As another left-leaning septuagenarian with roots in Brooklyn, someone who has been skeptical about Bernie Sanders’ Quixote campaigns but impressed with his debate performances, this is my advice to Bernie heading into Super Tuesday.
(1) America does not need a Trumpian autocrat of the left. A democratic President has to work with Congress to pass legislation. Stop promising things you can’t deliver until after the “revolution” takes place. Present proposals as goals, not deliverables. Explain that in a Sanders Presidency there will be discussion and transitions, not unilateral fiats.
(2) The problem with Medicare for All, something I would like to see, is you need a transitional program like Health Care for All. I’m still working and I am not ready to give up my health insurance coverage for something that we don’t know what it will look like, if it will work, or if it will ever pass Congress. A government insurance option has been discussed since the New Deal of the 1930s and might actually get written into law. Once it is in place, I expect companies will shift workers from private insurance plans into the government option. When that happens, the capitalist corporations will eventually get us Medicare for All.
(3) In your promise to “transform our energy system to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million jobs needed to solve the climate crisis,” you also promise to “Ensure a just transition for communities and workers, including fossil fuel workers.” This is not going to happen over night. It won’t even happen during a Sanders’ first term. Make clear this is a goal, a necessary goal, and not a promise.
(4) I attended the City College of New York in the 1960s when it was a free institution and strongly support guaranteeing “tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools to all.” I also want to find a way to cancel student debt. But there are some major problems to work out. (1) I had to work to support myself while I attended college. A no-tuition policy without either support for living expenses or a job’s program will not work for students from low-income families. (2) Some people have endured financial hardship and managed to repay their loans. For fairness, there needs to be a way to compensate them. (4) The United States has an estimated 1,600 independent colleges, not just the historically Black universities. They serve almost four million students and are the largest employers and economic backbone of communities across the nation. I work at one. You need a plan for the independent colleges. My suggestion is create a tuition-free Federal College System that the independent colleges can join, if they choose. If they don’t, it’s there problem. (5) Your opponents keep asking where the money will come from. Some of it at least should come from the predatory for-profit schools that have been ripping off the government and their students. As a starting point, the government could fine everyone involved with the Trump University fraud.
(5) You can’t promise to “double union membership” in your first term. There are anti-union laws in the United States backed by Supreme Court decisions. The president can’t unilaterally get rid of them. You can only promise to use the office of the President to support union organizing drives. As president, you will use your office as a “Bully Pulpit” for working people.
(6) Your humane immigration policy is probably something I support the most, but also something that frightens working-class voters who fear job competition. Historically, it always has. Welcoming immigrants and refugees and legalizing “undocumenteds” has to be closely tied to a government guarantee of full employment. They are not separate goals. Revive the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 with the federal government as a major new employer of everyone who needs a job. This can be tied to your call for a Green New Deal combined with the old New Deal’s WPA and Civil Conservation Corps job programs. Guarantee jobs, not just retraining.
(7) Florida’s Cuban population wasn’t voting for you anyway and you can appreciate Cuba’s health care, job, and literacy efforts for its people, I certainly do, but we don’t have to like Fidel Castro. Let’s not replicate Donald Trump’s puppy love for authoritarian dictators. Stress that your platform is “Implement a foreign policy which focuses on democracy, human rights, diplomacy and peace, and economic fairness.” Stress, social programs are good; dictators are bad.
(8) Trump’s reelection is the threat to democracy, environment, equality, justice, and human decency. Go after Bloomberg hard in the primaries and debates, but remember to remind the Bernie Bros, if Bloomberg wins the nomination, we will support him against Trump in the election.
I want to suggest some slogans to reign in corporate power and combat the religious wrong.
“Only people are people.”
“Money isn’t speech.”
“The rich don’t work harder than us.”
“Human rights are not a lottery.”
“If you don’t believe in abortions, don’t have one.”
“God doesn’t carry a gun.”
“When a recession hits, lay-off the CEOs.”
“Democratic Socialism Means Stop Subsidizing the Rich.”
“Let’s hope the next hurricane hits Mar-a-Lago.”
Bernie and Bernie Bros, you can email me with any questions at alansingerphd@gmail.com.
Yours in solidarity.
Follow Alan Singer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReecesPieces8