Bernie Sanders has made history, but not in the way the media tells it. In short, he’s committed what may be the largest and most brazen piece of fraud in, well, ever. He managed to raise $208 million, and he did so by convincing a huge number of gullible children that politics is a retail transaction.
They actually believed his promises of a $15 minimum wage, single-payer healthcare, and free college education. They deserve to be parted from their money.
Let’s start with the minimum wage thing. It’s not going to happen. The last time it was raised was in 2009. Even that was the product of a very contentious process that had begun in earnest two years earlier. Despite having an unassailable majority in Congress, Democrats still had to shoehorn it into the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act.
And that was only to get it to $7.25/hour. Doubling it in a Congress dominated by Republicans? Really? It was never going to happen. Anyone with the most cursory grasp on political reality would know that.
And Sanders has been in politics for almost three decades. He certainly knows that.
Repeat after me, kids: the President isn’t a god-emperor. He can’t wave a magic wand and make legislation happen.
(Unless that’s what the Millennials want, in which case we have cause to be truly afraid for this country’s future.)
Second, single-payer healthcare. How was he supposed to get that? Progressives have been pushing for it since the 1930’s, and it’s never come close to happening.
What’s that? The Affordable Care Act? Nope. In fact, the PPACA is the exact opposite. The whole idea of single-payer care is that the government foots the bill, eliminating the need for expensive, predatory private insurance. What is the core tenet of the PPACA? A mandate that we have to buy private insurance.
You know, I’m not even going to bother with the idea of free college. There’s simply no way the logistics could be made to work.
At this point, I’m going to throw temperance to the wind. How utterly stupid are his supporters? Do we not have civics classes in our schools anymore? How did nobody see through this?
So, here it is. They wasted the party’s chance to get someone nominated who might have actually gotten something done while they threw their money at a man who was all too happy to take it and tell them what they wanted to hear. Now they’re left with a scary lady who is most likely one of those lizard aliens from V in human makeup.
Well, they deserve it. Hopefully, they’ll either get smarter or just not participate in the political process in the future.
One last thing: there won’t be refunds. People actually believe they’re going to get their money back because they didn’t get what they wanted. How adorable. How unsettling.
Unless Sanders wants to declare the remainder of the donations as income, he’ll be shoveling it over to the DNC. That means it goes into a war chest to be used by Clinton and Wasserman-Shultz.
(I will resist the temptation to use the pun “you got Berned.” That would be petty. Besides, look at what Republicans have representing their interests.)