Bernie Sanders’s fiction-filled campaign
SEN. BERNIE Sanders (I-Vt.) is leading in New Hampshire
and within striking distance in Iowa, in large part because he is
playing the role of uncorrupted anti-establishment crusader. But
Mr. Sanders is not a brave truth-teller. He is a politician selling his
own brand of fiction to a slice of the country that eagerly wants to buy
it.
Mr. Sanders’s
tale starts with the bad guys: Wall Street and corporate money. The
existence of large banks and lax campaign finance laws explains why
working Americans are not thriving, he says, and why the progressive
agenda has not advanced. Here is a reality check: Wall Street has
already undergone a round of reform, significantly reducing the risks
big banks pose to the financial system. The evolution and structure of
the world economy, not mere corporate deck-stacking, explained many of
the big economic challenges the country still faces. And even with
radical campaign finance reform, many Americans and their
representatives would still oppose the Sanders agenda.
Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), spoke about climate change, the Islamic State,
racism and his vision for the country at Georgetown University on Nov.
19. Here are the key moments. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
Mr. Sanders’s
story continues with fantastical claims about how he would make the
European social model work in the United States. He admits that he would
have to raise taxes on the middle class in order to pay for his
universal, Medicare-for-all health-care plan, and he promises massive
savings on health-care costs that would translate into generous benefits
for ordinary people, putting them well ahead, on net. But he does not
adequately explain where those massive savings would come from. Getting
rid of corporate advertising and overhead would only yield so much.
Savings would also have to come from slashing payments to doctors and
hospitals and denying benefits that people want.
He
would be a braver truth-teller if he explained how he would go about
rationing health care like European countries do. His program would be
more grounded in reality if he addressed the fact of chronic slow growth
in Europe and explained how he would update the 20th-century model of
social democracy to accomplish its goals more efficiently. Instead, he
promises large benefits and few drawbacks.
[Why Democrats would be insane to nominate Bernie Sanders]
Meanwhile,
when asked how Mr. Sanders would tackle future deficits, as he would
already be raising taxes for health-care expansion and the rest of his
program, his advisers claimed that more government spending “will result
in higher growth, which will improve our fiscal situation.” This
resembles Republican arguments that tax cuts will juice the economy and
pay for themselves — and is equally fanciful.
Mr.
Sanders tops off his narrative with a deus ex machina: He assures
Democrats concerned about the political obstacles in the way of his
agenda that he will lead a “political revolution” that will help him
clear the capital of corruption and influence-peddling. This
self-regarding analysis implies a national consensus favoring his agenda
when there is none and ignores the many legitimate checks and balances
in the political system that he cannot wish away.
Mr.
Sanders is a lot like many other politicians. Strong ideological
preferences guide his thinking, except when politics does, as it has on
gun control. When reality is ideologically or politically inconvenient,
he and his campaign talk around it. Mr. Sanders’s success so far does
not show that the country is ready for a political revolution. It merely
proves that many progressives like being told everything they want to
hear.
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