David Brooks declaims that Bernie Sanders marks the end of liberalism in his New York Times column. After listing some of Sen. Sanders’s past and present support for communist dictators he says:
I say all this not to cancel Sanders for past misjudgments. I say all this because the intellectual suppositions that led him to embrace these views still guide his thinking today. I’ve just watched populism destroy traditional conservatism in the G.O.P. I’m here to tell you that Bernie Sanders is not a liberal Democrat. He’s what replaces liberal Democrats.
continuing
Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt. Sanders was a useless House member and has been a marginal senator because he doesn’t operate within this system or believe in this theory of change.
He believes in revolutionary mass mobilization and, once an election has been won, rule by majoritarian domination. This is how populists of left and right are ruling all over the world, and it is exactly what our founders feared most and tried hard to prevent.
If only that were the case! Sen. Sanders is trying to rise to power by gaining a minority (the largest number of delegates but falling short of a majority) of a minority (Democrats), holding the threat of bolting and taking his supporters with him over the heads of the Democratic establishment.
He concludes:
There is a specter haunting the world — corrosive populisms of right and left. These populisms grow out of real problems but are the wrong answers to them. For the past century, liberal Democrats from F.D.R. to Barack Obama knew how to beat back threats from the populist left. They knew how to defend the legitimacy of our system, even while reforming it.
Judging by the last few debates, none of the current candidates remember those arguments or know how to rebut a populist to their left.
I’ll cast my lot with democratic liberalism. The system needs reform. But I just can’t pull the lever for either of the two populisms threatening to tear it down.
I wish I could say, “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win”, but I just don’t have that confidence.
“Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt.”
I think Brooks is using a verbal sleight of hand. They feel that the economic and political systems do not serve their needs. That’s a policy difference, not corruption in the traditional sense. If “America First: stands for not engaging in useless foreign wars, not being a trading partner’s door mat, not allowing willy-nilly illegal immigration, asking other developed to nations to, ahem, pay their fair share of NATO or other world resource needs is corrupt, then call me corrupt.
Bernie and his bros also have policy differences. They would disagree, but I find their policy prescriptions infantile and ultimately destructive to the point of being bizarre.
I also find his notion of FDR to Obama as being the guardians at the gate to be laughable. FDR largely started this mess, with predictable results. Obama would have if he could have, but political self interest forced him to moderate his views. But he unleashed both Trumpism and Bernie-ism. Its the elite and centralized power crowd vs Everyman.
” “America First: stands for not engaging in useless foreign wars, not being a trading partner’s door mat, not allowing willy-nilly illegal immigration, asking other developed to nations to, ahem, pay their fair share of NATO or other world resource needs is corrupt, then call me corrupt.”
I dont think they are referring to your list of Trump talking points. (Which largely are not true. It is clear Trump isn’t really going to do anything about immigration, he didnt really get much new in NATO agreements and we are still Afghanistan.) I think they are probably referring to our policies always being designed to help the wealthy get wealthier due to the financial influence the wealthy exert in our governance. The wealthy get bailed out while the workers and those without means do not. Rich people break the law and they get high powered lawyers so they walk, or pay a fine. They certainly dont go to jail very often. They exert influence so that their kids get better jobs or go to better schools than they would on their own merits. The extremes of gerrymandering we see that make sure incumbents cant lose. Selective enforcement of laws against different groups.
IOW, the system is rigged against those who dont have means and power and in favor of those who do.
Steve
Your above description perfectly fits the wealthy, virtue-signaling, elites that the democrat party has devolved into.