Sen. Sanders has been an Independet all of his political life. Although he caucuses with the Democratic Party, he has steadfastly maintained his status as an Independent. So, why is he seeking the nomination as a Democrat? Simple. He know that if he ran as an Independent, he wouldn’t get a hearing on his message, and he’d have as much of a chance of winning as a snowball in Hell. He would be a third party candidate and end up doing what George Wallace, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader did; not winning, but throwing the election to the opposition party. He has opposed some issues supported by the Democratic Party, and leveled personal attacks against the president, the leader of the Democratic Party. The only conclusion one can come to is that Sen. Sanders is using the Democratic Party to further his own ends. He is an opportunist.
Although Sen. Sanders believes he is leading a revolution from below, in fact, the turnout of Democratic voters in the recent NH primary was below that of 2008. Sen. Sanders may have gotten as much as 80% of the youth vote in NH, they comprised only 17% of the actual voters. The revolution has gotten off to a slow start. Young people love to cheer exciting rhetoric, but often they don’t show up to vote. Sen. Sanders’ revolution is a chimera.
He appeals to young people because he has a simple statement of our problems (which he repeats ad nauseam), and offers simple solutions. When I was in college (a few years before Sen. Sanders but the same school), I thought the same way. I was a Democratic Socialist activist, and an admirer of Michael Harrington (The Other America) too, but I have since learned that it takes a very long time for a problem to be recognized, and an even longer time to fix it.
For example, African-Americans were given the right to vote in the 1860’s with the 14th amendment. It took until 1965 for it to be implemented, but the forces of reaction, who are still with us are trying to roll that back using voter ID laws. For 150 years since Emancipation, African-Americans have been systematically betrayed by White America North and South. We are still fighting that "revolution".
I demonstrated against the War in Vietnam in 1961 when Kennedy was president. There were about 200 of us including Bayard Rustin. It didn’t end until 1974 despite the fact that millions of Americans came out in the streets year after year to stop it. While I was demonstrating against the war, my sister was an Air Force nurse attending to the wounded on the route from Tan Son Nhut to Tokyo. We lost 55,000 men and women in that madness, not to mention all the wounded. At that time Bernie Sanders was applying for Conscientious Obector status. He wat turned down, but didn't serve because he was able to avoid the draft.
Sen. Sanders often reminds us that he voted against the Iraq War. Maybe he’s hoping we’ll forget there were two Iraq wars. In the first one, we came to the aid of an ally (Kuwait) when it was invaded by neighboring Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Sen. Sanders voted against that one too. Is Bernie Sanders a Pacifist? If Sen. Sanders can’t support sending our troops to the aid of an ally that has been invaded, we have to ask under what circumstances will a Pres. Sanders send American combat troops to fight? Maybe none.
The struggle that ended in Roe v. Wade in 1973, began in the 1950’s when even married women could not legally obtain contraceptives, let alone an abortion. Implementation of any progressive idea has to be enacted into law by the Congress. The reactionaries are still out there trying to reverse Roe v. Wade, and (listen up you young women out there) if they get their way, contraceptives are next on their agenda.
The Democrats have spent the past 30 years getting out from under the label “Liberal”. So now we’re called “Progressives” but it stands for the same set of values we’ve had since FDR and the New Deal. The leader of the Democratic Party has to be someone who doesn’t vacillate about his party allegiance, and doesn’t level personal attacks against the current leader of the party, President Obama.
It was bad enough when we were getting hammered for being Liberals, the last thing we need as our nominee is a Socialist, even a Democratic Socialist. The Democratic Party needs a leader who will bring more Democrats into the House and Senate, and is proud to be a Democrat. Hillary Clinton may not be everything we Progressives want in a candidate, but clearly she is better for the Democratic Party and for the country than Sen. Sanders.