We’ve beat up on Joe Biden’s pipe dream that if he were president, Republicans would suddenly decide that sure, why not work with the hated Democrats to pass Democratic priorities?
It is a pipe dream, and always has been. The only way that we will ever get any legislative priorities passed is by taking full control of Congress, eliminating the filibuster, and giving D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood. And even then, it’ll be difficult.
That’s why it’s just as stupid when Bernie Sanders says it: “I think, for example … you go to Mitch McConnell's state of Kentucky, which is a state where a lot of people are struggling, and you say to those people, okay, this is my proposal. We're going to lower the age of Medicare from 65 to 55, and we're expanding it to cover, as I mentioned, dental care and home health care and eyeglasses and hearing AIDS, what percentage of the people do you think in Kentucky would support that proposal? My guess is 70%, 80% of the people.“
Yeah. No. Nope. Never. That’s the equivalent of Trump thinking he can win over California on anything.
There are two pieces here. One, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t give two shits whether something is popular or not. He has repeatedly spit in the face of public opinion, only to come out ahead thanks to a bullshit Senate system which gives four Senate seats to the two Dakotas (combined population: 1.6 million), the same number of seats as California and New York (combined population 59 million). Quite simply, the only public opinion that matters is that of Rush Limbaugh-loving white men in rural states.
So if Sanders convinced Kentuckians to embrace his proposals, there would be nothing forcing McConnell, or any other Republican senator, to play ball. Quite the opposite—they would brand it as Evil Socialism, and yes, that kind of branding matters. Obamacare is instructive: In Kentucky, in the early days of the Affordable Care Act, respondents were asked their approval rate of “Obamacare” and Kynect, the state’s implementation of the ACA (so literally, the same thing). For “Obamacare,” it was 33-57% negative. But when asked about Kentucky Kynect, the disapproval rating suddenly dropped to 22%.
Slap Obama’s name on the thing, and people automatically hated something that didn’t quite bother them otherwise. Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be immune to that dynamic.
And then there’s the final point: Bernie Sanders has never, never, never, never, ever in his life worked to rally and build support for any policy proposals. That’s why his legislative career is bereft of any accomplishments. Getting shit passed means compromise and dealing and conceding and convincing—and none of these things that he has ever bothered to work on. Quite the opposite, in fact, as ideological purity requires fierce adherence to one’s unyielding principles. The end result, of course, is little actual influence in the legislative process (and 15-20% in national polling of Democrats when it comes to presidential primary preference).
So when Sanders says, “My job then as president is to rally those people and tell their senators to support it. I think we can do that,” there is nothing in his history to suggest he can do that. Sure, let him pretend about that. But no one should take seriously the notion that Mitch McConnell would suddenly decide to play ball with him, because that’s either willful stupidity, or cynical bullshit. Neither is a good look for Sanders, Biden, or anyone else who might want to pretend.
The only way we pass any Democratic legislation is by winning the Senate and holding the House. Period.