Bernie has a lot of plans.
Medicare for all, college debt forgiveness, removing cash bail fees, community programs, and so on and so on.
Other candidates also have a lot of plans, but much more restrained, ‘realistic’ you might even think.
Sure — sure. If you put the plans up for a vote in congress, his plans might get like, maybe 30 less votes in the house, and 2 less in the senate or something than the plans from the others.
But that’s not what the plans are for.
Nor is Bernie Sanders being the least bit dishonest.
If he’s president, he’s going to harp on those plans. He’s going to ask people to come out and march and push and pressure on those plans.
Not because those plans can pass yet.
Yet.
But because by trying for those plans — the obvious escape valve for all that pressure is exactly what the other candidates are asking for.
Something more refined in committee. All the plans are going through those committees. But starting off a bit stronger as a base demand is the better gameplan.
By demanding more, by getting the nation to boil wanting for more — by holding a stronger standard above everyone asking for more — you get some cracks in the armor that wouldn’t have been there before.
That’s why he’s working with all the ‘unreasonable’ people and building a big tent. That’s why his game is to NOT clamp down on his supporters. Unreasonable crowds are crucial. Unreasonable crowds grow and demand.
Yes, supporters like Michael Moore are crucial. Even folks like Joe Rogan are crucial.
It’s not just to move the Overton window or anything complex like that — but it is to unleash the power of the need of the crowds. The Overton window is already moving, thanks voters under the age of 45 holding vastly more liberal views across each age range in polling now shifting into power. This is also going to help with that, but that’s just a side effect.
For now, the best play is to understand the role of a president.
It’s not to propose reasonable laws that will pass exactly as proposed. That NEVER happens.
No — it’s to put pressure on those who WOULD make the laws to change their strategy, whoever they end up being.
And yes — they’re likely to stonewall in most expected scenarios.
But exactly that kind of thwarting builds exactly the kind of pressure that a Sanders presidency is optimal to use.
That need of the crowds — that boiling unmet demand — that unreasonable demand.
It’s exactly what breaks the impossible.
Because the previously impossible happens all the time in history and politics — it just needs the right pressure.
And that’s what the plans are for — to best shape the future.
To be unreasonable.
The exact same kind of unreasonable that Obama was. The same kind of unreasonable that Bill Clinton was. But scaled up to today’s Republicans.
Because Republicans have defined reasonable as doing nothing forever, while cruelty is done in their name. They’ve spent the last 4 years putting hurdles and roadblocks for change in place.
The best reaction to that is not to play as normal — and not play for revenge — but to change that game.
Bernie Sanders plans and strategy do much better to change the game.
He’s making a steamroller.
