2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGeorge McGovern strongly called for the redistribution of income -- and lost 49 states to 1.
He called for a guaranteed minimum income and ran as the candidate who wouldn't drag America into any more unnecessary wars.
He was a wonderful man who had the fervent support of million of young people.
And he got slaughtered in the general election by Richard Nixon.
And so when Bernie calls for redistribution of income, many of us here an echo of a another candidate we loved, but who didn't have a chance in the general.
ON UPDATE: Ten years later, Walter Mondale honestly stated that both he and his opponent, Ronald Reagan, would need to raise taxes -- but Mondale's tax increase would not go to the rich but to improving everyone's lives. Reagan pretended he wouldn't be raising taxes. Mondale lost by 49 states to 1.
ON UPDATE: More than half of our states have Republican governors and most of them rejected free Federal dollars for Medicaid expansion. So I don't buy the argument that the times today are much more friendly to a candidate who pushes for the redistribution of income. It isn't a coincidence that tea party super pacs spent millions on ads against Hillary in the last few months, in an effort to help Bernie win. They view him as a much easier opponent in the general.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1972/05/04/george-mcgovern-on-taxing-redistributing-income/
George McGovern: On Taxing & Redistributing Income
George McGovern and Wassily Leontief MAY 4, 1972 ISSUE
INTRODUCTION
George McGoverns proposals for tax reform and redistribution of income, originally released in January and published here in slightly revised form, should be read and reread by every one of the more than one hundred million Americans who dropped in the mailbox last Saturday or Sunday, with mixed feelings of civic pride and desperation, their income tax returns for 1971. McGoverns brief statement contains more hard common sense and practical wisdom than the tired platitudes and inconclusive technical disquisitions that fill the 300 pages of the Presidents Economic Report, which was transmitted to the Congress a few days after Senator McGovern made his program public.
The distribution of income is clearly emerging as the issue that will dominate the American political scene in the closing quarter of this century. The share that each member of our society receives in the immense and still swelling stream of goods and services produced annually by the American economy not only largely determines the level of satisfaction of his daily needs but also provides means for attaining many, if not all, of his highest aspirations. But more than this, under our political institutions the income and the amount of wealth controlled by any one group, in relation to other groups, determines decisively the power it can wield in influencing, not to say in directing, all government activities.
Twenty-five percent of the total gross national income is controlled directly by the government, and a much larger proportion indirectly. It is not surprising that by exercising a decisive influence on government policy, particularly in the economic sphere, a small group of citizens controlling a disproportionately high share of the national income and a still greater share of the national wealth has been capable of defending its economic and political dominance against all assaults.
In view of the close interdependence among all the parts of the modern industrial economy, the distribution of income and of wealth naturally depends, to some extent, on every one of its social and economic institutions. However, the power of the government to levy taxes, to borrow and to print money, and to use this immense purchasing power in any way it sees fit has long been recognized as one of the most effective means of bringing about a distribution of income compatible with the prevailing standards of social justiceor as an equally effective means of thwarting attempts to do so.
SNIP
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)I still believe redistribution of income is practical and necessary.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)And it's absurd.
I'll vote my principles, like I always do
leftupnorth
(886 posts)Excuse my French.
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 10, 2016, 06:25 PM - Edit history (1)
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Im sure we could come up with some parallels to today if we tried.
earthside
(6,960 posts)I am very excited at my age to have a genuine, bold progressive to vote for for president.
And, besides, we have seen the redistribution of wealth from working people to the 1 percent go on since Reagan -- it is time for that kind of redistribution to result in a 50 state defeat of the Repuglicans!
Why are the Hillary people so defeatist and negative ALL the time?
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts).
I wish people would just read shit before they post stupid stuff!
Two weeks after the Democratic Convention, after McGovern named Thomas Eagleton as his VP pick, McGovern was called for his "1000 percent" comment, that things were great when his running mate had received electroshock treatments for bipolar disorder! This called in McGovern's lack of judgement for selecting his cabinet!
Then, the day or two before the election, he told a heckler to kiss his ass, which was recorded!
.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Sounds idiotic, doesn't it?
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)pnwmom
(108,980 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)pnwmom
(108,980 posts)have been by his side so far, running millions of dollars of attack ads against Hillary.
But they will turn their machine against Bernie if he goes to the general.
frylock
(34,825 posts)pnwmom
(108,980 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)Either get on board, or get out of the way. Your FUD has no effect on us. Fucking deal.
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)Cut the crappy language and stop assuming that you know anything about the poster's life.
frylock
(34,825 posts)livetohike
(22,145 posts)election that I was old enough to vote. Everyone I knew was voting for him. I thought he would easily win! 😞
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)It was my first presidential vote also. And the same - all of my college friends supported him. And he got clobbered. Very sad.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)scscholar
(2,902 posts)If someone is hoarding too much then they need to share.
vdogg
(1,384 posts)What right do you have to tell someone else what to do with their money? If they've earned that money honestly and through hard work, what they do with it is frankly none of your business. It is attitudes like this that hurt our cause. In your vision people like Elon Musk would not exist, a man who has made substantial investments in green technology among other things. There is nothing wrong with being successful.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 10, 2016, 06:26 PM - Edit history (1)
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH
oasis
(49,389 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)oasis
(49,389 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)Good job.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Why do you have to lie? Can't you support your candidate with honesty?
If not, you have bigger problems that tax-hiking boogeymen!
oasis
(49,389 posts)The sound on my TV must be going haywire.
bunnies
(15,859 posts)Youre one talking point kills your other.
oasis
(49,389 posts)who had supporters running around wearing Robin Hood hats?
bunnies
(15,859 posts)whathehell
(29,067 posts)with the One Percent.
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)Huge crowds of young supporters just like Bernie. Geez, we thought he would win. Huge numbers of young volunteers, like me. McGovern was an antiwar candidate and his platform addressed several of Bernie's issues. So much enthusiasm, we just forgot about the rest of the Democratic party and the hit job that the rabid Republicans did on him.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts)kstewart33
(6,551 posts)It was depression.
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)501(c)(3) tax exemptions for churches, anyone? Government has always redistributed income, will always do that.
Ron Green
(9,822 posts)Vinca
(50,278 posts)College was still affordable (or free). Blue Cross/Blue Shield was a nonprofit. Manufacturing was still the major source of jobs in America. I remember supporting George McGovern and it had more to do with Vietnam than anything else. I don't think the comparison to the current situation is valid.
Paulie
(8,462 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)EmperorHasNoClothes
(4,797 posts)Things change. "Bad things happened when we tried this 44 years ago" is not a convincing argument.
PotatoChip
(3,186 posts)Prior to Reagan, wealth redistribution did not exist.
Since then however, we've had massive redistribution to the top 1%.
So if we can do it that way for 35+ years, I don't see why we can't just reverse it in the other direction. We all just have to aggressively be pushing our congress-critters to go along with it.
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)For instance, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. Give people a generation or two, and they forget.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Nay
(12,051 posts)It's no wonder the millennials are all voting for Bernie.
You know what the last 45 years has REALLY proven?? It has proven that you will never get anywhere voting in neoliberal mainstream Dems. In fact, all that happens is that crazy Republican ideas go mainstream and stay there, fouling the society for everyone except the rich.
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)It's a loser in 2016.
cali
(114,904 posts)over the past 44 years.
Joe the Revelator
(14,915 posts)onehandle
(51,122 posts)So it's hardly a fair comparison. McGovern had a chance of winning.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Bernie selected Eagleton and said he backed him 1,000 per cent, Bernie would never have thrown Eagleton under the bus. Because, see, Bernie is actually different than McGovern.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)Running as indistinguishable from Republicans is a GREAT strategy!
While I totally agree with you, Democratic Underground might not be the ideal place to post our shared Republican views!
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)AOR
(692 posts)the only redistribution that should be being discussed here is the redistribution of all wealth created by the working class and labor into the hands of a small minority ruling class of owners and privateers who are parasites on the human condition. Same as it always was...
AzDar
(14,023 posts)No Thanks.
NowSam
(1,252 posts)and different circumstances.
SheenaR
(2,052 posts)on candidates running a second time, who were rejected a first time, have low net favorability and are viewed by an overwhelming majority of voters as dishonest?
I want to run the numbers against your thesis
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)He had previously lost multiple Presidential elections, had low favorability, and was viewed as dishonest.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)In 1972, his approval rating was over 60% throughout the election cycle. Right after the election it soared to its highest point (73%)
Try again. I got some time today
exactly, Nixon was a very popular (go figure) incumbent. McGovern (or any other Dem) had no shot in that election...similar to 1964 for the Republicans
earthside
(6,960 posts)Watergate.
McGovern was never expected to win.
It was a very sad time in the United States.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nt
mmonk
(52,589 posts)to stop it. We live in a time now more related to Roosevelt's time than McGovern's. Even the Republicans were more progressive than today's Democrats in economic theory and practice. We can't be forever held in a straight jacket to prevent 1972. Otherwise, we have no real purpose as far as economic justice goes whether AA, white, Latino, Gay, Straight, male or female or transgender.
JHB
(37,161 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 10, 2016, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)
Quite the opposite, there had already been over 30 years of economic structures that discouraged sucking everything skyward.
Middle-class income jobs were still common. Pensions plans hadn't been gutted in private industry, unions hadn't been busted. Banks were still effectively regulated.
The economic landscape is very different from what it was in 1972.
Autumn
(45,107 posts)The truth is out there and people can find it easily.
To quote a friend
"A decade ago, it would be unimaginable that a serious presidential run could be made by a rumpled Democratic Socialist who always speaks the plain truth, and who values working Americans above wealthy swindlers who yield healthy kickbacks. Hell, even one year ago this seemed impossible. But here we are."
There is wisdom.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)Thank you!
Kall
(615 posts)People in 1972 hadn't been put through 30 years of free trade with slave wage countries, globalization, financial deregulation followed by bailouts, stagnant wages, and shredded unions.
frylock
(34,825 posts)pinebox
(5,761 posts)The largest voting block in America. Gone. Poof.
Do you know why? Us Sanders supporters do.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/23/how-gay-marriage-became-a-major-issue-for-a-generation-uninterested-in-marriage/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/06/26/almost-millennials-support-same-sex-marriage/upgBZbZ9IvJXY0ZMOElgtN/story.html
DinahMoeHum
(21,794 posts)Just sayin'.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)People can be stupid.
(disclosure: I voted for him. I was in 1st grade. He won my elementary school)
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)Sanders has got to define his message and make sure middle to upper middle class people don't feel threatened by tax increases. That will sink us.
Trump has already said he'll attack Bernie on this. Do not underestimate the ignorance and greed of many Americans who think of their own pocket first.
Nay
(12,051 posts)up for the Repub party, maybe he will start agreeing with Bernie when he and Bernie are the only ones left . . . now, wouldn't that be the shitz?? A billionaire agreeing that he needs to pay a lot more taxes? I can dream.
Mike Nelson
(9,959 posts)...he said both he and Reagan would raise taxes. He admitted it. Reagan would not. Reagan ended up raising taxes several times... voters want fantasy.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Mike Nelson
(9,959 posts)...as you can tell, I am old enough to remember them.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)as Sanders proposes "Medicare for all," he could just as easily propose a huge expansion of the already-extant Earned Income Tax Credit, such that it no longer depended upon earned income nor upon dependants and would assure every citizen and permanent resident of a baseline income each year.
Imagine the human potential such an initiative might unlock (and all the greater efficiencies in business as they were forced to compete with the EITC for labor).
TheFarseer
(9,323 posts)The Germans attacked Russia in WW I and kicked their ass. Surely the exact same thing happened in WW II, right? Not saying you're definitely wrong but I don't think almost 50 years later, you can draw reliable conclusions.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)retrowire
(10,345 posts)Do you have any idea of how much has changed in American culture since then?
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,735 posts)That election was about the war far more than anything else at all; I don't even remember McGovern's position on taxes (it was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in). The only issue that mattered to the vast majority of McGovern's supporters was the war. Nixon wasn't exactly Mr. Popularity, but he was the incumbent president and most Americans still agreed pretty much with his position on the war. The people who opposed the war were still reviled by "mainstream" Americans as dirty hippies, drug users and draft dodgers.
To make matters worse, McGovern's campaign was kind of a mess organizationally, and he badly bungled his handling of the choice of Eagleton as his running mate - first said he'd support him 100%, then backtracked and picked Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy family retread after offering the spot to several others who didn't want it.
You can't compare that election to this one - everything is vastly different.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)not very different from McGovern's.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)no matter how "left" or "right" that government happens to lean.
PatrickforO
(14,577 posts)wealth inequality was NOWHERE NEAR where it is now, and our economy was still strong with more workers being protected by unions. We hadn't had 'free' trade yet, and the Cold War was still going strong. It was possible for someone with a high school education to support a family and put kids through college, and college was MUCH cheaper than it is now, in many cases tuition was free in state schools.
Now, the game is so rigged against us that we are little more than debt slaves - serfs who get nickel and dimed to death, and whose children will be the first generation NOT to do as well as the one before. We've had 40 years of systematic union busting, and wages have been driven down as the nation lost over a million good jobs from 'free trade.' The Pentagon can't account for over $8 trillion spent between 2002 and today. We watched our kids get permanently injured in a nice 'forever war' engineered by the MIC and the war criminals in the Bush administration. People today are profoundly angry about their future, their children's and grandchildren's futures and the future of this nation. Most people are still recovering from the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, caused by the neocon/neolib penchant for deregulation and Wall Street greedheads call the shots. You have dirtbags like Shkreli bumping the price of lifesaving drugs to usurious levels and a healthcare system that was spawned by the Heritage Foundation and is nothing more than a giant corporate welfare system for insurance companies. More and more people know about the big multinationals that aren't even paying any US income tax on billions in profits and the $20 trillion in untaxed profits and income that lies offshore while we all struggle to make ends meet.
Fuck the establishment. Bernie's gonna win this and when he gets in the WH, we're gonna back his play and the American people (ALL of them this time) will get a NEW DEAL.
So, sorry - your opinion is yours, but I'm not buying it. Bernie's not gonna lose and his new deal is a winning message for all of us.
gyroscope
(1,443 posts)just to let you know.
Your red scare tactics wont work on the internet generation
of high information voters that grew up well after the end of it.
valerief
(53,235 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Even the Republicans are pissed-off about Wall St. & income inequality ...
and now there is a huge pool of Independents for Sanders to draw upon,
having been an Independent for most of his political life.
In 1972 the Left was fractured & bewildered by the loss of JFK, MLK Jr.
and RFK, and Hippiedom was unraveling at the seams. But now a new
qnd vibrant progressive wave is on its ascendency and the sky is wide
open, demanding major change.
In 1972 white middle & blue-collor working class people were doing fine
economically, and were still stuck in a reactionary anti-change mentality,
and a dense cloud of Cold War anti-communism hung over the nation.
Today an avowed Democratic Socialist is capturing the imagination of
a beleaguered working class that has been ravaged by NAFTA, ripped
off by Wall St. and sold down the river by a co-opted and corrupted
Democratic party establishment .. and they KNOW it.
This is not 1972. It's 2016. These are very different times, with a whole
new inter-generational wave of very aware and very bright young voters,
middle class workers, and old timers who are all instinctively drawn to
any politician courageous enough to simply tell them the damned truth
for a change, come hell or high water.
Lastly, if we are wise enough to learn from our history, we need not repeat
it.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)He was right, nobody bought it and look where we are today.
All you are saying is that the American electorate is too stupid to grasp the concept of "the people", so it is futile to even run on the basis that we are all in this together.
We might as well just give the fuck up and accept the lesser of the evils.
Personally I could accept that, Im an old person and economically fairly OK, so will probably be gone before the full impact of all this crap hits home. But I just learned that I'm about to become a great grandfather for the third time and I'm hopeful that this little person will be able to grow up in a country that bears some resemblance to the postwar America that provided me and my generation with so many advantages.
leftupnorth
(886 posts)Time to move out of the 20th century and into the 21st, y'all.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Maybe he should have not stood up against bigots and racists... then he would have won other states.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)NiteOwl1
(87 posts)This was before the middle/working class had been oppressed since Reagan.... before the lie of "trickle down" economics, before the oligarchy... before the complete sellout of our political system to corporations and plutocrats, before the dismantling of Glass-Steagal and the evolution of Wall Street banking into the Wall Street Casinos... and before 30+ years of wage/income stagnation.
The working class has watched while working harder, producing more and lining the pockets of the few... at their/our expense. You can only beat good people down for so long. The awakening is here.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)'income redistribution'. Amnesty for dodgers of the draft, withdrawing from the war, getting POWs back, cutting the defense budget and passing the ERA were McGovern issues. His proposal for a tax credit which would create a guaranteed minimum income was very similar to Nixon's own Family Assistance Program.
This OP is just out to luncheon.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Avalux
(35,015 posts)McGovern's campaign can't be compared to what's happening now. The variables are too different.
Punkingal
(9,522 posts)jillan
(39,451 posts)There was no way to plan meet ups, share information or get out the vote activities. If there was McGovern wouldn't have lost so badly. Back in the olden days we didn't have any way to communicate with each other we had to rely on the 6 o'clock news and the newspapers.
You cannot compare an election from almost 50 years ago to today. Nice try.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)HassleCat
(6,409 posts)We must promise not to raise taxes, and to cut taxes for the job creators, and to end welfare as we know, and to provide more welfare for big banks, and to neutralize the Republicans by beating them to the punch when it comes to defending corporate America.
Gothmog
(145,321 posts)The ads used in that campaign look familiar to some of the talking points used today
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)1. Nixon was a popular incumbent.
2. The big issue was Viet Nam!
3. It was 19-fucking-72, not 2016!
4. And NO! History does not repeat itself.
Sheesh!
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)that his fitness to be President was demonstrated by his vote against the IWR?
Time after time, when his knowledge of foreign affairs comes up, that's his go-to answer.
McGovern was absolutely right about Vietnam, which killed 50,000 Americans.
longship
(40,416 posts)I agree that Bernie's candidacy may very well be fraught with danger. But that is what happens when one takes a risk, which nobody who runs for an Oval Office would eschew.
It all comes down to a balance of risk vs. benefit. As you can imagine, I am not so risk adverse that my principles need to be discarded. Not even close.
I will support the Democratic nominee no matter.
My best wishes to you.
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)I volunteered for McGovern too. There are striking similarities between the McGovern and Bernie campaigns. All the denials here are interesting.
tarheelsunc
(2,117 posts)That poster is pretty much Bernie's whole campaign.
Gothmog
(145,321 posts)The Traveler
(5,632 posts)The country was strongly divided over the issues of war vs peace, and even more significantly race (coded as "law and order" . Feminism was still considered kinda racy and radical by a large segment of the population. The flow of information through society was almost completely top down, the exception being an educational system that savored free thought much more than today's implementation. Our infrastructure was still the envy of a world that had just finished digging itself out of the wreckage of WWII.
Unions were still strong and so working Americans were not yet completely at the mercy of an emerging corporatocracy. Discussion of climate change was limited to mostly physics departments of major college Universities and dystopian science fiction novels . (Yeah, back in the 70s we knew something about it, and we were way over optimistic about how long it would take to unfold.) The big economic concern of the middle class was the effect of imports, especially cars and steel, on the structure of the American economy. The big economic concern of the upper class was (as suggested by the title of a New York Times best seller) "Preserving Capital" as the economy adjusted to going off the gold standard (the Nixon Shock of 1971), which basically upended the Bretton Woods system of international exchange.
In some respects, the landscape hasn't changed much. We are again dealing with issues of war vs peace, and unresolved issues of race (still coded as "law and order" . But back then, the middle class was trying to hold on to something they had. Now they are trying to imagine having something like that again. Economically, the landscape is completely different. Culturally, the landscape is completely different. The principal flow of information is now from peer to peer. Unions have relatively little power, and the average American feels (rightly) completely exposed to the unrestricted power of corporate influences. Our infrastructure is widely perceived as crumbling, and those who travel abroad come back astonished at how primitive and backward our infrastructure has become in comparison to other nations, and that knowledge is leaking out into the masses who cannot afford to travel.
It is a different era. The problems we face today do not resemble the problems neoliberalism was formulated to address (e.g. stagflation). The question being asked out there is: Can the current system work for me at all? The questions of 1972 were "Can McGovern's approach to economics work? What could I lose in the process?" These are vastly different inquiries.
For these reasons, I think your comparison to McGovern is specious. I believe you attempt to convey a lesson from history by staying safely within the shallows.
Trav
H2O Man
(73,559 posts)the democratic establishment supported Nixon.
earthside
(6,960 posts)This isn't 1972.
McGovern isn't Sanders.
And, well, yes, Hillary is rather like the fellow McGovern ran against in the general election, in my estimation.
Now ... we have been witnessing the redistribution of wealth from working people to the 1 percent for the past 40 years, since Reagan.
Sander is finally saying what all progressives believe: it is way past time for that redistribution of wealth to stop and for fairness and equality of opportunity to be balanced again in favor of us regular folks.
So, your fear-mongering is totally misplaced.
Or ...are you arguing that we should all be just fine with the idea that Hillary is in favor of the current wealth distribution system that favors her and all of her 1 perfect pals and cronies?
Orsino
(37,428 posts)But I am grateful for the concern.
Gothmog
(145,321 posts)While I still think that these polls are worthless, I am amused to see that Sanders was found to be misrepresenting these polls and that in fact his claim is not true http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/26/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-he-polls-better-against-gop-ca/
"Almost all of the polls that -- and polls are polls, they go up, they go down -- but almost all of the polls that have come out suggest that I am a much stronger candidate against the Republicans than is Hillary Clinton," he told voters during a Jan. 19 town hall meeting in Underwood, Iowa.
We took a look at the various national surveys, as compiled by RealClearPolitics and PollingReport.com to see how that assertion stacks up against the data.....
Our ruling
Sanders said, "Almost all of the polls that have come out suggest that I am a much stronger candidate against the Republicans than is Hillary Clinton."
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll released before Sanders' statement supports his claim for Trump, but it has no data against Cruz or Rubio. Earlier polls say he doesn't outperform Clinton at all against Cruz, Rubio or Bush, and the narrow races combined with the margins of error make his contention even more dubious.
Beating Clinton in only two of eight hypothetical matchups is far from "almost all."
The statement is not accurate, so we rate it False.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)Fearless
(18,421 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)Amiright?
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.
Dretownblues
(253 posts)EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)Is the lesson perhaps it's better to actually lie in politics than tell the truth?
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)dollars".
Important stuff to remember. I see a ton of people in denial about how policy works both in the private sector and the government- and sometimes- as we have seen firsthand- it is irrational due to racism and sexism.
Those people insisting the job market would be female hires if they were really paid less have their heads up their asses. Businesses and governments have long made unfair decisions based on biases.
Nanjeanne
(4,961 posts)Stop trying to make things the same. As a country, we are in much worse shape economically than we were in 1972 - and more people seem to understand.
Bringing up McGovern is so yesterday.
AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)LoveIsNow
(356 posts)Al Smith got clobbered by Hoover on an anti-Prohibition campaign. Does that mean all modern Democrats should run on Prohibition?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)oh and then there was this little smear campaign you might remember it as WaterGate
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)DaveT
(687 posts)Nor would Hillary. Nor would Barack.
Believe it or not, times change. Your Maginot Line mentality is showing here.
tokenlib
(4,186 posts)..the masses are screwed! Heck with the "middle class" verbage..it's the masses who are facing a dismal future. The New Democrat message is now bankrupt..they just don't know it yet.
0rganism
(23,957 posts)doesn't seem to be a factor in this analysis though.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)It's the twenty first century.
jfern
(5,204 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)I know one thing you are going to be a very disappointed person as this primary advances.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Your argument rests on the presumption that voters under 40 don't matter, and that voters long dead are still allowed to cast their Cold War mentality votes.
Please stop this silly nonsense.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)thesquanderer
(11,990 posts)Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Persondem
(1,936 posts)any established religion. Nor was he a self described socialist who has offered plenty of ammo to the GOP media machine.
This OP gets it right.
K & R
John Poet
(2,510 posts)if the party establishment has its way