I would rather get 5 steps closer to Berie's vision than 100 of Hillary's

[emsimon33]

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But practicality and incrementalism, as reasonable as that strategy and persona may be, are simply no match for what animates the Sanders campaign — a kind of kinetic, even if sometimes overblown, idealism. His is a passionate exposition of liberalism — and yes, democratic socialism — in its most positive light.

But, let me be clear and unequivocal: I find his earnest philosophic positions to be clear and often laudable, but also somewhat quixotic. I think that he is promising far more than even he knows he can deliver, and the electability question is still a real one, even though polls now show him matching up well against possible Republican opponents.

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Whole opinion piece here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/25/opinion/hillary-clinton-stumbles.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

[R.H.E.] I'm tired of all the people, both supporters and detractors, painting Bernie Sanders as some impractical dreamer, when in fact, among all the Presidential candidates, both Republican and Democrat, Sanders is in fact the most practical, the most realistic.

Skewed economic inequality, in what people can earn, in what assets they have, in what they can attain through effort, is at the crux of so many of our problems. Every other candidate but Sanders is running on a platform that either will not make things better, or will make things worse. It's easy ("practical," "realistic&quot to not change things or make them worse. But only reversing economic inequality can possibly get us back to a socially and economically healthy society such as we had in the mid to late 20th century. Sanders' platform is in fact the only platform for which we have empirical, solid evidence that it would work. Every other candidate's platform has either proved that it will not work, or has no proof that it has ever worked, or will work.

So, why do we continue to assert that Sanders is the impractical dreamer in this bunch?

Will it be harder to effect the changes Sanders proposes? Yes. There will be more resistance. But if we dropped our ideologies, and deigned to agree and admit that the ultimate results we want are quite similar, only Sanders' platform has a proven chance to get us there. So, if we are going to be realistic, let's try to do the thing that might actually work. Let's be realistic.

I would rather get 5 steps closer to Bernie's vision than 100 steps closer to Hillary's because Bernie's is in the right direction.

We have been going in the wrong direction for decades now. Incremental will only take further back as we compromise with Republicans who have gone so far to the right that the middle can no longer hold.

We must go back to the roots of the Democratic Party and reject the incrementalism of the Third Way, neoliberals who have hijacked the Party.