The Sanders Surge

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

He's toast.

The descriptor "toast" has a dismissive quality that a campaign as vital and significant as Bernie's hardly deserves. That being said, he probably will lose in the end but still will have a delegate total approaching 2,000 if he stays to the convention. That puts him in a very powerful position with respect to the platform and with respect to his position in the Senate if he loses the nomination.

Then again, he's not a democrat, doesn't want to be a democrat, and has looked down his nose at his democratic colleagues since he walked into the US Senate. So maybe it's too much to ask.

Well, he's definitely "a small d democrat" and always has been. And now, because you have to be to run for the nomination, he's the "Big D" kind too. Plus, Bernie has caucused with the Democrats ever since arriving in Congress and supported their legislative efforts at least as much as any Democratic legislator. He does not and never has "looked down his nose" at them.

Bernie is a self-described social democrat but his career has always been that of a New Deal Democrat. That's what appeals to me most about him. I suspect it's also the thing that appeals most to his young supporters, even those who may have never even heard the term New Deal Democrat. They see in Bernie the promise that they have value and that the government should, and will, endeavor to safeguard their present and their future.

Rule by FDR's "economic royalists" has failed and damn near destroyed the country in this century, just as it almost did in 1929. Bernie seeks to address this crisis in the same way that Roosevelt did. To the extent that Hillary embraces such policies, it's because she's after the territory that Bernie has staked out. We'll see whether she sticks to these as the nominee or as president.

The Republicans, especially Trump, want to further consolidate the position of the plutocracy with further tax cuts and business friendly legislation and trade deals.