We work for more Democrats but then when we get them we do very little to hold them accountable for being “BETTER”. We do this for many reason I suppose and I’m not here to analyze them all just this one
“we shouldn’t demand for better for we might lose to worse”
When did that become a foundation of the progressive plight? When did fear of losing become a bedrock of progressive ideology?
I will tell you when:
As soon as we had something to lose
Once we win a progressive battle and realize actual gains in our standards of living we tend to forget what it took to make those gains because we begin to focus on how to protect our gains rather than how to continue to progress.
Remember this guy from 2008-
Candidate Obama, 2008, AARP 50th Convention:
“But John McCain’s campaign has gone even further, suggesting that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age.
Let me be clear. I will not do either.”
skip forward to 2013/14
Obama used his 2014 budget plan to call for imposing a so-called chained CPI formula. That formula would reduce Social Security cost of living adjustments by taking into account alternative purchases people can make in order to avoid goods and services whose costs are rising quickly.
And who came to our defense shortly after Obama tried to break a campaign promise? Who fought for the people who can’t fight for themselves because they don’t have the resources? Yep you guessed it-
“And I suspect that our Republican friends will make sure the American people understand that he owns it, and make sure the American people understand that any Democrat who supports cuts in Social Security and benefits for disabled vets will also be forced to own that,” Sanders said. “From a political point of view it is to my mind just a really dumb tactic. I don’t understand it.”
Sanders and other speakers at Tuesday’s rally denounced the Obama administration’s embrace of “chained CPI” — an alternate version of the Consumer Price Index used to calculate inflation for tax brackets and annual cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security. Chained CPI would make those adjustments smaller over time, saving the federal government more than $100 billion in Social Security payments alone over 10 years.
skip forward to the next budget battle
Jan 2015-
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will not renew his pursuit of a stealthy cut to Social Security and other entitlement programs by proposing a cheaper way to measure inflation, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Many budget-cutters on both sides of the aisle have proposed stemming the growth of entitlement programs by changing the government’s standard measure of inflation, the consumer price index, to one that grows more slowly, known as the chained consumer price index.
Obama included chained CPI in his budget two years ago as a concession to get Republicans on board, but he dropped it last year. Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said Friday he expects the proposal will not make a return.
“It is my understanding that the chained CPI will not be in the president’s budget,” Sanders said in a Capitol Hill press conference. Sanders called the conference to emphasize that he would aggressively oppose any Republican budget proposals that failed to acknowledge the realities of record poverty, income inequality and falling middle-class wages.
Thank you Bernie Sanders!
Thank you for making Obama a better President by holding his feet to the fire.
Thank you for running for the nomination.
Thank you for making Hillary better, before you joined the race for example she was pro TPP.
Thank you for inspiring “better” down ticket Democrats to throw their hats in the ring!
Thank you for growing the party and providing the youth we need to sustain the growth.
Thank you Bernie Sanders Democrats for all you have done to help this party!!
UPDATE 7:12 EST For historical context:
"After his election in 1932, FDR met with Sidney Hillman and other labor leaders, many of them active Socialists with whom he had worked over the past decade or more. Hillman and his allies arrived with plans they wanted the new President to implement. Roosevelt told them: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."
and this because I understand this is about a movement and not a man and everyone including Bernie(missed crime bill vote) and FDR have earned their critiques as nobody is perfect:
Martin Berg, WheresOurMoney.org editor, researched allegations that FDR had said, "Make me do it" to Wikipedia:A. Philip Randolph. Berg concluded, "Far from encouraging the civil rights leaders to make him end discrimination, Roosevelt did everything he could to resist their pressure, according to Randolph’s biographers. Only when he was convinced that they wouldn’t buckle to presidential persuasion did FDR" issue "Executive Order 8802 barring discrimination in the defense industries. Randolph and his colleagues then canceled the march" on Washington they had planned.
We will come together to defeat Trump, what we win is up to us. We will get the SCOTUS picks but we need progressive legislation on immigration, trade and infrastructure. We need to deliver for the people. It is up to us to make our elected officials “do it”.