April 10, 2020
Remember these policy positions he has rejected are the compassionate positions, positions that make people's lives better. They are worth fighting for if you care about the American people and fairness... but therein lies the biggest problem Biden will have winning over Sanders voters. His default position has never been compassion or fairness. And he doesn't even know how to pretend that it is.
Reaching out with crumbs shows not only does he not care about the people who will benefit from those programs but he also doesn't really believe in the reasons he opposed them in the first place. He opposed the policies, not the size, or the impact. He opposed them as goals. He said they could never work and could never pass... but now he thinks he can pass token donor approved versions of them. What changed for him? Well, he now has to pretend to care about us long enough to get our votes... votes he knew he would never get in the primary and never with his agenda... we were the afterthought, the others.
There is a pathway to getting our votes Joe. Show us you will fight for us? Show us that you understand what we were fighting for and why we fought so hard (giving Sanders our time and money not just our votes). Show us you have bold ideas for undoing the damage of the last 40 years of neoconservative/ /neoliberal governance? (or 3 if you are of the belief that a rigged economy and government just started with Trump).
What can Biden do to win Bernie voters? Ryan Grimm (Rising)
Biden to Bernie Supporters - I know I need to earn your votes - Humanist Report
Biden courts Sanders supporters with student loan and healthcare policies - Reuters
Show us you can lead us back from the devastation of this pandemic and will prepare us for the next one and the one after that. The pandemic showed that the costs of not having a universal Medicare For All plan during a time of crisis far outweigh the costs of getting healthcare to everyone. This COVID-19 crisis showed Bernie and the healthcare experts were right, the people without coverage cost society way more in the long run (in addition to their personal unnecessary deaths, pain, and suffering. People without reasonable access to healthcare take longer to go to a doctor and are infecting others. They also go into work sick exposing still more people without the healthcare coverage they would have with Medicare For All, along with paid sick leave and a living wage (also parts of the Sanders plan but rejected by Biden). The people living paycheck to paycheck are not only suffering themselves but have secondary and tertiary negative impacts on society as a whole. Even if you are among the selfish who lives by the motto of "I got mine, get your own", even you will benefit from lifting the rest of your community up with you along with your kids and grandkids.
So you can see Joe misses all the points of the policies along with their personal and societal impact. But he is probably now being told that to get elected he needs to pretend to care about our policies. He is now offering us something that addresses none of the big issues our policies seek to fix but has the word Medicare in one of the policies and it seems to be about access to healthcare so stop complaining (cue Whoopi saying poop all over us). What he is proposing is not for society, it's not for everyone, it's for a very thin slice of people (of his existing voter base). It does not expand Medicare to the more comprehensive version, it only offers the current version with major gaps in coverage and only for people a few years before they were getting it anyway, at or nearing retirement. Even as reality keeps making the case for why Medicare For All is better, more compassionate and cost-effective, Joe comes to us offering crumbs, not actual policy solutions, proving he doesn't understand the purpose of the policy or why we are willing to fight for it.
But that's not all, Joe really wants us to think he is trying to reach out to us, so he has some crumbs to sprinkle over the issue of student debt as well. Again his proposal proves that he doesn't understand the spirit of the policies or what they offer. He wants to offer limited debt relief... but only if means-tested and only if you got the debt at a public college or historically black colleges. Not for trade school, not for private extension schools, night schools or online classes, not for specialty grad schools which often are trade or specific career-related. Not for native colleges. His argument is always that we shouldn't have to pay for rich people to send their kids to school... but rich people don't take out loans to go to school so that isn't a real argument and the policy he is offering leaves most student debt in the categories not covered.
Why we should cancel all student loan debt - ActTV
Should we cancel all student loan debt - economist Stephanie Kelton (Thom Hartmann Program)
The free public college/ trade school and eliminate student debt policy was so important and well-received not because it was Bernie offering free ponies. It was based on the premise that a better educated and trained workforce makes society as a whole better and our country more competitive in the global market. It is something that every citizen gets with their citizenship (like healthcare). Further justification for getting rid of this debt is that this education and training should have always been free or heavily subsidized and thus the debt should never have been incurred. If Joe can't understand why the policy is important and popular then he will never fight for us. His offer of crumbs proves he truly has no understanding of the policy and his offer is nothing more than pandering.
The bottom line is if Biden with his record and what we know of him and wholly rejected wants our support, he needs to first understand why we thought these policies were important enough to fight for and join us in those fights. Throwing us some scraps while he high fives his donors for blowing up the bigger policies and stopping a movement will not result in the unity he needs to win. We are waiting Joe... the next move is yours. Do you really want to beat Trump or are you already making plans on how to blame us for your loss? Do you have real policies to address these needs/ concerns? Do you have real progressives you plan on including in your administration as your running mate, in your cabinet and advising you on policy? You may have ridden the "Blue No Matter Who" crowd and 4 primary contests that should have been postponed to an apparent primary win, but you won't win the White House without us and our votes are attached to real policy, not empty promises, feckless proposals or platitudes.
Bernie remains on the ballot in upcoming primary states, might he close the delegate gap with focus now on Biden and his feckless argument for being President?
Has Bernie really thrown in the towel or is shifting focus to Biden a winning strategy?
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