HoltesThoughts: He's Back! – Bernie Sanders and the Subversion of the Progressive Movement

Bernie Sanders and the subversion of the Democratic Party

Really I'd like to believe that Bernie has reformed. After all, he did sign the indivisible pledge to support the winner of the primaries. Indeed, I've signed the indivisible general pledge. But then he made the same pledge in 2015. He also appears to me to have broken it already. That time orally. This time in writing. I want to keep this post within the boundaries of Indivisible's pledge to:

“We'll make the primary election about our hopes for the future, and a robust debate of values, vision and the contest of ideas. We’ll remain grounded in our shared values, even if we support different candidates.” [Indivisible]”

At this point I have to remind people that Bernie is not a Democrat, and that his idea of keeping the Indivisible pledge is to complain about his targets breaking it. Back in 2015:

Counterpunch, no friend to Democrats described Bernie's early performance:

“Bernie has no plans to humiliate Hillary. So far he has been an accidental agent of her anxiety and he intends to keep it that way. Bernie refuses to go negative and pledges to support the eventual nominee of the party, that is Hillary. This restraint has earned the senator the patronizing plaudits of Rachel Maddow and the Hipster Chorus at MS-DNC.”[Counterpunch]

Indeed in July 2015 I was still impressed by what Bernie did. He made a big deal about not making a big deal about Hillary's emails. But he didn't sustain it. Once things got rolling, Bernie and his army Russian and American Trolls went very negative, did everything they could to humiliate Hillary, lied about her, and the entire Democratic Party. So I have trouble believing the scorpion won't sting again. Indeed he's already at it. His followers are already sharing copies of videos and lies produced about her in 2015-2016, and making similar claims about most of his rivals this time around. By July 2016 I was despising him. By July 2017 I had seen all the evidence I needed to see to not want him in Congress, much less running for President.

Related Posts:
Post Mortem: Turning "our Revolution" into Piqueteros; Bernie Sanders and Russian Compromat; When Lefties Betray the Middle and Elect Righties; Russian Agents, Gaslighting, Spun News and Ongoing Active Measures
Campaign related Posts: Lakoff and Building a Party that Can Be All it Can Be!; Winning Doesn't Always mean Getting Elected; In Order for All Lives to Matter Black Lives Must Matter; What Really Happened With Hillary Care; Why Social Programs are Investment and not a Burden; What Bernie is Doing Right; The Stop Hilary Movement March 2016; The Trouble with Bernie Sanders II; The Trouble with Bernie Sanders Final 2016/06; The Difference between a Prophet or a Leader and a Critic; How I'd like to See Bernie's Campaign End; Greg Palast and the Busters kick the Facts in the Face; Transformation or Half Loaves; Outside Agitators and the Black Lives Movement

A Betrayal

I came to loathe him as I found out more and more about him. I believe he betrayed US Democrats.

He knew the Russians were helping him. He accepted that help. Ari Berman Got him to admit it in July 2017.
I wrote this post about that confession in 2017:: https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/07/bernie-sanders-and-russian-kompromat.html

Bernie and Russian Cheating

We all know Russian and GOP cheating & hacking played a role. We also know that they bent their efforts to disrupt the Hillary campaign and used the Bernie Campaign to spread disinfo, lies, misinfo and defamatory information about her. I know he knew they were helping him, because he confessed it to Ari Berman and that he not only kept his silence on the fact of Russian hacking and did absolutely nothing to stop it, but he and his surrogates used that information to attack her, the DNC, and the "establishment. He knew they were defaming Hillary Clinton, Brazil, Wasserman, and other Democratic leaders, based on false information -- and said nothing to his followers.

Worse than that he is still making the same attacks to this very day, in spite of his false promises to uphold the Indivisible Pledge. Bernie Sanders' followers want us to "chill", but I can't. Bernie helped Trump win in 2016, and he is playing the same role again.

Vox article asking US to Chill

But they admit that Bernie constantly and relently:

“portray[s] the institutional Democratic Party as corrupt and relentlessly sows suspicion about the motives and integrity of everyone who disagrees with him. He treats the catastrophe of the 2016 election as a deserved rebuke to party leaders. And he brushes aside mountains of practical realities that others have spent years dealing with.”

He refers to most of us as "neo-liberals", which is a slur since "neo-Liberalism" refers to Reagan/Thatcherism outside the USA and their use is misleading and defamatory. He rails against "the establishment" and uses rhetoric Trump regularly borrows and distorts further to divide the party. So "Chilling" is not going to happen. Vox tries to gaslight Bernie as being "really" a typical politician. He is, but his narcissism is destructive.

For one thing, he may be good at winning re-election in Vermont, but he is not good at organizing a sustained movement. For example, when he was railing against a rigged system in California, he could have been teaching his followers how to vote within that complicated but not rigged primary system. Instead he creates his own falsehoods and amplifies those given him by the Russians. He is not a positive influence.

When he and his many followers support a Democrat, to paraphrase:

“Trump is a terrible person. So and So is bad too, but not as bad as Trump. I was cheated out of the nomination but you should hold your nose and vote for him or her, anyway.”

He did nothing to redirect voters from Jill Stein, or even to win over the minority who directly voted for Trump. Thus it is my opinion that he was part of the Russian Hacking is my belief. He confessed he knew the Russians helped him in 2017 to Ari Melber. I wrote about it in July 2017:

Bernie Sanders and Russian Kompromat

Will he do it Again?

He'll do the same thing again. When I started drafting this I was afraid he'd do the same thing again, but he's already doing it. Indivisible pledge or not. He and his followers can't resist themselves. Usually Bernie's surrogates not Bernie himself. But they hate "the establishment" as much as Trump's fascists.

He's Baaaaack

So he's back. I don't trust him. Why?

This Post is going to summarize my opinions based on previous findings so I don't have to continually repeat the same arguments with the same information over and over again. It divides into several parts. It won't be exhaustive. That would be too exhausting so it just contains highlights and references to other posts and articles. If he manages to win the Democratic Party Primaries I will hold my nose and vote for him. I would advise any Democrat to do the same. But I really think he's a disaster.

Why Bernie is not a very good Senator
Why Bernie is not a very good human being
Why Bernie is possibly a witting or unwitting Russian Asset
Why his running for President is harmful to the Progressive Cause

I. Why Bernie is not a very good Senator

My formal objections to voting for Bernie start with whether he is a good Senator, and by implication whether he is fit for higher office, and whether we can trust him to defend the constitution and protect the country. He was an interesting character to me at one time. He'd appear on the Thom Hartman show or made other appearances on TV, before 2015, where he usually spoke for liberal ideas. He was so scruffy he was like everyone's Maoist uncle. He also was scruffily telegenic and expressed himself succinctly. I loved his bullet points for the Democratic Plank. Indeed we ended up including most of them in our Party plank after the Convention. He got most of his plank included and still railed against the DNC and all the people who so welcomed the support of his surrogates and himself.

But his record as a Senator is of someone who:

Doesn't play well with other legislators
Rarely successfully achieves the legislation he claims to be seeking.
Often makes the perfect the enemy of the good by preferring perfectionism to incrementalism.

Doesn't Play well with Others

Bernies proposals are always long on rhetoric, bullet points and short on the details needed to implement them pragmatically. He is forthright in his opinions and great with the bullet points. But, his proposals usually fail because he'll block any sort of compromise or less than 100% of what he demands. There is nothing pragmatic, or democratic about his approach to legislation. Most people need the bullet points to support a policy. They make great propaganda.

Rarely Achieves his Legislative Goals

But to become reality you have to not only promise "medicare for all" you have to have a plan to pay for it that is fair to both providers and consumers. You have to be able to lobby other Senators to vote with you. I suppose if he was President his surrogates would work out the details. But in the Senate he only can get things done working with the same democrats he constantly attacks publicly as "the establishment." I want someone who can get things done.

Making the Perfect the Enemy of the Good

Bernie needs to work with others to make his ideas reality. He rarely shares the stage with the people who can do that. He has a way of sabotaging efforts that don't meet his ideas of a perfect solution. The result is that his legislative accomplishments aren't that great. He only supports the efforts of others when they met his Unicorn standards. He makes the perfect the enemy of the Good.

Bernie claims to have worked with Hillary on Bill Clinton's health care reform efforts. But when she didn't support his perfectionist demands, he withdrew support for her healthcare reform efforts. He was in the house of representatives at the time, and Hillary was pursuing a healthcare plan, relying on professional input, and trying to get broad support by first getting expert input. She tried to get his support, talked to him repeatedly, and in the end he and Senator Kennedy sabotaged the effort. That famous photo of her attending a session in Vermont with him shows him standing behind her -- and scowling. Later that image was used to claim that Bernie somehow did help her out. But the reality is that he, like Senator Edward Kennedy let "the perfect" be the "enemy of the Good." He does that regularly with legislation.

II Why Bernie Sanders is not a Very Good Human Being

Bernie, his surrogates and his supporters this year (2019) are currently calling for Democrats to unify with Bernie. It is all one way. Bernie's campaign put out a video detailing Hillary's pecadillos (real and purposed) in 2015. Bernie, too, lies to people and makes promises he knows he can't keep. But he never admits it. It is what it is. When talking about Hillary and the way he treated her. He asserts he is right and everyone else is wrong. He still says:

“Hillary and I have fundamental -- you know, fundamental differences. And that's what it is," he explained.” [The View]

And he repeated, unfair criticisms from 2016:

“working class people the way I think she should've.”...“There were states where she did not campaign as vigorously as she should've,...” [The View]

He is not a bridge builder.

Not Taking Responsibility

To this day he has never walked back complaints about Hillary and the campaign that were Russian Propaganda. In 2015 Bernie accused Hillary of taking:

“millions of dollars from the health care and pharmaceutical industries” NYtimes

He doesn't think he is less than perfect

Hypocrisy

When in 2015 Bernie continuously leveled this criticism, implying they were bribes. He labeled Hillary Clinton as "captive of the banks" for speeches in 2015 to bankers, even though he claimed he was going to keep his campaign focused on issues. He attacked her for becoming a millionaire on speeches and book sales. His followers still make that argument, even though she is no longer the candidate. He criticized her for making millions on her book sales and speeches. He criticized Barack Obama similarly. Now it is revealed he is a millionaire based on speeches and book sales. This man has no introsepction.

Wall Street Criticism

Bernie's Millionaire Problem

Since the Election Bernie has made a fortune on book sales and speeches.

He and his surrogates have cut out the "millionaires" reference a bit, but they still use it. Hearing the criticisms their first response to the criticism was to savage the Critics. They claim that only "establishment democrats" found his behavior hypocritical.

Savaging Critics

Instead of responding to criticisms of Bernie's millionaire status with humor and humility, Bernie chose to play victim and his surrogates got nasty. They not only attacked Neera Tanden for lampooning him in the Daily Beast, they tried to breitbart her by interviewing her Mother and misquoting her. They also claimed that this was a David Brock plot. The result was two diametrically opposite narratives going on, both instigated by the New York Times and Bernie camp. In one Bernie is an innocent victim of savage undeserved attacks by "the establishment." In the other he is a hero who is a millionaire because of his excellent writing.

Timeline

Neera Tanden put out a video making fun of Bernie attacking people for being millionaires and billionaires, on news of him being a millionaire, based on book sales and speeches.

Daily Beast

Neera Tanden, who heads Center For American Progress [CAP], would walk back the severity of the critique, however.
That didn't stop Bernie's followers from launching a campaign against Think Progress, and CAP, complete with vicious language:

They launched a hit job attacking Neera Tanden personally using misquotes from Maya Tanden, Neera's mom,

These inflamed hurt feelings based on Bernie's history of attacking Hillary for making money from books, now exposed as hypocrisy.
Now Bernie is making the narrative about whether or not it is okay for Candidates to take large donations.

Taxes

But it goes deeper than simple politics. Bernie lies about things in a manner similar to trump. In 2016 he claimed he was going to release his taxes, but only released some of the information on them instead. He won 4 pinochios from the WaPo for that. This year he released 10 years of taxes and they showed he is a millionaire and made tons of money from royalties and speaking fees. He bristled at admitting he's a millionaire. There is nothing wrong with him being a Millionaire, or Hillary. To me it smacks of rank hypocrisy and double standards.

Bernie Sanders’s false claim that he has released his full federal tax return

III Is Bernie a witting or unwitting Russian Asset?

This is the one that keeps me up at night. Is Bernie a Witting Asset or an unwitting one? the above mentioned interview with Ari Berman confirms my suspeicion that he is probably a witting Russian Asset. How witting is the only question. His followers dispute this notion as conspiracy theory mongering.

Maybe I'm deluded. When I see conspiracy theories I usually look for evidence that there is an actual conspiracy behind the conspiracy theory mongering. One can rarely prove a conspiracy as the root of conspiracy comes from "con-spiracy -- to breath together." It is rarely something discussed openly. Moreover, False positives can lead to false assumptions and false conclusions. However, as Malcolm Nance says "it takes a lot of effort to have so many coincidences." Bernie has been to Russia repeatedly. Toes the Russian line more often than challenges it. And whether he is an agent is beside the point. Someone who does Moscow's bidding wittingly is a witting agent, whether they admit it or not. Whether it is criminal is not up to me. But my opinion is he is.

Subverting Democracy

Sanders or may not be intentionally subverting the democratic party, but when he undermines them he is undermining the last bullwark of democracy that hasn't already fallen low in this country. He says he's fighting for a revolution and his enemy is always the Democratic "establishment." He is either supporting democracy by taking the indivisible pledge seriously or supporting the reelection of Trump at this point. And he'd rather drip venom at allies than focus on Trump. That to me is subversion. Especially at this moment. He seems to be here to reelect Trump. That is disturbing enough.

The Strange Case of Tad Devine

Then there is the whole angle of the Russian Connection. Bernie knew the Russians were supporting his campaign. That should have been clear from the beginning and he certainly new it early on in his campaign. Even more importantly, he hired someone to run his campaign who not only was a Russian Asset, but was a Russian Agent.

Bernie hired a Russian Agent when he hired as his campaign manager Tad Devine, who is a active Russian Agent who had worked for the Russians through their Oligarchs in the Ukraine. The man worked with Paul Manafort for Yanukovich to keep Russian corrupt control over the Ukraine in 2004 and 2010. That election featured chants of "Lock Her Up." It's failure was the reason that the Russians hated Hillary Clinton. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that both Tad and Paul were in communication even after the election, at least in the early days of the Bernie campaign. Bernie ran a data driven campaign with some of the same features as that Trump came to Employ. This data driven campaign used the same software tools and database techniques the Russians had used against the Ukrainians. It is pretty obvious the Russians wanted either for Bernie or Trump to win. But most importantly they wanted to ensure Hillary lost.

I have a lot more to write here. But this is the bare bones.

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/02/parallels-between-2010-ukrainian.html

Clapper on Trump

IV Why His Running for President is harmful to the Progressive Cause

To summarize, Bernie is bad for the Progressive cause for the following Reasons:

Bernie is nearly as much a Narcissist as Trump is
He is as Kompromat as Trump
He is not a good leader
He makes the Perfect the Enemy of the Good
He does not share the limelight with others
His followers are fanatic and nearly as authoritarian as the Trumpers
He will have no coat-tails due to his hate for "the establishment.

Bernie supporters have the quality of fanatics:

“Bernie's supporters appear to be incredibly loyal to just Bernie. Here, 21% of Bernie's supporters say that they would rather vote for President Trump than Pete Buttigieg, if given the binary choice.”

Bernie channels the same people trump channels:

“Trump and Bernie have a similar, singular appeal to a certain subset of voters. While most Democratic primary voters would support Bernie in the general election if he were the nominee, it appears that some significant subset of Bernie’s supporters do not intend to reciprocate.”

If he won our parties nomination, he might get these voters. But if he loses it, those voters aren't going to go over our candidates. Mayor Buttigieg for being Gay. Warren for being a woman.

“26% of current Bernie Sanders supporters said that they would rather vote for President Donald Trump over Senator Elizabeth Warren, if that were the eventual 2020 matchup” — Forbes Poll

Bernie has no coat-tails:

“Only 51% of current Bernie supporters actually voted in the 2016 General Election for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton – 7% voted for Trump, 23% voted for a third-party candidate, and 19% did not vote.” Forbes Poll

Even if he actually asked his voters to vote for Hillary Clinton, they didn't do it. And those of us observing saw that the reason why is that he was equivocal in how he did so. The 23% mentioned voted for Jill Stein. Worse, Bernie did not get even the most cursory vetting by the major media. He is upset now because he is getting even the smallest amount of criticism, but if he gets the kind of criticism that Hillary got as Durkheimer notes:

“can we know for sure that such voters will actually pull the lever for Bernie in 2020, given that they were the same voters who, in 2016, were convinced to switch their vote to Trump or a third-party candidate, or convinced to not vote at all? Through the slog of negative advertising and attacks that will take place over the next 18 months in the run up to the Presidential Election, perhaps many of the current Bernie supporters will not actually remain motivated Bernie supporters until the end. Only time will tell.”

And as I noted the man has major skeletons in his closet. Between the fact his followers are cultlike, the fact that he makes zero effort to attract allies in congress, even if he managed to win the Presidency, his goal of destroying the Democratic party would mean he'd get nothing accomplished and probably face impeachment hearings.

The Alternative to Bernie Sanders

Our Task as progressives is to implement policies that make our country a just, fair and well run democratic republic, with all the commonwealth elements that make everyone living here sincere. George Lakoff explains that to win our way forward we have to master language and rhetoric and lot let others define us or define our terminology in ways that turn our strengths into weaknesses. I wrote on Lakoff in 2014. Lakoff warns:

“all politics is moral. Voters vote for what they see as right. Conservatives and progressives have almost opposite ideas as to what is right. In candidates, voters look for people who have what they see as the right character, people who will do, and stand up for, what they see as right.”

Bernie in my opinion is a throwback to the era of Leninist Leftwing politics. We need a long list of reforms to make our country a functional and secure Democratic Commonwealth. We don't need ruthlessness in pursuing them.

Written 4/17/2019

Updated Feb 16, 2020

Bernie also has minions. He has always had minions. From 2015-2016 many of them were Russian Bots. In 2018, the USA presented documentation that many of those minions, were indeed Russian Bots.

"USA versus Internet Research Agency"
Hillary Explained the Problem on 9/28/1993: https://twitter.com/Hillarybros/status/1172362968715022336?s=20
Related Articles:: 5 Weird Items In The New Bernie-Buttigieg Poll; Why Social Programs are Investment and Not a Burden; How I'd like to See Bernie's Campaign End, May 28 2016; Greg Palast and the Busters kick the facts in the teeth, June 10 2016; What Really happened with the 1992 "Hillary Care" and Bernie, July 12 2017

Related Posts:: https://pledge.indivisible.org/; https://ballotpedia.org/Bernie_Sanders_presidential_campaign,_2016; https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/31/bernie-and-the-sandernistas/

Building A Democratic party that can "be all it can be"
On the View: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/01/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-2020-the-view/index.html; https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/24/bernie-sanders-criticizes-hillary-clinton-on-health-care-and-campaign-finance/; https://www.thedailybeast.com/thinkprogress-a-powerful-media-arm-of-the-democratic-party-calls-out-bernie-sanders-for-his-wealth; https://freebeacon.com/politics/thinkprogress-attacks-sanders-for-changing-rhetoric-on-millionaires-after-he-becomes-one/; https://www.thedailybeast.com/thinkprogress-a-powerful-media-arm-of-the-democratic-party-calls-out-bernie-sanders-for-his-wealth; https://www.americanprogress.org/; https://thinkprogress.org/

HoltesThoughts

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

He's Back! – Bernie Sanders and the Subversion of the Progressive Movement