Sanders Rant

https://www.facebook.com/sgetgood/posts/10153321729622890?fref=nf

This is why Bernie Sanders consistently rubs me the wrong way, even though I mostly agree with him and certainly respect what he has achieved in running an independent campaign. The presidency is about the "soft" stuff too, and on that front i find him distinctly unappealing. He exudes pedanticism, dismissiveness, sanctimony, and messianic self-righteousness. I'm not sure I've seen an interview with him that didn't include a finger-wagging lecture about the media conspiracy against him. Even more off-putting to me are the interviews he ends by abruptly getting up and walking out the door, clearly convinced that he's above the need to engage with small-minded questions about things like his voting record or tricky stance on gun control (that pesky media conspiracy again!). Every time I engage with someone on the Internet about the bad behavior of Sanders's followers I end up getting shouted down by people who insist that anything I find objectionable is the work of a small rogue group of bad apples. While I'll heartily agree that not everyone in the movement is a rabid misogynist (especially considering Sanders has done well with female voters), I think the haughty, dismissive attitude coming from the top sets a distasteful tone for the entire campaign.

I agree very strongly with Sanders that growing income inequality and a flood of "Dark Money" into our political system following Citizens United is the root of pretty much everything seriously wrong with our country right now. I'm glad he has brought those issues to the forefront of the Democratic campaign. As someone who has always been fascinated with the presidency precisely because it is about responding to emergent issues for which there are no easy answers as much (or even more) than it is about pontificating on policy, I have serious doubts that Sanders has the temperament or pragmatism that I feel are the mark of an effective president. You can't simply get up and walk out of the room because you think you're above dealing with Vladimir Putin, and you can't wag your finger at Benjamin Netanyahu (even when he's wagging his finger at you, as he pointedly did with Obama at one point). Sanders explains how he'll get around opposition from billionaire-greased Republicans in the most obstructionist Congress in history by looking to the horizon and a pointing to a grass roots movement that will certainly form to wash the old order away once he's elected. But if he did achieve the presidency, I suspect the response from right-wing interests willing to pump almost unfathomable amounts of money into midterm elections could very likely be even more ferocious than it was when Obama was elected. True or not, at least for awhile the next President is going to have to deal with a Congress whose actions often defy reason, and who certainly won't respond well to a lecture. Will the followers who are so energized today stick with him if he's forced (as Obama was) by an intransigent Congress to sacrifice his agenda simply to keep the government running?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Sanders is the man who can transform America through sheer force of will and populist accord. I personally think there a better chance he's simply the person who will pave the way for someone who will make a difference the way it's normally done in American politics: incrementally and through pragmatic political maneuvering. Regardless, if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, I sincerely hope Sanders supporters will see their way past their "burn down the world" attitude and support her, just as I hope that Sanders, if elected, is able to embrace the pragmatism and compromise that are intrinsic to the presidency.