I like Bernie but I’m not a fan of the Bernie or Busters.
I am a big fan of Bernie Sanders, however there is a large portion of his fan base that we refer to as the “Bernie or Busters” who will only vote for Bernie and will not vote at all, or vote third party if he loses the primary. I would like to use this post as a plea to these particular supporters to still show up in the general election if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination. And for them to fairly assess the fellow progressive candidates who are also running.
Bernie Sanders policies are the most progressive of the democratic primary candidates, that doesn’t mean that his democratic primary opponents aren’t progressive or aren’t worthy candidates for President. He doesn’t attack political opponents. He simply stays on message and repeats it over and over again. Perhaps because of this messiah complex Bernie doesn’t need to attack his opponents, because many of his supporters do it for him and it has been highly successful at painting candidates with inappropriate labels
Which brings me to this: what separates something as an attack from a criticism? It is typically based on ad hominem insults, primarily covered in this piece: neoliberal (levied on all the candidates I cover here), anti criminal justice reform (levied on Harris), and former republican (levied on Warren). What is happening from the Bernie or Bust crowd is largely rooted in this form of attacking, as once these accusations are laid out, just a little bit of research results in showing them to be not true or very loose correlations that seem more nefarious than they really are.
The point here is if progressives want to usher in a new era that will shape the future of this country it is also important to shape the dialogue surrounding political opponents. Attacking people over policy is always a poor way of convincing people to adapt the policies of the candidate you want in.
So what constitutes the basis of these attacks?
Corey Booker, often gets the label of a neoliberal, as he is often being attacked for his ties to Big Pharma, but are they really ties or are they just coincidence? Let’s analyze this.
Booker’s two main criticisms, that appear legit on its surface, is that he appears to be closely tied to some Big Pharma initiatives: deregulation and prohibiting reduced drug prices. Let’s look at the claim of deregulation first.
Booker signed the 21st Century Cures Act and Bernie, along with Warren, voraciously opposed it on the grounds that it gave Big Pharma more ability to profit. Like with any Act there are going to be some give aways and some take aways here. Does it give Big Pharma more ability to profit? Sure, allowing more drugs to market faster reduces research and testing costs and allows more products to be sold. Guilty as charged. But what else does this Act do? Here are some of the benefits:
“The Cures Act would give the states $1 billion to fight the opioid crisis, in addition to providing $4.8 billion for continuing three signature Obama administration research programs over the next 10 years: Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, the BRAIN Initiative, and the Precision Medicine Initiative.
An earlier House version of the Cures Act, which was passed last year, called for $8.75 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health over five years. The current version of the legislation also includes $500 million for the US Food and Drug Administration, although this is well below the amount Democrats had sought.”
So what do the readers think? Is bringing development to product, with modern clinical trial designs, along with more funding to other health issues a horrible compromise?
Onto Booker’s second major criticism, prohibiting reduced drug prices:
Booker did vote against a bill that may have lowered drug prices but he also voted for other bills that did lower them. Since that vote that has haunted him, he has since said it was a bad vote and has appeared to make up for it with supporting two other bills that would lower them, here and here . So how should he be judged? Should he only be judged by the mistake that he admitted he made or for trying for the last two years to fix that mistake?
After reviewing the two most common claims against him being neoliberal and in the pockets of Big Pharma it seems on the surface the two issues levied against him aren’t something that should be detrimental. If you wish to judge for yourself how progressive he is, view his issues page here.
Next up is Kamala Harris, as an ex-prosecutor she is going to be a hard sell for any progressive. The job lends itself to many, many daily decisions that could come back to haunt you. She has a laundry list of good and bad things she has done while in that office.
All in all she helped form California to be the most progressive state in the country (her criminal justice reforms were ahead of what the rest of the country was at during her tenure), but for today’s progressive standards it isn’t enough. But keep in mind that as a prosecutor she had to make more decisions than anyone else running in the primary, so her mistakes are going to be many.
Also of note during her tenure is that she drastically lowered marijuana sentences from 863 to 169 by the time she left office. Here is a great politifact article on the many claims and attacks against her that are largely exaggerated or false.
In turn we have to look to her senate votes to see where she currently stands on issues. In the Vox link here, you have to scroll down to her senate bills to see that she has done nothing but vote for “yes” for any progressive criminal reform bill that came her way. Progressives have to measure her past with what she is saying and doing now.
She is also getting criticized for receiving a donation from Mnuchin of $2000, but sources reporting this leave out that she also voted against his confirmation. This is what one calls dishonest reporting.
She has policies to introduce universal health care, $6000 yearly tax credits, rent relief act, and various other progressive policies. If she became winner of the primary, she would no doubt be the most progressive President we have ever had.
The last candidate to be covered here is Elizabeth Warren. She is getting labelled as a neoliberal as well, because at one point in her life she was a republican and she served under Obama to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who was in fact a neoliberal.
The first thing I want to address is that she admitted that she was once a republican, up until 1995. This is really due to how much culture influences someones political beliefs. It shouldn’t be held against someone that they were able to overcome their own cultural upbringing, that should be seen as a strength. She is also seen as someone who favors Wall St., but when compared to Bernie, since Warren has been senator she has sponsored more Wall St regulatory bills than he has (19-10).
What separates Warren from Sanders is that Warren will admit she is a conscious capitalist while Bernie will admit he is a democratic socialist. So it is a matter of labels here, but policy wise they are nearly identical, and thus the labels are really a useless measurement as the policies achieve nearly the same ends, a more progressive economy (yes Sanders is still more progressive). Warren’s OPED in the WSJ, clearly shows she understand the dramatic neoliberal shift this country took in the 1980’s, and that she wishes to reverse this trend. A neoliberal wouldn’t do this.
As a progressive she supports universal health care and eliminating large chunks of student debt, among other things.
Bernie or Busters, if you were able to read through this and click all the hyperlinks to do the due diligence on these candidates, my only hope is that you come away from this with a more promising image of what the current democratic primary front runners consist of. These candidates are worthy of your vote if they do happen to beat out Bernie in the primary so please don’t vote third party or abstain from voting if Bernie doesn’t happen.
Why do I continually plead with Bernie or Busters to vote for other progressive candidates if they win the primary? There are many reasons:
Migrant children dying, concentration camps, racism, xenophobia, possible nuclear war, worsening climate change, worsening air quality, LGBTQ rights, supreme court nominations, deregulation and outright defunding of many necessary federal agencies/programs, increased partisan divisiveness, increased hate crimes on minorities, lack of accountability in the government, cozying up to rogue nations lead by brutal dictators, destruction of relationships with allies, destruction of peace agreements and treaties. This list can likely go on and on, and will likely be edited in the future as more is uncovered.
*Purposely left off this list is Biden because his policy proposals consist mostly of Obama era holdovers and little to nothing to be excited about.
**Some other candidates that can rise up to this list are Buttigieg, and Castro, and it could be updated later if they do start to gain in polling numbers and progressive momentum.
Heretical Druthers 