So here we are, on the premiere Democratic website, Markos Moulitsas’s brainchild — and here is Markos himself, subverting the site by denigrating a leading member of the Democratic caucus — using the same type of bogus talking points conservatives use to dismiss the accomplishments of people on our side of the aisle...like how Sarah Palin tried to diminish Barack Obama’s credentials by mocking his experience as a community organizer. Markos writes:
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.
That, as a matter of fact, is patently untrue, and requires minimal effort to disprove. Indeed, you wouldn’t even need to lift a finger to use Google: anyone who merely watched the Democratic debate last night saw Amy Klobuchar discuss how she and Bernie Sanders have worked side-by-side to reach out across the aisle to gain support on important legislation.
So did Markos just make a simple mistake? Read his words.
- “never, never, never, never, ever”
- “bereft of any accomplishments”
Markos’s striking claim — “never/ever” repeated five times to drive the point home — would have us believe that Bernie Sanders is a freak of nature among progressive political officeholders — that despite having been elected to office 15 times by his constituents to serve as a mayor, U.S. representative, and U.S senator, Sanders has never once accomplished a policy goal, never once worked across the aisle.
So if there’s even a single case, then Markos is wrong. Well, Amy Klobuchar provided one. You don’t have to be a professional gambler — or an expert about U.S. politics or about Bernie Sanders in particular — to realize that the odds were rather good that Markos was wrong.
Last year, I researched, wrote and posted a detailed diary on Daily Kos about Bernie Sanders’s impressive accomplishments and effectiveness at bipartisan outreach. I link to it often to help provide folks with facts about the track record of the presidential candidate who is my first choice among our talented field. After all, we want this site to be a good resource of factual information for its readership. Here’s a brief summary of Bernie’s leadership history:
- Served as mayor for 4 terms, U.S. Representative for 8 terms, U.S. Senator for 3 terms;
- Shepherded crucial, large-scale legislation — an $11 billion investment in community health centers and a $16 billion investment in veteran’s health care and administrative reform (the former leading to his being honored as “Distinguished Community Health Champion” by the National Association of Community Health Centers and the latter earning him well-publicized kudos for managing negotiations with conservative Republicans);
- Worked across the aisle to pass an unusually large number of substantive amendments — including development of a national registry to help aid breast cancer research and a $300 million emergency aid fund for struggling family farmers;
- Co-founded, along with Maxine Waters and others, what would become the largest caucus within the Democratic caucus — the Congressional Progressive Caucus — and served as its chair for its first 8 years;
- Worked across the aisle to invoke the War Powers Act to try to stop the Trump administration from abetting Saudi Arabia’s war machine that’s devastating Yemen;
- Used the bully pulpit to help shame the world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, into boosting wages to $15 hour at Amazon — a raise that benefited hundreds of thousands of American workers;
- As mayor, championed a land trust program for perpetual affordable housing which has become, according to Slate, “the largest and most influential of its type in the nation.”
Since Markos’s claim was so unlikely on its face — and could be disproved with minimal effort — why didn’t Markos make any effort at fact-checking before publishing such a wild claim? Either he was so honestly convinced of the accuracy of his statement that it didn’t occur to him that he might be wrong — or he was simply bullshitting. Five times over.
“Never, never, never, never, ever.”
As I’ve written before (when Markos published another false and easily debunked claim) the reason Daily Kos exists — the reason the whole progressive blogosphere came to exist and thrive during the first term of George W. Bush — was because we progressives were fed up with the bullshit coming out of the mainstream media. We wanted facts. We wanted accuracy. Because we care about those things. We know they are fundamental to our democracy. Fundamental to averting disasters. Fundamental to electing decent politicians. Fundamental to bettering our country and our world.
It’s disheartening that such a blatant falsehood about a member of the Democratic caucus would be promulgated by any Democrat — but here on Daily Kos, by the site’s founder — is tragic.
I think about how conservatives dismiss Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty as a failure. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid and Head Start and WIC have not been failures. Legacy Democratic programs since the era of Franklin Roosevelt have been successful in significantly reducing poverty in America. That’s an accomplishment every American can be proud of. I feel a little sorry for Republicans who, for ideological reasons, would choose not to.
Just as I feel a little sorry for conspiracy theorists who think we never landed astronauts on the moon. Blinkered by their baseless skepticism, they can never take pride in one of our country’s (and humankind’s) most astounding and inspiring achievements.
It’s a shame that any Democrat, for whatever reason — cannot take pride in the achievements of one of the most accomplished members of the Democratic caucus.
And I wouldn’t just assert that a politician has a superlative track record if I had no foundation to support that statement. You can read my diary about Sanders’s track record.
And any Kossack who would assert that I’m wrong — that Bernie Sanders is not one of the most accomplished members of the Democratic caucus — has at their disposal the same tools that I had to make my case. Thanks (in part!) to Al Gore they have the Internet to do their homework and thanks to Markos Moulitsas they have this great platform to post their case. All they have to do to make their case is to name a few folks who they consider to be today’s most accomplished members of the Democratic caucus, and give plenty of examples of their progressive accomplishments and their reaching across the aisle, the way I did in my diary about Bernie Sanders, and then simply make the case for why they believe those examples are much more significant than the ones I provided about Bernie Sanders.
I look forward to reading such diaries!
It’s a good thing to discuss the progressive accomplishments of members of our caucus. We should take pride in them.
Finally, for anyone who feels that Democratic caucus members Bernie Sanders and Angus King are somehow inferior members or not loyal members because they wear the independent label, I urge you to visit the home page of the Senate Democrats (democrats.senate.gov). Right at the top under the words “Our Senators” and next to the phrase “What We Stand For” is a big photo of Bernie Sanders. Read further, and you’ll see that Bernie is one of 10 members that form the Senate Democratic Leadership team.
Update: Thanks to a response by user Dirk McQuigley in the comment section, I’ve edited the section listing some of Sanders’s accomplishments to correct the part about the War Powers Act. I had incorrectly asserted that this was the first time Congress had passed such a measure to try to restrain an administration.