Sanders will spice up presidential campaign

When Senator Bernie Sanders threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic Party primary last week, the dread and ennui that I have felt about the 2016 campaign dissipated.

With a steadfast and articulate progressive like Bernie Sanders in the primary debates and out on the stump, the campaign could be way more interesting than watching the tedious and predictable Beltway mainstream media horse race coverage of polls and the daily, shamelessly fabricated Faux News micro-scandal.

Sanders could totally change the dynamic of the contest. This will be an invaluable opportunity to insert progressive discourse into the public arena. The ongoing debate between the Obama centrist wing and the Warren/Sanders progressive wing of the Democratic Party should be a centerpiece of the national political discussion at the adult table.

There are real advantages to having a lively, contested Democratic primary. Senator Sanders has a tall hill to climb, but his presence in the primary will force Hillary Clinton’s hand. She will have to declare where she stands on core issues that are important to the Democratic base. Tactically, Hillary has just been relieved of the burden of being cast as ‘The Left’ in this campaign. The Rove hit squad won’t be able to Swiftboat her as ‘The Red Menace in a pantsuit.’

After the American electorate hears from an actual card-carrying democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton will be properly positioned as the centrist that she actually is. She is a very smart politician, and she will stake her claim on the most electorally advantageous elements of the progressive agenda. Hillary’s opportunism is our opportunity.

Sanders may be the man to finally break the lock on the left margin of the MSM ‘Overton window,’ which currently frames U.S. politics as a debate between centrist Democrats and conservative Republicans. The Overton window, named after the sociologist Joseph Overton, is defined as the range of ideas that are accepted as politically feasible in the current climate of public opinion. The Sanders 12-point economic program, which I have discussed in detail in prior columns, is a viable progressive blueprint for achieving shared prosperity and environmental sustainability in the 21st century, distilled into straightforward terms that are well within the American political tradition.

The progressive agenda will get a long-overdue fair hearing and enter into the mainstream of the national political culture.

In his presidential announcement, Senator Sanders summarized his political program succinctly: “At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we need a progressive tax system in this country which is based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that major profitable corporations have paid nothing in federal income taxes, and corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate which is lower than their secretaries.”

Progressives are not represented in the Washington Beltway media landscape, although the advent of the Tea Party has moved the right margin of the Overton window considerably. The big-top pundit Sunday talk shows like Face the Nation will rarely include a genuine progressive on the panel. This lack of representation of progressive advocates, even though there are many talented ones available, constricts the public’s awareness of the full menu of progressive policy options that the current deadlocked, closed-loop political system cannot resolve.

The most important contribution that a vigorous Democratic Party primary debate can make to the civic health of the American people is a real discussion about the genuinely important national issues in 2016. We don’t have put up with every news cycle being high-jacked by the clown car antics of the annoying, non-stop noisy distraction of the Fox News/right-wing radio poison pill factory driving our national politics into the fevered crazy-town territory of ‘Benghazi!’, ‘Death panels!’, ‘Sharia law!’, ‘UN Agenda 21!’, etc., ad nauseam. The RNC propaganda media machine will keep on pumping stage fog on the scene, but we don’t have to let them dominate the discourse. That would be a refreshing change.

Unfortunately, that critical national discussion has to cut through not only the cacophony of the Fox News/right-wing radio propaganda machine, but also their enablers in the MSM. The persistent white noise drone of the dull-witted centrists like Chuck Todd, Wolf Blitzer, Cokie Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, and the rest of the Washington insider types, reduces the national political discourse to trivial celebrity culture gossip and an ideologically barren poll-driven focus. We want a better politics.

Here’s your chance to help create that better politics. I’ve been recruited to host the local PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) ”Run, Bernie Run!” Sonoma Valley Meet-Up. We are there to organize the Bernie Sanders for President Campaign in the Sonoma Valley, not to debate the topic. Come prepared to work. Join me and my allies at a 90-minute meeting at the back patio of The Red Grape restaurant at 529 First St. W., Sonoma, 2:00-3:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 16. Let’s move the needle here in the Valley and advance the progressive vision for an America that works for all of us.