Here’s what Bernie should do. He should say to Biden and the DNC…I will endorse Biden if you guys promise to enact Medicare for All.
M4A was already popular with most people, even Republicans, before the pandemic. 6 weeks from now, people will have shifted from seeing M4A as something we SHOULD have to something we NEED. Say what you will about Italy…nobody is going bankrupt due to hospital charges. 6 weeks from now, M4A will poll higher than ever, and the momentum behind it will be at its greatest peak ever. The DNC will not be able to refuse a public demand for M4A. If Sanders demands that, they have to accept that condition, or the entire party is publicly on record as opposing M4A during the biggest health crisis in anybody’s lifetime, and they will go down in flames…not just Biden…the Senate and House as well. The party will die. They will be forced to swallow M4A, or get beaten up and down the ticket with nothing to show for it, and THEIR name on the rejection of a program people will be starting to demand action on by mid-summer.
If they accept their fate, Sanders will rally his base to support Democrats up and down, and they will win the White House, get the Senate, and expand the House. They won’t really have a choice. They will have to do it. And we will have the first leftist victory since the Civil Rights Act, and we will have finally changed the direction of the country. We might even be able to draft some other legislation to get through, like paid sick leave.
But this would require Sanders to actually use his leverage. And he won’t.
So…Moses got us this far. We now need Joshua.
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