He's not a "socialist" socialist

As Sanders continues to dominate the polls, progressive commentators and Never Trumpers (assuming those are genuinely different) increasingly try to explain that Sanders isn't really all that radical. You know, he spouts off about stuff, but what he really wants is a few non-radical gestures towards being nice and sharing stuff, because he's realistic enough to know he can't get his real priorities through Congress. As David Harsanyi puts it: “Vote Bernie: He’s got tremendously unpopular positions that will never pass!” Harsanyi points out that "Enacting massive regulatory schemes that dictate what you can buy and what you can sell and how much you can sell it for is as good as controlling the means of production." It might be a good idea to take the guy at his word.

8 comments:

Grim said...

Oddly enough, though, he's the most sensible of the Democrats on gun rights -- at least he has in the past voted to avoid bankrupting gun manufacturers.

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/02/16/biden-accuses-sanders-not-enough-gun-grabber/

E HInes said...

Harsanyi points out that "Enacting massive regulatory schemes that dictate what you can buy and what you can sell and how much you can sell it for is as good as controlling the means of production."

Is Harsanyi still talking about Sanders? That sounds a lot like Bloomberg.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

Indeed. Bloomberg has rapidly become my least favorite of the major candidates, if indeed he is one -- since he's skipping all the early states, it's hard to tell if he has any support or just mercenary followers.

Grim said...

"I can teach anyone to be a farmer" says dude who doesn't know the first thing about being a farmer.

https://twitter.com/PeterMentes/status/1228518467776761856

E Hines said...

My wife pointed me at that, via Dana Loesch.

My response on Twitter (because I go slumming, sometimes), character limited and disjointed:

From millions of us being irredeemably deplorable to millions of us just being a bunch of dumb-asses.
The contempt of Progressive-Democrats for average Americans is boundless. But this aristocratic, utter contempt for Americans is at the foundation of Party's progressivism.
...
Here's one of the founders of Party's Progressive movement: "[T]he average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat."
...
3/3: Progressive-Democrats hold themselves out as our Betters. This is the threat extant in our 2020 elections, all up and down the ballot.


Eric Hines

Assistant Village Idiot said...

President Bernie might indeed be useless and end up not being much of a problem, other than nominating federal and SCOTUS judges.

But why take the risk?

E Hines said...

other than nominating federal and SCOTUS judges.

The attack on the Supreme Court and lower courts is a very high risk with an enormously bad payoff.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

But why take the risk?

At the moment we are in the phase of mitigating risk. The general election in November is not the election we are facing now. In the primary election, we have a chance to limit the possible range of harm posed by the November election.

You're done, of course; but the primary is still ahead for me and most others. I'm considering what I think will limit the potential range of harm for the choice to be made in November. From my perspective it's already the case that no really good choice is available; there's no candidate I can endorse without reservation. But I can definitely do triage.