This Article Nails It: Bernie is about to give Democrats their 'come to Jesus' moment [View all]

[Skwmom]

Last edited Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:12 PM - Edit history (3)

Update for those of you who are confused: Come to Jesus Moment:

An epiphany in which one realizes the truth of a matter; a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something; coming clean and admitting failures; realizing the true weight or impact of a negative situation or fact; acknowledgment that one must get back to core values; moment of realization; an aha moment; moment of decision; moment of truth; critical moment; moment of reassessment of priorities; turning point; life-changing moment.


...It started with Democratic voters in 2008; so disheartened and angered by eight years of war, recklessness, and social-Darwinism-masked-as-economic-policy, they delivered Barack Obama the White House on the belief he'd usher in a new era of capital Progressivism.

Disenchanted with Obama and 30 years of trickle-down economics and corporate America's purchase of Washington, D.C., Occupy Wall Street spread in the heart of the corruption only to ultimately fizzle.

And then there was Bernie Sanders.

For all the punditry about the Vermont Senator's historic rise (or lack thereof), a simple truth has been missing. Quite the contrary from some radical, "pie in the sky" revolutionary, Sanders is actually an FDR Democrat.

And the Democratic Party and establishment, who beginning in the 1970's decided to begin a pivot away from the working class and New Deal era in favor or wealthier suburbanites and corporatists, has fought Sanders every step of the way.

Sure, party leaders and lawmakers have delivered good lip service. Hillary Clinton—whose big-money donors from Wall Street, corporate America, K Street, and other special interests have served as her political oxygen throughout her career—lauded Sanders for challenging the Party on unaccountable money.

But she, and the Democratic establishment backing her, don't mean a damn word of it. No objective person can suggest Democrats haven't looked the other way as inequality exploded.

From the Clintons to Chuck Schumer to Harry Reid and other corporate Democrats—who love uttering the words middle class before heading to fundraisers with the same folks who've decimated it—the bottom line is clear.

When party leaders, even President Obama, talk about "pragmatism" and "incremental change," they're using code words; ones that rationalize the revolving door between corporate America, Wall Street, K Street, and Washington, D.C.—the one they've been complicit in swinging wide open.

But that sales pitch has been rejected by the voters the party needs to survive into the future—millennials, young African Americans and Latinos, and the working class. And from the hundreds I've met and interviewed on the campaign trail, they are for Sanders and don't give a damn about Democratic Party unity.

After all, what has it done for them? Most are mired in a dark cloud of student loan debt, low-income jobs (if they can even get that), and living paycheck-to-paycheck. They know the same pragmatism the establishment props up has helped fuel the funneling of wealth to the top 1 percent over the last three decades.

Which leaves California as the climax of the decades-long evolution from the Party of the People to the Party of the Corporations. With a potential win, which recent polling indicates is possible, Bernie Sanders would've won the majority of the remaining states—including the biggest one in the country.

......Huddled in Philadelphia, the Democratic establishment will finally have its come-to-Jesus moment: stay married to corporate money or return to its first love—the American middle class.


http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/02/bernie-sanders-is-about-to-give-democrats-their-come-to-jesus-moment-commentary.html