\u201cThe only thing we have to fear is fear itself.\u201d Eighty-seven years ago those were the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural speech. Today, they resonate with Senator Bernie Sanders\u2019 presidential campaign, which confronts a barrage of attack aimed at frightening away voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fear is the enemy of change and the friend of hate. That is why both sides of the political establishment are now running a full-blown campaign of fear-mongering against Sanders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic Party establishment likes the economy the way it is and wants to prevent change. Donald Trump and the Republicans have made themselves the party of hate. Both therefore have an interest in promoting fear, which explains the strange overlap in their attacks on Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The roots of our discontent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us backtrack a little. After the financial crisis of 2008 we escaped the threat of a second Great Depression, but we failed to address the root causes that have promoted wage stagnation and economic insecurity. The results of that failure have been twofold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nthe economic front, the US has had another stock market boom and an economic\nrecovery that has ameliorated but not remedied past injuries to working families.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nthe political front, economic distress and discontent has been exploited by Trump\nto push his conman agenda which uses hate to blind people to his economic\nswindle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Economics: Sanders\nis an FDR Democrat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sanders\u2019\neconomic policies aim to tackle the deep causes of economic and political discontent.\nThat threatens the establishment, which is why he is being red-baited by both\nRepublicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far\nfrom being red, Sanders\u2019 economic program is straight out of the American mainstream.\nIt echoes FDR\u2019s New Deal which saved American capitalism in the 1930s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nhigher minimum wage, stronger unions, green infrastructure investment, free\npublic education, higher taxes on the wealthy, and reining in corporate power\nare programs which would have been supported by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.\nThey are the type of programs the Democratic Party used to advocate before its\ninside take over by Wall Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMedicare\nfor All\u201d is being especially targeted by the fear-mongers, who have libeled it\nas socialist. There are four major approaches to healthcare: private health insurance\n(which includes Obamacare); private insurance with a public option;\nsingle-payer insurance (i.e. Medicare for All); and a national health system\nsuch as in the UK. All are consistent with capitalism. Moreover, Canada unambiguously\nshows single-payer delivers better healthcare for ordinary people than private\ninsurance. That holds for healthcare costs, access, and well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Politics: Sanders\nis an American constitutionalist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\neconomy is significantly a political creation. Our rotten politics have\ncontributed to making the economy we have, and our rotten politics obstructs us\nfrom changing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Without\npolitical reform change will be near impossible, which explains Sanders\u2019 call\nfor a political revolution. The influence of money in politics must be reduced,\nwhich is why it is critical the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Citizens United<\/em> be reversed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But\nSanders is no revolutionary. His political program harks back to the framing of\nthe US constitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nfundamental concern of the founding fathers was excessive political power, be\nit via monarchy or plutocracy. Two hundred and fifty years ago the problem was monarchy.\nToday, the problem is plutocracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Excessive\npolitical power is now exercised via corporate political lobbying, payola for\npoliticians, and the corporate controlled media. No clearer proof can be given\nthan the fact that billionaire Trump heads the Republicans, and billionaire\nBloomberg aspires to head the Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Red scare and the\npolitics of fear<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Both\nDemocrats and Republicans are now engaged in a campaign against Bernie Sanders\naimed at frightening voters and preventing change. Ironically, the\nfear-mongering of the Democratic establishment is even more dangerous than that\nof Trump and the Republican Party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We need change to beat hate and restore shared prosperity, but the Democratic Party elite aims to block change by torpedoing Sanders. Worse yet, if they fail to sink Sanders, their \u201cred scare\u201d tactics will have played right into the hands of Trump who plans an even uglier more dishonest red scare campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In these dangerous times, the words of FDR can help inoculate us against the politics of fear. When it comes to Bernie Sanders, there is nothing to fear except fear itself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe only thing we have to fear is fear itself.\u201d Eighty-seven years ago those were the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural speech. Today, they resonate with Senator Bernie Sanders\u2019 presidential campaign, which confronts a barrage of attack aimed at frightening away voters. Fear is the enemy of change and the friend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-economy","category-us-policy","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1850"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1854,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions\/1854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}