progressive, but one who wants to get things done. Sanders pointed out, on twitter, that Clinton herself was until very recently characterizing herself as a moderate. Beutler writes:
The spat began two days ago, when Sanders said he thinks Clinton’s only a progressive “some days.” Clinton and her allies leapt to her defense, which in turn prompted Sanders to run through a litany of her heresies.
Here’s how he summed up his basic argument [in a twitter post]:
“You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive.”
Beutler interprets this as Sanders establishing a purity test, not for a candidate to represent herself to voters as a progressive but instead to run as a Democrat at all. He thinks Sanders wants to establish a mirror image of Tea Party purity, forcing candidates and elected officials from the party itself if they don’t meet the issue-by-issue test and effectively repelling moderate voters by a message that they are not welcome within the Democratic Party.
But Clinton is, as she has proudly said of herself pre-Sanders-boom, a moderate. Not on every issue, but certainly on most economic and regulatory issues. A favorite slogan of hers is essentially a Republican one: she wants to increase incomes, not taxes.
By which she means, particularly, that she doesn’t think healthcare insurance premiums and out-of-pocket healthcare costs count in tallying up “incomes” as long as those payments are made to private insurers and private hospitals, physicians and medical labs. Better to pay more (much more, if you have a large deductible and, say, also a large hospital bill) in such expenses to the private sector than to pay a set, regular rate for all or most healthcare costs if that set, regular rate is paid to the federal government and called a tax rather than a premium. Or called medical bills.
Clearly, you can be a moderate on one issue and a progressive on another; Sanders himself has been a moderate on gun-control issues. His objection is to Clinton’s sudden repackaging of her general ideological label as progressive rather than moderate. She is not, overall, a progressive. She is, overall, a moderate.
He’s complaining about the false labeling, the false advertising. He thinks voters are entitled to truth in advertising. He does not think moderate candidates and elected officials should be booted from the party, or moderate Democrats made to feel unwelcome within it.
It is a measure of how right-shifted the political discourse in this country has become that such a post is even necessary. Sanders is no more radical than FDR. Clinton, like Obama, is what we used to call a “Rockefeller Republican.”
Well, Beutler is really quite liberal, Joel. I think he just misunderstands Sanders’ point and intent.
I posted the post because I was afraid that other mainstream commenters would read the Beutler post—I learned of it from the Plum Line’s Happy Hour Roundup, which I think most liberal political journalists read—and agree with it. Which probably will happen anyway, since most of them don’t read AB.
What I get from Beutler’s post is a feeling of panic that the Dem primary battle will cause huge damage to whichever one is the nominee, or to the party itself.
The problem with labels is that it distracts from the issues as to what the candidates propose to be able to accomplish and advocate for, whether or not they can be accomplished. Yesterday Bernie’s spokesperson was having to struggle with why they describe Obama as a progressive but not Hillary. It became sillier with each effort to expound on the original answer. Bernie is struggling to gain support from Blacks and Hispanics and so has to be careful about criticizing Obama. As Bev has so often pointed out in the past, by Bernie’s lights, Obama’s no progressive. It really might be better to get out of this labeling foolishness.
FDR was no angel. Many of Trump’s policies echo if not copy FDR’s internment executive orders.
This semantics bs could mean a Rep POTUS in 2017.
Let’s discuss the issues, not concentrate on demonizing the candidates with little sound byte garbage.
I live in NH.
I worked for Sen Shaheen in 2014.
NH dem party could not get out 40%; even with me on the phones! It took Warren to come up and stump to get Shaheen a squeaker over former Mass Senator Scott Brown. While a HoR district went republican!
Bernie’s threat is he dumps the establishment who cannot get any one excited!
The problem is “establishment” and keeping same-o-same.
Someone who still uses a possessive before a gerund!
I think I’m in love! <3
Here is one of the best examples of Hillary’s behavior as described by Senator Warren.
Those posting Bernie Sanders lack of black support; I would suggest is a failing of the fourth rail to be honest with the public.
Why African Americans are on FIRE for Bernie Sanders
Black Voters DROP Hillary Clinton to Support Bernie Sanders & MLK’s Legacy
There is a real good piece on this who matter of Wall St. power, corruption, fraud ect. . in todays Wallstreetonparade.com from Pam and Dean Martens . You won’t want to miss it because it shows the fed regulators even with the new laws in place still cannot control or regulate the all powerful big banks. I would say that the governments attempt to regulate them has failed with $3T in derivatives still out there floating around. The market and economy is like the band playing musical chairs on the Titanic. To them all is fine until the band stops playing.
The line Clinton has obviously been told to use that is getting me is “promises that can’t be kept”.
That her people have decided this is the line to take down Bernie clearly points out the difference between the 2. One is about some type of policy, the other is about pushing the ideology in a different direction.
Again, a typical GOP MO type of move, that of conflations to create a negative emotion toward the opponent. And she wants to talk issues. Ha!
You are quite right, Beverly, that one can be a moderate on some issues and a progressive on some others. What is unfortunate is Bernie’s declaration that one is either a moderate or a progressive, which sets up an artificial and unuseful sharp dichotomy, although he is clearly “more progressive” than she is in general. But declaring she cannot be a progressive at all because she has said at times that she is a moderate is really just making things worse, athough it may rouse some people up.
Hillary Clinton telling us where she stands.