HOLD YOUR FIRE

As most of you know, I was a strenuous Bernie Sanders supporter during the Democratic primaries. In fact, if times had been any but the Trump era, and if anyone had asked me (which, clearly, no one would have) I might have urged Bernie to run as an independent because I think he could well have had the power to shake Washington out of its business-as-usual bipartisan malaise, and perhaps even to become the first independent to win the presidency.

That said, although I feel Democrats as a whole are not yet ready for a Bernie Sanders and that a uniquely experienced and democratic politician like Joe Biden is the perfect president for this time of chaos after the worst and most openly autocratic presidency in the history of the nation, I still hold views on social issues that are much more vigorously in line with those of Bernie Sanders than with those of any other former candidate for the Democratic ticket. And clearly, considering the incredible run for his money that Sanders gave Biden, and how he trounced all of his other competitors, including Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, in the run-up to the elections, he remains a voice worthy of heeding.

Why? Because enormous numbers of liberal Americans, who swallowed their sadness at Bernie’s hard-fought defeat, later entrusted their votes to the Democratic ticket in perhaps the most important and highly-voted presidential election in the history of the nation—something many of them didn’t do in the previous election due to the enmity fueled by Hillary Clinton’s campaign between her supporters and Bernie’s in the 2016 primary season, a factor that, to some extent, helped seal her defeat and the rise of Donald Trump.

This week, President-elect Biden and Senator Sanders clashed over a social issue of fundamental importance to former Bernie supporters—including not only democratic socialists like Sanders and myself, but also to many left-leaning and moderate liberals of every persuasion. Namely, the notion that quality health care is—not should be—a human right. And that supporting a system that makes proper health care the privilege of the well-to-do is, on its face, un-democratic and un-American.

So two things happened this week that are not helpful in creating a powerful Democratic front aimed at forcing a major change in Washington and in compelling the GOP to put aside its autocratic designs of the past four years. President-elect Biden waded imprudently into highly controversial territory for the vast range of Democrats, and Senator Sanders called him out on it.

The trouble started when Biden flatly declared publicly that if, over the course of the next term, Congress approved a Medicare For All bill, he would veto it. Obviously angered by such a definitive dictum, Bernie didn’t lose any time responding, saying, “The American people deserve to know: Joe, what are you going to do to end the absurdity of the United States of America being the only major country on earth where health care is not a human right? Are you really going to veto a Medicare For All bill if it is passed in Congress? The American people cannot afford half measures that leave millions uninsured. We need Medicare For All.”

The staunchest of Biden supporters will say that this is no time to already start attacking the president-elect, in the midst of a continued coup attempt and before he’s even been sworn in. Supporters of Bernie Sanders and, more specifically, of the right of everyone to have access to quality health care, will argue that Biden is demonstrating from the outset that his mind is closed entirely to the idea of seeking to bring the US into the concert of major nations with regard to ensuring the country’s citizens of government compliance with this universal human right. Both sides are right.

As I see it, Sanders needs to realize that he is no longer campaigning for the presidency, and that there will be plenty of time, once Biden is sworn in, to bring up these issues on the Senate floor and in the media. For now, both small-d democrats and big-D Democrats need to be demonstrating a seamlessly united front with the incoming administration in order to start creating a climate of cooperation in which to put behind us the past four years of war-like divisiveness and authoritarian designs and get American democracy back up onto its feet and walking again.

President-elect Biden, for his part, should also realize that he is no longer campaigning, that his is, indeed, the incoming president of the United States, and that his first job should be—as he has claimed it would be—to seek to join everyone together in nationwide unity of purpose to, first and foremost, overcome the worst pandemic in a hundred years. Certainly, a time when, with more than three hundred thousand Americans dead and a half-million fatalities shortly in the offing, it is less than helpful to reject out of hand ideas for granting Americans their unrestricted right to proper health care.

As in the case of Senator Sanders, there will be plenty of time for President Biden to clearly and articulately state his views on this subject once he is in office, and, hopefully, to reach carefully considered conclusions that take all views into account in search of an acceptable compromise to benefit every American, rather than generating strictly opposing views from the outset.