I confidently predict that the reviews for Bernie Sanders’ Guide to Political Revolution will fall exclusively on the two extremes of the rating spectrum. There will be few in the middle.
While it is doubtful that this book will change many minds, it should be a must read for everyone. The arguments are well made and clear. And for those already inclined to support Sanders’ positions there is plenty of great reference data to use in your next debate with friends and colleagues.
Bernie makes a key point right in the beginning: “The basic thesis of this book is pretty simple. It is that, on major issue after major issue, the vast majority of Americans support a progressive agenda…” I think he’s right. It is equally true, however, that progressives yield relatively little progressive influence in the halls of power today. Why the disconnect?
The reason, I think, is pretty simple. It is my only reservation with this book and it is the same reservation I have with all political debate in the US today. It’s long on prescribed behavior and short on the fundamental change necessary to make that behavior stick long term. More to the point, it’s based on the perspective that “you’re the problem, not me.”
In the case of medical care and insurance, for example, I fully agree with Bernie. It seems self-evident that a one-payer system is inevitable. The only question is how much financial, physical, and emotional pain and suffering we’re willing to endure in the meantime.
At the same time, we will need fundamental institutional reform to make it work. We will have to accept malpractice tort reform. We will have to be willing to make tough decisions about our collective entitlement to cosmetic and some quality of life care. We will have to be willing to re-think what is misleadingly defined as professional standards that drive up costs and limit availability. (e.g., Allowing nurses to do routine procedures reserved only for licensed doctors today.)
Of course we must take the money out of politics. As Bernie notes, “The great irony of climate change is that American taxpayers are subsidizing the most profitable industry in history, whose products are quite literally killing us…” He’s right. But why is that? It’s not that the majority of Americans deny climate change or don’t want to protect the environment for our children. It’s that our political institutions are broken.
In the state of Michigan today Tesla cannot sell its cars through its direct to consumer model. Because Michiganders don’t want them? No. They can’t get a license from the state legislature and there’s plenty of evidence that it is the independent auto dealers, which fund one of the most powerful lobbies in the state, that are really standing in the way. (Legislators, of course, will argue that they are protecting consumers. From Tesla?)
The money line of the book, for me, is: “One of the more profound lessons that I’ve learned in politics is that everything is related to everything else. Nothing exists in a vacuum.” He’s right. The Buddhists have been saying that since the 5th Century BCE.
The racial penalty and the social and financial cost of the war on drugs and the obvious need for structural tax reform, for example, both issues that Bernie talks about at some length, are related. In both cases we are using government spending (which is really taxpayer spending) to pursue structural national goals through political and social engineering. And it doesn’t work.
Bernie is right. Even his prescriptions, however, won’t work (and will probably never get enacted) without more fundamental reform to our national institutions, from our political parties to our big banks and the whole energy complex. In the venerable words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
A great book well worth the time and investment.
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Excellent, readable guide to where we go from here and the dim hope for our country's future
The essential guide, broken down into easily readable segments. Although Bernie doesn't urge it, it's more than apparent that we need a third party - neither sub-division of the Goldman Sachs Party running the show has our backs... except insofar as required to stick a knife in it and bleed us for Wall Street.
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