This column is in response to Jonathan Kahane’s column (“Sanders backer worries ‘star has flamed out’”) and Bill Newman’s column (“Bernie Sanders for president?”) about Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, both appearing in the March 2 edition of the Gazette.
Mr. Kahane noted, “How anyone in this day and age could have repeatedly voted against the Brady Bill as Sen. Sanders did.” Perhaps even worse, Sanders voted immunity from liability for all gun makers and gun dealers, the only industry in America offered such protection. In defending this vote, Sanders said he didn’t want to hurt “mom and pop” gun dealers.
Those votes are why a Sandy Hook mom in 2016 campaigned with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and it may be why she lost the state to Sanders in the Democratic primary. As an aide to Clinton told me after the general election, “She lost because of guns.”
And is it true, as The New York Times reported, that before Sanders was a senator, he refused to picket a Vermont maker of Gatling guns that were used in Latin America because it would cost jobs?
Sanders has other positions he needs to explain. Why does he support the F-35 fighter jet, the most expensive weapons system in history? Why does he support $8 million a day in military aid to Israel? In the debates in 2016 he said of the military budget, it could be “trimmed around the edges.” What does that mean, and why shouldn’t the military have deep cuts to pay for social programs?
Mr. Kahane wondered why Sanders calls himself a “Democratic socialist.” He actually calls himself a “democratic socialist” with a small d. This may be why at least 43 then U.S senators endorsed Clinton in the 2016 primaries, while only one fellow senator backed Bernie.
Sanders is not a Democrat, but much as Trump took over the Republican Party, Sanders desires to take over the Democratic Party. He also shares with Trump an addiction to the adoration of the crowds.
And Sanders needs to explain what being a socialist means to him. It’s not enough to say it’s for Medicare for All or a living minimum wage because many of the Democratic candidates support those policies. Does socialism mean nationalization of some industries, and if so, which ones? Banking? Transportation? The auto industry?
Does Sanders ever consider that his call for a “political revolution” might be offensive? The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and other revolutions murdered untold numbers of people, many of them innocent. Maybe “political transformation” might be a better phrase.
Clinton didn’t challenge Sanders on many issues because she was afraid of losing votes on her left. Apparently she did anyway because post-election polls showed that enough Bernie backers switched to Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin to give Trump the victory in those states. Bernie backers need to do some introspection and ask what part they played in the ultimate outcome of the 2016 elections. Is the perfect (in their minds) the enemy of the good?
Mr. Newman points out that Sanders is “77 years old, white and male.” But that is too kind. If elected, he would be 79 when he took office and 83 if he ran for re-election. It stymied Sanders recently when someone asked him why we needed another old, white male for president. As Maureen Dowd wrote in The New York Times in 2016 that even then Sanders sometimes sounded like “a choleric old man.” Sanders is of the past, and perhaps his time has passed.
Men have been playing gender politics for centuries, even to the point of excluding women from voting. In 2020, the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote nationally in America, it’s time we have a female president.
Certainly women are more collegial and cooperative and less competitive than men. And we have at least four well-qualified, full-fledged Democrats (who have a reasonable chance to win) to choose from: Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobcuhar of Minnesota, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
They all have positive and negative aspects, but they couldn’t mess things up any more than men already have. All four are deserving of our serious consideration.
Tim Walter taught English at Berkshire Community College and wrote op-ed columns for The Berkshire Eagle. He is retired and lives in Plainfield.