I am a liberal and long term Democrat.
Cannot vote for Sanders. PERIOD!
Why? He's too divisive. Nothing would get done.
Worse, I think he would create a recession
Would Sanders be BLAMED? No it would be Democrats
The Right Wing would come back even more powerful .
You bet the Russians are helping Bernie now -- they know Trump would TROUNCE him in Election Day.
Sadly I would stay home too! Better to take the "hit" now, then long term.
13
It's too bad our primary system isn't organized to tell us which of the Democratic candidates has the most support from voters who aren't Democrats.
9
Why the insistence that a Medicare for all program is so expensive and impossible? Other countries have healthcare for their citizens. The defense budget could be cut. How many nuclear submarines do we need? And we keep building more. We have troops stationed in too many countries. We are supporting the wrong leaders. Trump and therefore our government love Sisi and Modi and Bolsinaro. All fascist dictators. We need change, not another right of candidate, which Hilary was.
27
Sanders is not a Democrat.
GRT OFF THE STAGE.
9
"By now, Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable. " This is the most dangerous thing said in this conversation by far.
Yeah, he's known quantity all right. So are the Republican weasels who are aiding and abetting this authoritarian takeover of our country, Mr. Stephens included.
28
Who will be Bernie's VP? His cabinet? We need a Warren/Klob ticket now. We are running out of time. The debates are not working.
2
Here's the problem, folks. The Democrats are settling in on a candidate because he did well (not great, but well) in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and soon South Carolina. They have a grand total of 25 electoral college votes among them and two of them went Republican in 2016.
New York, whose Dems won't get to vote for another two months, has almost twice as many Democrats as those four states combined, and won't get to vote for another two months.
This is a seriously stupid system.
25
stop with headlines like this - as a country we need to be rid of Trump and all of his minions
19
Don't care for Mr. Stephen's method of spin buttressed by meanness. He tries to insult people who support services and taxes that would help everyone. I am tired of the corporate theocracy that has a strangle-hold on our country and continues to suck the money out of our pockets; I have no respect for those who gulp at its font. There is one guy who keeps telling it like it is and it is Bernie--unadorned, thoughtful and still uncynically hopeful for America.
31
A no vote is a vote for Trump. Please support whoever gets the nomination, be it Bloomberg or Bernie. If it's the latter, and Bret abstains, that's a vote for DT. Don't follow Bret's de facto GOP lead to go there. Likewise, if you're a Bernie loyalist and he doesn't get the nomination, please support whomever does, otherwise you're just supporting DT.
25
Bret, how is Trump "containable" when his party refuses to contain him? Sorry, but a Sanders presidency would be far less damaging.
30
As a protest I voted for the Green Party candidate in the 2016 presidential election, as this had absolutely zero effect on the election outcome (I am from Massachusetts).
If you are from a non-swing state your vote will not count either.
Whomever the Democrat nominee is will win the popular vote; the election will be determined by a few hundred thousand voters in a handful of states. Hopefully there will be no protest votes there.
6
Kudos to Stephens for "...two parties that have gone bonkers, rather than merely one." However, Sanders isn't the heir apparent. Or the presumptive nominee. He may have the most delegates so far, from a few small states, but I'd prefer any other Democratic candidate. I suspect a majority of Democrats agree.
5
If Bernie Sanders wins that will be the least of problems. What will be a giant shocker is what Trump has been doing in the dark with US assets to benefit himself, family and friends, and will it be too late to reverse it.
16
Dear Bernie,
Please stop yelling at us.
Sincerely,
Everyone
18
Good person should be heard. Everyone.
9
Bret, I take issue with your statement that "Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable." It is clear that he is not containable, and Bernie Sanders would be a far better alternative to the current occupant...
27
Someone as corrupt, as criminal minded and a pathological liar to boot as Trump, who is destroying American alliances and is also bent upon worsening the climate change debacle—and Republicans like Mr Bret still cannot bring themselves to elect a democrat.
Mr Sanders can be called anything but on this you have to agree: he is a decent human being with moral ethical values!
THIS is how America is going to destroy itself. When for the sake of trying to see the trees you miss the entire forest.
The spirit, the very moral core of American democracy is at grave stake, and the arguments being given here not to support a democrat to get rid of this plague in the WH... is that fiscal and financial health of the country would go down! Hah.
In ancient history, from Pharaohs to Hattushash to Picts to Romans— one sentiment keeps on coming up— when a nation or civilization is marked for ruin, it’s not just a matter of fall after a rise, they make decisions which ensure that erasure from history.
One such decision was electing Trump.
The death knell would be re-electing him, and everyone who doesn’t vote Democrat this November, is a vote for Trump.
We will just be proofreading the history of our own demise.
25
So Bernie is a socialist. What's the downside? Americans are tired of the present system, and millions have gone backwards in the past 20 years. It's time for a change, and not a dictatorship under the mentally-unstable joker now occupying the White House.
26
@Mike C. downside would be socialism. There isn't a "fix everything" solution to all of the problems this country faces. Capitalism has its advantages, and so does socialism.
Healthcare may or may not become cheaper under socialism than capitalism... Not 100% sure because I'm not confident the government will handle our tax dollars meant for healthcare appropriately. I do know the wait times will increase tremendously, which is something many people will hate, and innovation will also suffer with less money in big pharma.
Same idea applies to business. Socialism drives up the cost of insurance for businesses, as well as labor costs, taxes, and ultimately the goods they need to purchase from other businesses. Not everyone is a 1%er in the stock market... Many people are from the middle class hoping to boost their IRA, and attempting to disrupt profit margins affects this in a negative way. On the other hand, people MAY be offered slightly cheaper insurance and a higher hourly pay rate that will be negated by inflation anyways.
I'm not advocating for either system, just saying one system doesn't work for everything.
3
Healthcare under Sanders......Just think of the DMV 24/7.
7
Shouldn't we try the other system in order to see the down side?
3
Bernie would be irrelevant as president. He can't serve more than one term because he's old and his health is failing. He will have no support among moderate Democrats and none at all among Republicans. He might pass watered-down stuff through the House, if enough Democrats survive. He won't even be able to get anything to the floor of the Senate. If he wins, the question will be whom the Democrats will nominate for 2024, an election that might be meaningful.
7
He may energize enough people to win the Congress. Clearly, people who vote for him will vote for Reps down the ballot because he attracts Dem people, according to your scenario. On the other hand, according to your scenario, the moderate candidate will attract Republicans who may vote for Dem for the Presidency, but will vote for Reps ( who is tighter kinship) down of the ballot. So, a moderate candidate has no big ambitions to start with, with the Rep Senate or the Congress(God save us) nothing will be changed. Of course, they always will have an excuse.
Trump is "CONTAINED?" Have you been napping all this time, Brett? The total takeover of our Supreme Court by conservative judges is his doing! And that will be just the tip of the iceberg if Trump is reelected.
28
Bret..."By now, Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable." Are you crazy? He might be containable if he would get better handlers around him, but he is NOT contained now...he's doing great damage by the day. Bernie will not be worse; congress will not impose the taxes you are fearing. If you think "the Devil we know" strategy will save America, you are listening to the voices in your head instead of clearly looking around you.
14
Bernie isn't my first choice but I'd vote for him. Blind anger is not restricted to the right. Will Bernie be a megalomaniac? Who knows? But for me he's a preferable megalomaniac than the hateful, despicable Trump.
15
Bret's argument is based on the idea that he prefers the certainty of a bad presidency (Trump) over the uncertainty of a possible bad presidency (Sanders). This is illogical and misguided any way you look at it. It is like being forced to make a bed and deciding to bed on the option that you know will make you lose instead of betting on the option that you know could make you lose or win.
8
My 5:30 am joggers would vote for a tree stump over trump. Or my dog, Riley. Boom!
10
The most interesting part of this article is the comment section. So many comments seem to be defending the Sanders Campaign in the face of these attacks by centrist pundits.
Yes, Sanders is electable.
Yes, it is possible for him to beat Trump in the general IF we are willing to support him.
No, he will not be a dictator that will bring about the complete destruction of everything we know and love.
He wants to bring the common folk to the table and give them a chance to say how their govt should be run. That is why he is becoming so popular. It is also why these pundits can't understand him. They have become cogs in the machine and they cannot understand anything outside of their own machine.
22
"...Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless -- but so far containable."
I encourage Mr. Stephens to spend some time reading his own paper. Trump was told to pipe down on Dept of Justice cases by as loyalist an AG as he is going to find and ignored him. He has gone after federal judges and jurors in the Roger Stone case and hinted at a pardon for lying to government investigators as part of the Russian election interference investigation. He told Supreme Court judges to recuse themselves on matters related to him, following his usual pattern of trying to de-legitimize any person or institution that considers truth or law an obstacle to his delusional view of the world. He has moved a loyalist (Richard Grenell) into office of Director National Security. People prepared to tell Trump he is wrong or tell anyone the truth are being replaced by his cult followers. If Russia interferes in the 2020 election, will there be anyone left to investigate it? Will he/she be able to speak about it?
And if that weren't enough, can we really endure four more years of Trump's climate change denial? Who is containing that?
Trump's only redeeming characteristic is that he does not like to commit troops to foreign wars, so he is less likely to stumble into an Iraq like mess, and he is not normally violent. He like the authoritarian swaggers, but he attacks opponents verbally, but not physically.
Bernie at his worse is no where near as dangerous as Trump.
13
I must say I don't enjoy these columns as much with Bret Stephens as Gail's foil as I did with other conservatives. Maybe try Ross Douthat. On 'The Argument' he at least seems to have a sense of humor.
4
Imagining Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office sounds wonderful after three horrid Trump years.
17
Sen. Sanders spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union (remember them?) because he liked what he saw. He reaped high praise on Castro's Cuba. He approves of the job Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. Tell me when we get to the part about how he supports democracy, Gail.
The country has already proven it can survive more than 3 years of the Donald, and it can likely survive another 4. It may have been unpleasant but we did it. And, though I expect you'll disagree, many of his policies were good.
I don't think the nation can survive 4 years of Bernie. Especially if the Democrats control both houses of Congress.
I won't enjoy voting in November if it's Trump v. Sanders. Not one bit. But I'm pretty sure how I'll vote.
10
I heard someone say that, depending on the VP that Bernie picks, his tenuous health and old age could become a feature rather than a liability.
4
Bret, maybe you could get a question through to Michael Bloomberg: how much does your company pay in health insurance premiums? Then go and ask the latest Sulzburger scion. I bet the number would make your eyes water.
4
As a loyal Democrat, I have never been a Bernie fan. However, IF he becomes the nominee, I would vote for him. I can even come around to liking him. He is a very decent and honest polititian as opposed to the current occupant of the White House. IF he were to become president, I suspect his expensive ideas of Health Care For All, and Free College Education for All, would be moderated in Congress.
Currently, the now repugnant party has given us "Capitalism Unleashed" in favor of the rich. It is a sad failure of education that the word "socialism" strikes fear in minds of the voting public. We need some "Modified Capitalism" ala "Democratic Socialism.
15
It's good to look outside the domestic partisan dichotomy for the views of the more practically minded...like, say, Vladimir Putin. We're told by US intelligence that he's helping Bernie Sanders win the Democratic nomination. What does that tell us?
It depends on what we see as the ideal outcome in Putin's eyes. I happen to think it's four more years of Trump, who has surpassed George W Bush in hollowing out and dividing the US, and bleeding away its moral authority.
That means Putin thinks a Sanders candidacy all but guarantees a Trump win (not that he prefers Sanders as president; how could anyone even suggest such a thing?).
It's ironic: In destroying Hillary Clinton and refusing to vote for her in the election, Sanders and his Democratic acolytes did much to elect Trump. Now Putin is trying to re-elect Trump by setting Sanders up as the tethered goat.
4
@Nick Wright
Give me a hint, which part is "helping" the Sanders campaign?
Is it the Putin Bernie Bots harassing people? Does this "help" Sanders win?
Maybe it was obviously getting caught, like he and everyone else knew they would, somehow supporting the Sanders campaign (yet no one will say how, when, where, why, how much etc. ZERO proofs).
SO...how is showing Putin's hand upon the scale "helping" Bernie?
If anything it has sown doubt and division. That isn't a help is it?! Now commentators such as yourself beat Sanders over the head calling him a puppet/communist. Is this somehow "helping" Sanders get elected?!
C'mon.
Russia is just meddling. If they can damage the frontrunning Dem. candidate, that 5yrs. worth of polls (over 100 in all) say Bernie beats Donny 99% of the time; they will happily do so.
So...Putin's "helping" Trump in your view, by hurting Sanders, so that he'll be the Dem. nominee?!
WHAT?
3
Australia's great Medicare system is funded by a one and a half percent levy on our income tax. Try and find an Australian who objects.
22
Oh, Bret,
How I pity you! Pitching Bernie versus Trump as a choice between Hitler and Stalin? Has clinging to billionaire Bloomberg as your savior turned your brain to mush? Please go back and read Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America," if you want to know what will happen to you when Trump's "Jews will not replace us" crowd re-takes the White House. . .
15
Bret, You think, based on the evidence available to you today, that trump is "so far containable"? What are you smoking?
18
Brett clearly values his bank account over his country.
It's really just that simple.
21
Bret- Trump, "so far containable"?
So what has he tried to do that we don't know about that was contained? Because to date he has never been contained for doing things we do know about.
14
Yes! The thought of Bernie in the WH is so much better than the psychopathy, the lying, the legal and economic chaos, the Putin connection and the corruption of Trump.
Bernie, for whatever his faults are, is a decent person. That alone makes him a million times more qualified.
As for socialism..what do you older voters think Medicare is?
17
Why doesn’t Sanders point out that ALL public sectors conduct socialism for the interests controlling the government?
17
Collins and Stephens show to be not in touch with what real and normal people want and that is change now. All what Trump promised to do for them turned out to be lies, even worse: exactly the opposite. If these pundits truly would like to see Trump go they need to treasure Bernie a bit more.
10
Fear not the Sanders Presidency. Unlike Trump you have ethical well intentioned people that will curb the most "extreme" Sanders positions that frighten Bret. Unlike Trump the horrific without guardrails and supported by a former Republican party that has no moral backbone or guidance.
This is an easy choice for the good of the country.
11
@Will Goubert You think? Suddenly the Bernie Bros will become silent and gentle, now that their icon has the Presidency?
J Park, no they won't become "silent and gentle" but nor should they as we live in a democracy. They may be rude online but they are not at all like the hundreds of white supremacists supporting Trump, many of whom have been charged with committing violent crimes. Or other Trump supporters who have vowed to use "Second Amendment " measures if Trump does not win.
6
Could anyone be worse than Trump.
6
This 'conversation' sounds like Gail's Eve offering the Bernie apple to Bret's Adam...'trust me, take a bite, everything will turn out wonderful!" :)
1
The more you gaslight the voters, Mr. Stephens, the more defiant they get. The working class has gotten the short end in this country for decades, and we aren't going to take it anymore. We deserve to benefit from our own tax dollars, instead of continuing to fund the longest wars in American history, subsidies for billionaires, and the outright theft of our Treasury in 2008. Oh no, we have not forgotten, not this time. Our own people's health, education, and increasingly, physical safety and stability, is at risk. There is no longer a reachable American dream for the vast majority of us. We are ashamed at what has happened to our country, we are tired of feeling disempowered, and we need something to hope for and to reach for; through the spreading poverty, the existential threat to our Republic, and even our survival as a species raised by the specter of climate change. This is the people's moment, stand aside and bear witness.
17
Mr Stephens: Others have made this point in different ways, but please give me an example of Trump being contained.
12
Sanders, like Warren, are a couple of lunatics. Trump will win by a landslide if Sanders is the Democratic nominee. The only one that has a chance of beating Trump is Bloomberg. And Klobuchar would be a good choice for V.P.
7
Complete the following
"When dictatorship is a fact..."
Armadeu de Prado
1
This conversation smacks (soundly!) of two people who have little to lose in this election, compared to folks who are working poor, living pay check to paycheck, or are one major medical diagnosis away from financial ruin. The tongue-in-cheek tones are frankly offensive. I am saddened and angry to read the flagrant normalizing language Stephens uses to claim that Trump is contained or in any way a better choice in the name of preserving his vision of rationality in democratic centrism. We have been dragged right for years, ever since the Red scare of McCarthyism. It is time to wake up from the brainwashing and bad examples, and learn the complexity of these political philosophies, how they overlap and intertwine AND operate within a democracy.
22
Why do we have to choose between two ranting radicals when most of America is moderate?
4
The Republicans use their fundraising surplus to back the primary campaigns of the Democrats they want to run against.
2
@Steve Bolger I agree. And just like 2016, people are gobbling it up.
1
These two pundits are devoid of any normal ethos , compassion or morality if they can't recognize the inherent benefits of Sanders over Trump.
13
Bret: "Sure, Trump is an authoritarian with no regard for the rule of law, morals, or ethics, who separates families and leaves children to die in cages; four more years of him would probably destroy the country and lead us into WWIII, but Bernie would raise my taxes so the end of the Union it is!"
Why is the NYT still giving this guy a national voice? Shouldn't there be some requirement from the paper of record that if you're going to hand someone a loudspeaker, they have something (anything!) productive, noteworthy, or educational to say? Lately it's just harassing college professors, "Bernie is a communist", and "yay eugenics!"
15
"Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich-"
News on the march! Right wing New York Times columnist uses word "working class" for first time in his career!
"Only because I had to," Stephens explained. "See, Sanders is saying M4A would help 'workers,' - as (chuckle) volitional, contractually bound labor service providers are sometimes mislabeled...
"...and I was saying, no, M4A would, in reality, raise their taxes. Why I didn't support that claim? Well that's another story I don't want to distract from the important thing.
"The important thing is that I hyphenated working and class to indicate a certain sociological distance from the term, as opposed to using it as a working descriptive category for mislabeling the atomistic labor of voluntary service providers. Pretty clever of me, huh?"
4
The elites as epitomized by Collins and Stephens are so cocooned within their bubbles that they have completely lost touch with where the electorate is today. The country has been irrevocably changed by 9-11, the Great Recession and the historic wealth gap and is profoundly different from the one that found George McGovern "too radical" in 1972. They don't care whether Bernie is Putin's favorite, or whether Trump is, or who it is that Putin favors. They care about barely treading water in an expanding economy of which the rich are the primary beneficiaries. They care about the ongoing destruction of the planet. They care about how the wealth gap has hollowed out our democracy and our government and installed a de facto oligarchy uninterested in their needs. Do Democrats honestly believe they can address that ongoing and growing discontent with a nominee like Bloomberg? Or with any status quo centrist nominee?
As Robert Reich has pointed out, politics today is no longer about left vs. right, or "Red Team vs. Blue Team," but rich vs. the rest of us. Trump won in 2016 not because of Russia, James Comey or Jill Stein, but because the Democrats allowed him to exploit the situation by offering no alternatives of their own other than the same old, same old. Instead of wringing their hands over Bernie they need to embrace him, because he is the only candidate capable of engaging Trump where the battle is actually being fought, and winning.
9
@Boris Jones Wrong. Most older liberals find Bernie obnoxious and don't think he can pay for his policies. Also, we need someone who can put more liberals on the SCOTUS. Do you think Bernie will be doing that 8 years from now when he's pushing 90?
1
@Kajsa
Most "older liberals" are actually quite content with the status quo because they did relatively well with it. They have no conception of the lives of Americans outside their bubble. The median annual wage in the United States is just $31,900. The standard measure of housing affordability is 30% of pre-tax income; for the median wage, that would come to $797.50/month, but median monthly gross residential rent in the United States was $1,012 and rising. If these "older liberals" find Bernie's outrage over this state of affairs persisting in the richest country in the world "obnoxious," I suggest that says more about them than him.
8
What would be REALLY cool would be if trump won the WH with a minority popular vote, and the Dems won both the Senate and Congress in a massive landslide, and then trump was properly impeached AND removed from office.
That would simply splendid.
10
Bret, take a breather and come up to visit Canada, where you can find lots of national politicians well to the left of Bernie and a country that is not falling apart.
We have a single-payer system like Medicare for all and yet we spend far less than our American friends on our health care system and have better outcomes.Our politicians don't talk about tax cuts because we all know you get what you pay for.
We have better paid maternity leaves and lower college tuition, all things Bernie would want. The things that trouble you Bret are things that other developed countries take for granted.
17
@Brian Americans don't like paying taxes, that's the bottom line. Politicians are supposed to represent the people that vote for them, so why would they advocate for higher taxes?
The US government wastes and mismanages money...People don't trust our government to spend tax money wisely, so why would they want to give the government more?
Maternity leave varies by state laws, but the federal government establishes a minimum bar companies must follow.
High college tuition here is a result of the government getting involved.
Healthcare here would still be more expensive than in Canada with a single payer system. The government tried to intrude in healthcare and the prices skyrocketed. The US would go bankrupt with a 100% socialized healthcare system.
@Mike Citations, please! I sure don't see any....
4
I dislike politicians who rant, so I dislike Bernie. I'd vote for him over Trump because at least he won't drop a bomb somewhere, but I am not enthusiastic.
2
Don't care for Mr. Stephen's method of spin buttressed by meanness. He tries to insult people who support services and taxes that would help everyone. I am tired of the corporate theocracy that has a strangle-hold on our country and continues to suck the money out of our pockets; I have no respect for those who gulp at its font. There is one guy who keeps telling it like it is and it is Bernie--unadorned, thoughtful and still uncynically hopeful for America.
8
Sanders is America’s most rigid politician, captive to an unyielding inner vision which rejects compromise. His candidacy is rooted in his unwavering belief that America is about to awaken to the rightness of his ideology. He says, “we will stampede the previously obstructive Republican majority leader into compliance: That’s how change comes about: you make an offer to Mitch McConnell that he cannot refuse, and that is that the American people want to move in a different direction.”
Sorry, Bernie, NO ONE CAN OR HAS moved McConnell. Nor, if he remains in his all powerful position, will they. This grandiose belief is downright delusional, just as yelling that there’s going to be a revolution. We’ve seen 90% of Americans wanting gun control. Has that moved the congress? He’s dangerously misleading mostly young voters. Even if we take back the senate and keep the house, this congressional renegade will never have the support of enough in congress to deliver one of his promises.
To me, it’s downright alarming to watch this old man fool his followers into believing that, by sheer voice of will, he can blow up our culture then remake it into his socialistic image.
3
@crystalbay I am SO SICK of dogmatic idealists. All of them.
@crystalbay One more blowhard egotist. America's favorite type of politician.
Trump or Sanders. Or should I kill myself with a hand gun or rat poison? That is the question.
5
I can imagine Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office just fine and I hope it happens. The two of you who are writing this article are such fear mongers and are trying to hold on so dearly to the power that the New York Times gives to you and you are scared to death that all you and your pals and your cronies are going to lose some status and Power by virtue of Sanders being an office. Fear is what dominates the discourse in this Very ill-conceived opinion article. Not much reality-based thinking going on here
8
Cool photo of Bernie being eaten by the podium. I remember four years ago when the photo was from a slightly lower position and showed him fully ingested, with only his arms sticking out the sides of the podium, and his head completely cropped out of the photo, making him look like the ephemeral headless horseman riding the podium in pursuit of Ichabod Crane. Who says page layout is a boring job?
2
I have had friends that hadseveral heart attacks before the one that did them in & ALL had nasty habits & NO energy. Bernie has loads of energy & isnt as stupid as OBAMA was continuing to smoke when he Knows its a Death Blow soon.
Trump will have a heart attack sooner rather than Bernie.
Bernie wants a democratic socialism as opposed to Trump & Bloomberg that Believe that deficits are caused by Average Americans[which is why Bloomberg supported Red Lining African American & Low Income neighborhoods.]
those 2 are getting rich off of Outsourcing American jobs to China right now.
7
It's going to come down to "heart".
Most people know Trump is inherently self-centered, uncouth, vindictive and , well, evil. I dunno, maybe his base is like the OJ jurors who dismissed the damning DNA evidence. They strive, bend and twist, to believe what is obviously contrary to the truth.
Bernie, on the other hand, would really love to help all Americans. His platform costs don't seem to add up, but you can rest assured he'll attempt to accomplish his goals on a shoestring budget.
I believe you should prepare yourself for a Bernie Presidency, and your thoughts should turn from "what's wrong with a Sanders Presidency" to "How can I be of assistance".
7
All Bernie Sanders wants to do is make the U.S. a little more like Canada and the Dem establishment is acting like he's going to turn it into another Cuba... sheesh, get a grip.
17
Cute.
Bret wants to continue to play the intellectually dishonest game of arguing that a sexist, racist, sycophantic, illiterate with fascist tendencies (and that's being kind) and a socially conscious public servant with a decades-long record on public display are the same thing.
God bless the propagandist and his false equivalencies.
See this ladybug and this bedbug?
These things are the same!
5
The ultimate FLAW in Bret's thing is in the simple one word comment.trump has been "Containable"
Month by month, then week by week...now daily he is much less containable and more dangerous as he carri3es out his PURGE of anyone...everyone...who has ever had an intellegent thought...realized and let it show that trump is a dictator, a generational dictator wanna- be.
At first because of a lack of interest and self greed the repub looked the other way....now he is a large old fashioned trin gaining steam with no breaks attached and even if there some have now been broken off
2
I have only read the first third... slashing military budget Bret? Trump already has... by stealing to waste on a wall no one but his base line idiots want. You worry about Bernie slashing military spending at a time of heightened aggression from Putey and his sort? really? that is falling on deaf ears - mine.
4
Two greatest metaphors ever.
Containable???? By whom, the Senate who just failed to do its duty. A vote for anyone but a Democrat means a tRmup victory and the death of the republic.
3
This is not even a debate, and the fact that right-wing ideologue Bret Stephens is allowed on the op-ed pages of the NYT just proves the rightward lurch this paper has taken in recent years.
On the one hand we have a modern-day Caligula - a crass, unbalanced, empty, boorish fraud who's the poster child for every one of our worst American qualities - ignorance, greed, selfishness, cruelty, chauvinism. On the other we have a lifelong civil servant, intelligent, moral, dedicated, hard-working, who espouses rational principles of government that are so 'radical' that they're embraced by all other sane western democracies.
And Stephens and his stock portfolio and his
3
Doing your bit to cement the New York Times as the newspaper of choice for never Trumpers and right wing corporatist democrats. The people out here are tired of you both. America isn't working for us at all. We don't want to be exploited all our lives with nothing to show for it so your stock portfolio can rise and rise. When are you going to get it?
6
Bret, when you are full of fear, you make poor decisions. Vote for liberty not tyranny. Vote Democrat.
Democrats, mend your own fences and invite Bloomberg to help tonite.
Trump is separating families--taking children from their parents. I don't really care how a privileged opinion columnist feels about hypothetical inflation as much as I care about our discarded humanity. How in the world is keeping this Faulknerian idiot man-child in office one second longer than we have to a responsible platform for punditry?
3
I'm glad to report we will all be dead by Corona so no worries about Trump 2020
2
Who needs Breitbart and Fox News when the NYT is handing the election to Trump with their never Bernie Op Eds?
4
Bret, "By now, Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable." Are you high?
9
The country would do well if voters like Bret just stay home. If Bret can honestly equate a Sanders presidency with a 2nd term Trump presidency, and the damage it will do to this country, then I question your hold on reality. I will take democratic socialism over oligarchic autocracy any day and twice on Sundays.
6
I’m a Canadian. Your argument against medicare is word-for-word that spoken by detractors in the 50s, and 65 years later here it is again.
Let me tell you, you are whistling in the wind. We are just fine. The doctors are fine. The insurance companies have found other “revenue streams”. The people don’t pay premiums anymore (taken from general revenue), and our overall health is miles beyond yours. We can sleep at night and you shiver in your boots.
Get over it. Universal medicare works.
12
Gail wrote that folks who voted for the Green Party in 2016 elected Trump. I was one of those and I disagree most vehemently with that statement.
I'd argue that the Democrat party elected Trump. If they had nominated a better, less divisive candidate then I'm convinced that Trump would have lost. Clinton very richly deserved to lose after the deplorables statement.
Not that Trump deserved to win. Both parties failed America miserably in 2016.
3
Barry, I strenuously reject your argument that the Democratic Party got Trump elected. Three candidates decided to run, one dropped out early and then voters in the primaries chose Clinton by a large margin over Bernie. But for Jill Stein running, she would have won in the 3 Midwestern states Trump won by 75,000 votes. She got 3 million more votes than Trump. Just as Nader's candidacy in 2000 irrefutable got us the Iraq war and Citizens United, Jill Stalin's candidacy has done immeasurable damage to our environment from which we may never recover. Your reckless vote renders the chances of abating climate change in our lifetimes if ever.
1
If Trump can be elected and possibly re-elected there is no longer any such thing as un-electable.
4
I am not a big Bernie fan, but the attitude of many people seems to reflect that the disaster inhabiting the White House at the moment, i.e, that the president is utterly in charge of everything and can do exactly as he wants with no check nor balance from the other branches of government. Bernie would have the devil's own time fighting the stacked SCOTUS and the bought Senate. Even the inept Democrats would likely fight anybody trying to apply reasonable supervision to "unfettered capitalism." So it would appear that the last thirty years of greedy, unsupervised capitalism is going to endure- at least until it backfires as in the corporate sponsored opioid epidemic and Boeing's attempted suicide.
2
Bret seems to have revealed his true colours, but the real reason he could never vote for Bernie is that Bernie won't be doormat to Netanyahu - virtually the only reason this reader would be more than happy to see Bernie elected to highest office short of a better candidate like Klobuchar, but a good enough one for all of that.
4
Bernie is not a socialist. If he was he would be advocating the overthrow of capitalism and nationalizing industry. He's advocating affordable health care and universally available education. Other countries (one to or north) have done it. they are not broke or overtaxed. Why do we continually declare that we are too dumb to keep up with progressive countries instead of declaring we can do it better?
7
It's almost laughable (sadly) how so many twist Bernie into a Stalin. He is no dictator and has a lot of good ideas that need some real discussions and challenges. I thought that is what Congress is for. Some of the most admired countries are democratic socialist. Best in health, education, happiness, business. Socialism is NOT communism
5
Frankly I find it easier to imagine Bernie Sanders being the first nominee to lose to an impeached president.
3
Don’t waste your time imagining something that will never happen. Trump will detroy Sanders in the general election. Why else do you think the Russians are trying to have Sanders get the nomination? It’s only deluded Democrats who think otherwise. God help us all.
3
Bernie socialistic tendencies began at an early age. He was a teenager at Brooklyn College peddling his socialistic views and the other students did not buy it. He fled Brooklyn and perhaps went to study in Chicago. Bernie is not what this country wants and he in no way will win against Trump. A moderate in the White House is what we need to put this country back on track, Bernie is no moderate.
2
"unheard of"
Except in Europe, I guess, that terrible bastion of oppression?
3
I have little toleration for those like Stephens who say they cannot vote for Bernie or any of the other Dems. Trump poses an existential threat to the planet, the federal judiciary and democracy itself. Who cares if you don't like Bernie's policies or Bloomberg's past? It doesn't matter right now. This is not a normal upcoming election. Nor is it an election for prom king. We don't have the luxury of supporting only a favorite of ours. We are literally in a position where the planet is at risk. Trump does not believe the climate is warming, and that we have only 10 years left to do something. If he is re-elected he is likely to have appointed close to one half of the federal judiciary! And democratic institutions are starting to waiver now. Imagine what will happen to them if he gets 4 more years. Nothing else matters but slaying the dragon-in-chief. Period.
5
"so far containable"
That is far from the reality, Bret Stephens.
3
Let's see Fascism or Social Democracy. The choice is so hard. I pick neither. This is my characterization of Mr. Stephens. You are still picking one when you say neither and we know which one it is, you just won't admit it.
3
Didn't Bret Stephens just go on Bill Maher and grill Pramila Jayapal about Sanders supporters not supporting whoever the nominee is? He wanted to make sure progressives would vote for a centrist, but he, as a centrist, won't vote for Sanders. A little hypocritical, no?
5
@ Carmen Castillo (who is ok with Bernie being elected president since congress will never implement his plans)
So you are saying, and the editor is picking your comment as worthy, that human rights such as healthcare and education paid by our taxes is something that congress members would block without being kicked out by the voters?
You have to understand something: Congress works for you and me. Not the other way around. If we want something and are willing to pay for it, we own the right to do so. That is the meaning of democracy.
If the voters of this country vote for Bernie as president and the congresspeople from the red states want to block the will of the majority of the voters of our nation, I then suggest we split as Blue and Red United States. I have nothing that binds me to people who voted for Trump and to the Senators and Representatives from the GOP. Nothing whatsoever. Perfectly happy to secede.
3
Bloomberg has a sense of humor and is capable of self-deprecation. Check out his turn on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” a few years ago.
All of you centrist journalists seem to be totally unable to handle the philosophy of democratic socialism. Why is that? and why is it that you're so out of touch with the people who support Bernie Sanders? They are ordinary, hard-working people who haven't had a break for a very long time, but they are also professionals, people who are doing very well in life but want to see society lifted up. They are young and old. Y'all aren't nearly as smart and cool as you think you are.
3
It cannot be repeated enough at how badly Bret Stephens opinions make the NYT look. He consistently moves the goalposts on acceptable behavior for DJT that it's to the point of pure parody. Apparently Trump is containable. How? Congress gave him a pass on clearly impeachable offenses. He's purging the executive branch of people that aren't loyal to him. Where's this containment coming from? Essentially, there is no depth that Trump could sink where Bret Stephens would commit to doing the most effective thing to stop Trump, and that is voting for a Democrat no matter who it is. Time and time again, I click on NYT columns by him hoping that he has some epiphany about his ways, only for Lucy to pull the football on me.
4
Oh Bret. Trump is containable? Really? How? And by who? Your party as abrogated their values, their responsibilities, and their very souls in their total capitulation to their dictatorial leader. Not only is not containable, he is not contained. He is damaging democracy in this country every single day he is in office. This damage is probably repairable at this point, with a lot of hard work and 8 years of more of a democratic president. Give him another 4 years and its quite debatable if we will have any democracy left at all.
2
@Carmen Castillo (who thinks Congress will kill all of Bernie’s plans to bring human dignity and human rights to the people of the United States so voting for him doesn’t change much anyways)
So you are saying, and the editor is picking your comment as worthy, that human rights such as healthcare and education paid by our taxes is something that congress would stop without being kicked out by the voters?
You have to understand something, Congress works for you and me. Not the other way around. If we want something and are willing to pay for it, we own the right. That is the meaning of democracy.
If the voters of this country vote for Bernie as president and the congress people of the red states want to block the will of the majority of the voters of our nation, I then suggest we split as Blue and Red United States. I have nothing that binds me to people who voted for Trump and the Senators and Representatives from the GOP. Nothing whatsoever. Perfectly happy to secede.
1
Bret would feel better if Trump won again... pretty much says it all.
2
Stephens makes the mistake that so many make with Sanders' proposals: looking only at the costs and not the benefits. "He's going to raise taxes on the middle class!!! OMG, the sky is falling!!!"
There are real economies to be had in a single-payer system, which is what he's proposing (not "socialized medicine" as some people who have not been paying attention seem to think; the government would be the health-care *insurer*, not the *provider*). Eliminate the profits in health-care insurance and use the bargaining power of one insurer with everyone as a customer and costs will come down.
But he's going to raise taxes!! So??? If, for example, he saves you $5000/year in health-care costs -- premiums, co-pays -- but increases your taxes by $2000, would you take that deal??
Even Buttigieg has jumped on the "he's going to raise taxes" bandwagon. Either he doesn't understand the simple math or he does and he's saying this anyway (either one is bad). You have to look at the *whole* picture. If he saves you more in payments to private providers than he increases your taxes, you are BETTER OFF.
Now he has to convince us that this theory works in practice. But I wish people would at least get the theory right.
1
Not a pretty picture an 80 yr old socialist waving his arms and pointing his finger at the filthy rich and issuing an executive order shutting down Wall Street and seizing the funds of billionaires to be tossed from the rooftops in poor neighborhoods. Bernie is the other side of the Trump coin a demagogue who for 40 years and has accomplished nothing but feed his ego and get rich writing a book. Time for grandpa to hit the porch on his rocker and stop stirring up class warfare.
1
@Carmen Castillo (who thinks voting for Bernie is OK because Congress will just kill all his proposals anyway)
So you are saying, and the editor is picking your comment as worthy, that human rights such as healthcare and education paid by our taxes is something that congress would stop without being kicked out by the voters?
You have to understand something, Congress works for you and me. Not the other way around. If we want something and are willing to pay for it, we own the right. That is the meaning of democracy.
If the voters of this country vote for Bernie as president and the congress people of the red states want to block the will of the majority of the voters of our nation, I then suggest we split as Blue and Red United States. I have nothing that binds me to people who voted for Trump and the Senators and Representatives from the GOP. Nothing whatsoever. Perfectly happy to secede.
1
Rich white Democrats would rather have Trump as president than a progressive who wants to help the poor and minorities.
1
Bret Stephens: I disagree strongly that Trump is containable. He is purging thoughtful people from government positions in security and soon other areas. He has the Justice Department in a stranglehold. He is corrupt, spews lies, and is a policy idiot. Sanders has a history of playing within the system, and there are kernels of truth underlying many of his criticisms of the tax system, Wall Street, health care, university costs that are unattainable for many students, the environmental crisis, and other issues. I have faith that Congress and the Courts would contain him and that he would comply. Can you honestly say the same about Trump? There is no equivalency between the two men.
1
Trump has all but destroyed our relations with our allies. We have to restore the post-War consensus. Never Trump again, please.
1
A Bloomberg button just plopped in there? Subtle. Keep the smears coming. It’s only helping Bernie to have people like you against him.
1
Bret's view in this article shows how many establishment Democrats feel.
To say that Trump being reelected is better, because at least you know you will still be fine is completely selfish.
To say that, when latino families are being ripped apart and caged at the border, makes clear that those families where just tools for you to use for argumentative purposes against Trump. But when it actually comes to their well-being, you abandon them. Please vote for someone you don't know. Even if you don't know how it will turn out.
1
All this "centrist" blather ignores two basic facts about the recent history of "centrism". First this is what got us Trump and his Republican bootlickers. And second starting with Reagan the Republicans have dragged the "center" so far to the right that it has ceased to exist.
6
Bret, I’m sure other commenters already have said this: Trump is not being contained. And if he wins again there will be no containment of him AT ALL. Think of a jackboot stomping your face, forever. Bernie ain’t like that. He’s a mensch.
1
Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office is a ridiculous pipe dream. It will never happen.
1
People, snap out of it! I can't stand Bernie Sanders' policies, but Trump is destroying our country and our humanity.
yes, definitely, I would vote for someone who made a self deprecatory joke over someone who has stood up for working people his whole life.
1
Boy another Republican hero. When it comes down to right or wrong, good or bad; he goes for the money. I'll take wrong, I'll take bad just give me my monetary policy. Will stop reading this clown who pretends to be a thoughtful moderate until he has to put it on the line.
why be afraid of a guy who wants a moral society? If you are then keep the shining star you've got.
NY Times Headline
November 4, 2020
THE NATION, IN UNPRECEDENTED NUMBERS, ELECTS BERNIE SANDERS PRESIDENT
You both need to wake up, smell the coffee, and get out of your ivory tower. You are out of touch with the critical mass forming among the working/middle class across this country. The Republican Party is an aging dinosaur in its death march. The DNC and the crooked Debbie Wasserman Schultz had its thumb on the scale for HRC in 2016 which is why Clinton lost because Bernie’s supporters were disgusted, angry and either voted for Trump out of spite or just stayed home. Just as you (and practically everyone else) underestimated Trump’s chances in 2016, Bernie will win in November.
2
I can imagine it well enough. Some of his aids are overheard trashing women and President Bernie blames it on the internet. A week later another aid is heard making homophobic comments and our bold commander in-chief dismiises it as an anomaly since everyone knows that's absurd. If his moral leadership were only equal to his ability to attract followers!
1
This writing and almost all the writing on Bernie Sanders by the NYT makes me believe more and more that they are comprised of mainly rich liberals disconnected from the regular American living and keeping on. You are terrified of changing the status quo because it never hurt you, the people are speaking and they want Sanders and if you equate a man who has decades of public service to a liar, cheat, abuser of women (and the list goes on) then you are against the American people and morality. I am voting sanders and no smear piece can sway me otherwise
1
Bret's argument to simply say, "no, thank you," and pat himself on the back for purity sake is foolish, at best. I'd liken our current situation to being locked in the trunk of a car driven by a drunken, suicidal maniac heading for the docks full speed with a few cops feebly chasing him. Inside the car with the maniac is your 12-year-old. In any other situation, you would not want your kid to take control of the wheel, but it is not exactly the worst thing that could happen. Imagining a cop teleporting into the front seat to save the day and your child is what voting libertarian in these circumstances looks like. Impossible solutions aren't solutions here. You may just as well vote for armegeddon by that logic.
The rest of us will cheer on the absolutely terrified tween to disable the driver- and hope the kid fights dirty, too.
And THEN hope the kid lets us out of the trunk.
Heck, I'd not hate the kid if they didn't rush around to open the trunk. Afterall, the kid's a hero by then. Maybe your savior libertarian/imaginary teleporting cop could get around to that part once the cops finally catch up?
Some rogue who's never been elected dogcatcher before in his life vs. Senator Bernie Sanders - tough choice for the snoots.
1
All this Bret Stephens crying in his champagne is making me tired. Gail, can you put in a word for me if Bernie becomes President. I want that nosebleed Stephen Miller's job.
We'll set up a rendition program that collects and ships all Trump appointees, cabinet members and assorted hangers on like Hannity et al to their favorite country, Putinland. We'll use one of those CIA rendition ready ships. Trump can play golf in the hold. Live streaming 24 x7!
2
Imagine Sanders in the Oval Office?
I say you’re a dreamer.
@Steven Roth
Cue John Lennon.
Nothin' good ever started w/o a dream, eh?
1
@Steven Roth
I can imagine Sanders there.
What I can't imagine there is the current tenant.
1
"....but so far containable"
The rule of law has been shattered and continues to be. Half the country understands this. The international community understands this.
Enjoy the odd vote to satisfy inner integrity. But you have hurt the United States of America.
Contained? With all due respect to Mr. Stephens, what planet is he living on?
If the experts (who Trump will ignore as he does everyone else) are correct, we are likely facing a significant public health crisis, which he has neither the competence nor the temperament to manage. I certainly have my issues with Sanders, but I'd take him in a heartbeat right over the fraud we currently have in the White House.
And if Mr. Stephens is as big a "never Trumper" as he claims to be, he'd be saying the same thing. If he's not, then he's no different than the rest of Trump's enablers.
1
What exactly is “all the due respect” anyone owes Bret Stephens? Please explain yourself. I dislike that meaningless hedge clause. Specially when it applies to people who associate Bernie Sanders, a true mensch, with a fatal disease such a brain hemorrhage.
1
I’ll pay 75%more taxes than I pay now for the peace of mind I would get for being covered without contributions (which are higher than my taxes and I am in a Union) and deductibles. It’s math, I’m not a mathematician but I know I’ll come out ahead.
2
From a leadership standpoint, a President Bernie is a massive improvement over Trump. If Bernie gets the most delegates but the moderate Dems collude to prevent him from being the official nominee, then progressives should leave the Dems and form their own party. The moderates are the problem not the progressives in the Dem party. Firing up the base is the surest way to win a general election. Bernie knows how its done.
2
I'm under the impression this it's up to Congress to originate any healthcare legislation change unless a President Sanders played the Executive Order card. So not sure what this Medicare for All sturm and drang is about. Or have we lost all sight in the way the three branches of government works?
Sander's may do badly, but given the polarization that exists today, I can't see him losing 49 states like McGovern.
@DB, when you can’t see something, it helps to open your eyes.
He we will all the midwestern states that Hillary lost. That is the big difference. People in those states got the shaft from Trump. If they haven’t woken up by now, they will never do.
1
Dear Mr. Stephens,
If you can show good reason to believe that Bernie Sanders would do any or all of the following, then I will concede that you might have reason to vote third party
1. Not only ignore the climate change crisis but willfully enact policies to worsen it.
2. Defy legal subpoenas or requests for material from Congress, thus neutering our Constitutional system of checks and balances.
3. Purge our government of any patriots willing to expose wrongoing by his administration.
4. Drain, disparage, and demoralize our intelligence services, our state department, and our health departments such as the NIH and the CDC--thus making all of us immeasurably less safe.
5. Villify everyone who opposes him in any way.
6. Claim that no Supreme Court justices not wholly owned by the Democratic Party should take part in any action involving him.
If you CANNOT show such reason and yet give DJT the benefit of your third party vote, then I submit that you will be complicit in the destruction of our planet and our Constitutional rule of law. How would you be able to sleep?
3
At this point, I have probably read a hundred different defenses of Bernie's healthcare plan, all hinging on the fact that every other western country has universal healthcare. Yet no one has been able to explain to me why Bernie wants to outlaw private insurance, when none of those other countries have.
5
@Autumn
If you keep private insurance in the mix, they'll take the healthiest people leaving the federal government to pickup the sickest. This will do nothing to control costs which is huge motivating factor for m4a.
This is the principle argument against the public option.
2
@Autumn
That's correct. Most countries haven't gone anywhere near as far as Bernie wants to go.
3
@John
Then how have other countries managed to avoid this without eliminating private insurance?
At last Stephens is showing his true colors. No respectable individual (or democrat for that matter) with more than a basic level of comprehension can honestly believe that a Sanders presidency would be more dangerous than a second term of Trump. If reduced healthcare costs, education for all, aggressive climate change policies and a more pragmatic use of taxpayers' money counts as dangerous, then by all means sign me up!! It is clear that the media and corporations are scared by the possibility of a Sanders presidency given the level of bias and vitriol spewed against him. For the record, FDR--who we consider one of the greats--was a democratic socialist. And Bernie's policies are not too far off the mark from those proposed by FDR's new deal. It's high time we finally reign in unchecked capitalism in this country
7
"I fear a Sanders presidency would infect the Democratic Party with its own form of ideological extremism, from which it would take many years to recover and would mean an American system with two political parties that have gone bonkers, rather than merely one."
Translation - it suits me just fine to have a Republican far right party and a Republican lite party, whilst whinging about both. The great traditions of FDR are now too extreme for America... or at least oligarchic America.
One can't encourage the party that has gone 'bonkers' to correct course by chasing it ever further to the right; that's how the country arrived at its current predicament.
6
Putin wants either Trump or Sanders because both are isolationists. With the U.S. out of the way, Putin can continue to pursue his goal to recreate the U.S.S.R. When Carter was forced to pull back from the world because of America's war weary reaction to Vietnam, Cuba and Russia swooped in to fill the void. I fear we are in big trouble no matter which one is elected.
1
Gail and Bret are confused about both Trump and Bernie. let see some good journalism about Bloomberg or Bieden. Have you guys watched last Sunday's 60 minutes?
1
Stephens is showing the same stubbornness as many disenfranchised Republicans. A false equality between Trump, and Sanders, (or Warren, if she were leading). They want a President on their terms only. It’s going to take everyone to join together and get behind the Democratic candidate to oust Trump, and the Republican Senators who have put Trumpism ahead of country. That means from the most liberal to the most middle of the road, who believe in what America used to stand for. Any other argument is in-American, as far as I’m concerned.
9
Socialism and capitalism are economic systems. Democracy and communism are political systems. So when Sanders says socialist, he's talking about some part of our economy not being set up to make a profit. Not McDonald's but public schools. Or, gasp! our military. We all pay for our military together, right? Our soldiers aren't mercenaries, right? Then that bit of our economy is technically socialism. That's how it works: when we all vote in our democracy to pay for the military or schools, we're being socialists. When we eat at McDonald's, we're being capitalists. :)
10
This isn't funny, folks. However unlikely you may think Sanders' chances are, words have consequences and going all-in to get on board with the Democratic nominee is vital. Don't forget - this election will be absent a Republican challenger to Trump. Think about that. Not even Chris Christie will go there and he wanted the presidency so bad he could taste it.
5
It is shocking to me that Bret would contribute to the win an authoritarian with no human values so he doesn't have to vote for someone whose views he disagrees with. That he doesn't know if he should vote against someone who is tearing down the foundation that our country is based on and undermining our country's inspirational role in the world. And someone who is committed to the destruction of the planet/environment.
Bernie Sanders isn't that radical, he just says the same things over and over, with limited areas of expertise.
Bret, there is no check happening on the current White House occupant by his own party. Your views about finance and healthcare are so minor compared to the planet and our very country.
9
@Jeffrey I mostly agree with you. However, I find the often cited criticism that Sanders "says the same things over and over" to be a bit shallow. That and the fact that he is always "shouting". For the bazillion of us that view Sanders' candidacy as an "it's about time" moment, the fact that NY Times opinion writers and liberals across the country are whining about his tone, particularly in the Trump age, is very baffling. If I had been saying the same insightful things repeatedly for decades, I suppose I would start to shout at some point too.
6
I dislike Sanders, but I'm stunned by the abject terror he instills in conservatives. President Sanders will be the same person as Mayor, Representative, and Senator Sanders. He understands how the legislature works, he understands compromise, and he not only understands incrementalism, he has engaged in it from time to time during his lengthy career. Yes, he's a loudmouth, and yes, he'll try to push things as far left as he can in certain (but not all) ways, but there will still be the wide range of ideological variation among Democratic legislators to deal with, not to mention the knee-jerk opposition of Republicans. He will accomplish some things, but hardly the revolutionary change he touts and the Republicans fear and loathe. And all of this within the framework of American political traditions and the rule of law.
No, it is foolish to vote for Trump because you're afraid of Sanders. Embarrassingly stupid, even.
7
@Greg Shenaut: Of course, Bernie Sanders is a loudmouth. Even though he represents Vermont, he's from New York.
1
ZERO chance Sanders wins. Currently watching television as Bernie is praising Castro. Not the brightest bulb.
4
@Mike DeMaio When Castro took power over 90% of the population was illiterate. 1% owned everything, many of them non-Cubans. Whatever one thinks of Castro, changing the way things worked so over 90% or people had access to education and the literacy levels rose to over 90% is a giant positive leap for the people.
1
After the guy we have now, I can happily imagine Mickey Mouse in office.
3
"when a democratic system offers you awful choices you have a right, like Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, to say: “I would prefer not to” — and go vote libertarian."
How spineless can you get. Boo Hoo! I didn't get my way - so let's help elect Trump.
10
Why is Bernie Sanders radical? I think everyone considers financial inequality in this country to be a major concern and that factor is the principle force behind the Sanders philosophy. Why is medicare for all a radical concept? Just as Sanders has continuously pointed out, every other major developed country in the world except the U.S. has a form of health policy that attempts to provide health to all of its citizens, it's not some alien concept. Would it have problems at implantation. Undoubtedly, but if you were an employer wouldn't you actually like to shed all the cumbersome paperwork and energy that private business based insurance entails and couldn't you pass along all the tremendous expense it incurs to either your employees wages or a tax that continues coverage. The idea is really to make medical care in this country less expensive since it is currently the highest in the world without providing the best. Why are these particular items considered too far out to be accepted by the American electorate?
6
We already have dictatorship under Trump. For myself, as a follower of Jesus who encouraged socialism, I am 100% for Bernie.
5
Re-electing trump means Mitch McConnell ruining America, Electing Bernie means a rational Ms. Pelosi running Congress. I'll take Bernie.
12
These comments are not teaching the public the issues and explaining why we are here where we are. We are focusing on words like communism, socialism, capitalism which have wide, inaccurate interpretations and perceptions. Can the NYT publish an article on the possible financial breakdown of universal health care? The dramatic costs of having a for-profit health care industry. The costs of inequality perhaps. Or maybe the costs of global warming.
8
Bret Stephens claims Trump is..."contained"? Maybe for a white man with economic privilege. Not so for the rest of us.
7
I find Mr. Stephens positions to be out of touch. Bernie is a harbinger of a new era. He is showing our youth the way. With their rising civic engagement and collective confidence, the Millennial generation is poised to rival the Greatest generation, the generation that lifted this country from the ashes of the Great Depression, defeated Hitler, and built the strongest and most equitable economy in the history of the world. We need to get out of their way and let them lead. The Boomers and GenX (my generation) have failed.
5
Aargh. So tired of the unending misunderstanding of what Sanders’ policies would actually mean. In contrast to the knee jerk reaction of so-called moderates (more like conservatives from the 70’s) that any move toward more equitable, environmentally sustainable principles threatens life as we know it, I would advocate a bit more measured approach. In addition, Mr. Stephens should check his facts regarding the current president’s “containment”. I’d personally prefer Warren or Klobuchar, but it’s a mistake to see Sanders as so far out of the mainstream that you would sit out the election or throw your vote away. This is all hands on deck. I’m glad Mr. Stephens feels HE can survive another term of trumpism. There are many who will not.
4
This excellent dialogue really gets at the heart of what faces this country in the 2020 elections. The arguments made by Gail Collins and Bret Stephens, for and against Trump or Sanders ,(assuming Sanders is nominated) are understandable given the political "philosophies"of each journalist. If we had a crystal ball for how this country would operate in 2021 and onward, I think we would see an increasingly uncontrolled autocracy if Trump is reelected ( all evidence since his Senate "acquittal "suggests that), while, if the Democratic Party wins the presidency and Congress, we would see a very slow and painful pragmatic restoration of our governmental institutions, and a more balanced Congressional control of the Executive branch. Even if Sanders is elected, first we will have to face all the damage done by Trump and the GOP before Sanders could even begin to put his questionable ideology to the test. Furthermore, the current makeup of the US Supreme Court will certainly put some brake on possible excessive ideology.Therefore, I still hope that Sanders is not nominated, but given the choice, I would have to vote for him. Extreme Ideology on the far right and left, if allowed to fester, will only destroy this Country.
2
"And that would mean we’d really get to Feel the Bern in ways I think would be economically and socially ruinous. Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class."
We can't possibly know how this would go. If only the most equitable and happiest societies in the world had tried this system out, we would have something to guide us...
2
@Kyle And if some other countries would try out limiting their citizens access to guns - maybe then we would have a model.
3
Easy to imagine, but it's not gonna happen. The fix is in. Your votes don't matter (and haven't for many years). Prepare for more Trump.
The Democrat party stopped being Democrats some time ago and you wonder why Bernie is doing so well or why Trump won. The media will do everything it can to stop Saunders as they basically want a Republican and must be salivating for a Bloomberg win. Elizabeth Warren was my favorite as she was with many others yet she was considered unelectable. It is very sad to see what is going on in this country just heartbreaking.
2
Just like the lady who two generations ago said: "hell must be such a horrible place, just look at the name it's got," today's thoughtless people are being led to think that "socialist," is such a horrible person to be. Just as the great British economist John Maynard Keynes said it, if people want to save capitalism, an infusion of socialism is the only way.
5
This is a great comment! The best part of it is the message that torches and pitchforks might serve as a good steam vent and even win an election or two, but it's curtains for the survival of democracy, or even humankind.
I like Bret Stephens's comment about opinions changing as the facts do. The problem is he ignores this useful principle where health care funding is the issue.
What Bernie Sanders is promoting is a single-payer system, which is the norm in the developed world. American health care is the most expensive in the world and has some of the poorest outcomes. How is it that countries with lower per-capita incomes manage to fund health care out of general tax revenues? Why do Americans feel the need to support the parasitic private bureaucracy which increases costs and patient anxiety?
Living in Canada I show my (provincial) medical card to the receptionist at my local clinic when I wish to see my doctor, and that's it; I don't need to fill out forms or negotiate with a medical middle-man. I have (low-cost) private insurance for health issues not covered by my provincial plan--mostly dental care and eyeglasses. Single-payer systems vary from country to country, but most of them allow the use of private insurance for
secondary medical issues--something for Bernie Sanders to think about.
Bret Stephens really needs to do something about his intellectual myopia: the facts are readily available; he shows no interest in seeing them.
8
The slow growing malignant cancer is Stage 4. Hope it's not untreatable.
2
Stage 4 usually defies treatment. We might need to start over with a new disease.
Apparently Mr. Stephens is of the mindset that we’re all just hunky dory with what unbridled capitalism for the masses and socialism for the corporations and ultra-wealthy has wrought. Guess what: we’re not. FDR was apparently too radical for Stephens. Fine. But the rest of us are sick of our puppet government with politicians for sale to the highest bidders.
8
With deepest respect to Mr. Stephens, have you lost your mind? You would waste your vote in an election between a responsible leftie who will immediately run into the reality of the Senate and a con-man who is trying to turn the country into a tin-horn dictatorship, with some degree of success? Children in cages, having Col. Vindman's brother marched out of the White House, the firing or resignation of everyone who has ever tried to talk sense - this is "contained"? Capitalism will survive Bernie; a constitutional republic may not survive Trump.
12
It all depends on people's big issues. If your big issues are immigration, trade policy, and Israel/Middle East policy, voting for Sanders is a vote for disaster. If your big issues are health care, climate change, and social justice, voting for Trump is a disaster. You get to pick your lesser disaster.
3
@Snowball, this about the most sensible comment I’ve read. I’d also add recognizing that China is a big problem to the Trump column. Otherwise, pick your poison, either choice is dreadful
Brett, what are you inhaling? I am not a youngster; but in my late 60's. Cutting the military offensive budget is just the tonic this country and world needs to the dismay of the military industrial complex described very eloquently by Ike during his exit speech as President. We have a bloated offense budget greater than the next 5-8 countries combined!! Why not tax the wealthiest folks and corporations who have plundered the treasure due to a government and a Supreme Court that caters to them. Why not place our treasure in our people, especially the ones who actually do the labor or have been systematically oppressed over the years? Isn't it ridiculous that the US can't figure out a just health care system where Americans do not have to fear getting sick? hidden bills? Do you support children in cages at the border? Why not recover the American ideal of being an actual beacon of sanctuary and hope for those fleeing violent and oppressive regimes that the US has historically supported since the 1800's?? Bernie gets chastised for speaking about the Cuban health care and educational system; while it is fine to support all those regimes that were murderous dictatorships and also US allies trained by the US Army School of the Americas?? How was life under Batista?? Get real, Brett. Bernie will actually obey the rule of law, work with Congress to get some social justice done finally in this country so we won't be an embarrassment to the world.
6
I'm appalled that anyone would equate Bernie Sanders with Trump. At least Chris Mathews apologized.
Sanders has been saying the same thing his entire life. He is trustworthy, and THE PEOPLE understand that he is on their side.
I wish the Times editorial staff would stop whining that he can't win when the data shows that he can! And you all should be helping him if he's the one.
6
These opinions are irrelevant. When Trump comes close to 20% of African Americans voting for him, which will happen, the race will be over.
You might as well get used to it now; Trump will be residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. until January 2025.
1
My father passed away almost 30 years ago, but I wonder what he would have said about the choices today. He emigrated from Hungary in the ‘50s, believing when he left, that with the Iron Curtain, he would never see his family again. In his new life as a US citizen, he was very patriotic, a big supporter of Reagan, and used to joke that he didn’t have to eat his broccoli because President Bush didn’t like broccoli. He never talked about what happened in Hungary, but the only thing I ever saw him really angry about was Russia and Communism. I’ll vote for Bernie if it comes down to that choice, but it’s a good thing my dad never had to choose between a man who pays off porn stars and whose biggest supporter seems to be Vladimir Putin and a man who identifies as a Socialist and seems to have more positive than negative things to say about authoritarian regimes. The choice would probably have sent him to the hospital with a stroke.
78
@Chris
It is unfair to say that Bernie said "more positive than negative things" about Cuba. "more positive" you say. If someone says something positive about a bad regime, e.g. "China's population no longer suffers deadly famines" , it does not mean ---in no way does it mean---that that regime is good and humane. Really, you almost always can find something good to say about bad people---maybe--even about Trump---but that does not mean you think of them as good people.
47
@shimr
Bernie is talking about this academically, but It’s very personal for some people. Personally, I think he should walk back some of this.
14
@shimr I don't want to put words into Chris's mouth, but he seems to be saying that both choices are bad, only Trump is worse.
7
No. I personally can't imagine Mr. Sanders in the oval office. In 2016 I couldn't imagine President Trump in the oval office in a million years. And neither could he. Well, So much for that. But what I can do is try to live by the beautiful lyrics of John Lennon's song "Imagine".
2
The problem with the way we select nominees is that it completely ignores independents, who are about a third of the electorate. It also allows for gaming of the system, particularly when the incumbent is essentially unopposed. There are reports of many Republicans temporarily changing their registration in order to select the opponent they consider the easiest to beat.
We should dump party based primaries and have primaries for everyone who wants to be president, including the incumbent. No debates until it gets down to 3 or 4 and then limit them to questions (and answers) about future policy, no theatricals.
1
Where was Bret in 1963? Here's what Bernie Sanders was up to then, being frog-marched into a police van for supporting civil rights in Chicago! Ten years before Mr. Stephens was even born!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUgVLumQW8c
Equating Sanders to Trump as equally toxic poisons is both incredulous and facitious. 90% of Americans have been shortchanged by the GOP the past 40+ years. We need vast structural change and Senator Sanderrs has the experience and passion to move the needle in a positive direction, one that benefits the majority of Americans, not our entrenched plutocracy.
Why any D voter is so scared of change they'll continue to accept the crumbs of moderate incrementalism offered by our tepid, moderate D candidates escapes me.
4
Oh no, how scary! An Educated, healthy American citizenry with good jobs! Soooo, soooo frightening, I know. C'mon people. A President Bernie Sanders is not scary either.
The only thing that is radical about the U.S. is the dysfunctional way in which this country has been running for the past 40+ years.
6
@May Black
Much of what Sen. Sander's advocates more or less exists in Canada already. No surprise really, Vermont is a border state. We like it.
Fighting illiteracy and providing basic public healthcare such as Castro did for Cuba might help in the US as well. But be prepared to pummeled by Tucker Carlson. A healthy, informed population is the last thing it wants to see.
3
Bernie supporters are delusional. They seem to think that because long-shot Trump was elected, long-shot Bernie has an equal chance. But it seems as if Trump was elected because (ignoring for the moment the influences of Comey and Putin in 2016) 1) Lots of Bernie Bros stayed home or voted for Jill Stein, and 2) millions of people held their noses and voted for Trump.
If Bernie is the nominee, like Bret Stephens moderates of both parties will stay home or otherwise throw their votes away. But the people who held their noses and voted for Trump in 2016 will NEVER vote for Bernie. They'll hold their noses and vote for Trump AGAIN. And that's how a Bernie nomination will get us four more years of Trump. It seems obvious.
5
@Sylvia P.
Regarding reasons trump was elected, you left of the most important:
His opponent showed poor leadership: did not inspire followers, had tepid responses to bedrock progressive issues, and did not appropriately judge the sentiments of US voters.
Given this, I'm not sure one can seriously make pronunciations of winners and losers.
1
Thank you, Gail and Bret.
Re: Mayor Bloomberg, would you PLEASE start a DRAFT BLOOMBERG campaign for CHAIR OF THE DSCC.
It is even more crucial for the Democrats to win a majority in the Senate than it is to defeat Donald Trump. With Mitch McConnell still running (obstructing) the show--and incidentally confirming incompetent right wing federal judges--any Democratic President will be ham-strung. Just ask Barack Obama about Merrick Garland.
If Mayor Bloomberg truly wants to do the right and good thing for our country, rather than for his ego, he should spearhead--and fund, pretty please--the Democratic Senatorial campaigns that will matter. Maybe even manage to flip some *unexpected* Senate seats--all thanks and glory to Mayor B!
A Democratic President will need the Senate next year, and the multitudinous dangers of a Trump re-election will be largely mitigated by a Democratic majority in the Senate.
Btw, Bret is crazy to think that Trump is "containable" either thus far or going forward, at least not without a Democratic Senate as well as the House.
Thank you for your leadership on this issue next week. :>)
2
“hungry young man from nowhere who nearly lost everything before he gained nearly everything“
Solomon Brothers bought out Bloomberg for $10 Million (almost when $30 Million adjusted for inflation). I’d hardly call that losing everything.
Then People like Bret Stephens wonder why no one cares what he thinks.
3
Bret. Read Joe Walsh in WAPO today!! He has it right.
"I would prefer not to."
I have paused after reading Bret's first response to Gail to remind him that Bartleby wasted away with his negative preferences.
Rather model yourself, Bret, on the narrator of the tale: Bartleby's bewildered but ever-solicitous and ever-generous employer.
1
You left out an option - Bernie wins, is a terrible president, and the country is better off for it. Our best hope is Bernie wins and none of his utterly impractical expensive ideas pass Congress.
Remember Obama had the House and Senate and could barely get the Affordable Care Act passed, and when it did, it was a mere shadow of what he wanted - for better or worse.
Bernie could win if he changes his position - Socialize America, but get Mexico to pay for it. I've heard that can work in an election.
2
First things first - as a Canadian, I am volunteering to monitor the 2020 elections - you know, against things like hanging chads and other such shenanigans (sorry, not much I can do about gerrymandering and voter suppression) . . .
2
Trump needed to be out of the WH the day he was sworn in. Could no one see past the facade of his TV persona?
And, to the Republicans who continue to stand by your man, your days are numbered.
Democrats, please get your act together during this election year and pull together before the USA becomes annexed by Putin.
3
Slash the military budget and you have funds for Bernie's entire agenda and some change to spare. It is time to take on the military-industrial sacred cow. Its prize achievements -- Vietnam and the Iraq invasion -- were wars of hubris, not necessity. They did not make us safer but rather led America to the brink of disaster.
3
@woofer Medicare for all would cost $34 trillion over 10 years. That's $3.4 trillion a year.
The US military budget is $748 billion per year, as of 2020.
Even if you slash the military budget, you're gonna have to reallocate $2.7 trillion from somewhere else.
Please tell me: where is this change to spare?
And need I remind you that it wasn't the military that failed in Vietnam... it was the civilian leadership (Kennedy and Johnson, both Dems BTW) who put us there and marched us down the same path as the French.
So tell me who brought us to the brink of disaster?
3
I'm no fan of Bernie, and I find his supporters insufferable.
But Bret's conservatism gave us Trump. Trump is the culmination of decades of cynical plutocracy, made palatable to the masses only by being hitched to cultural, racial, religious resentment.
After helping to give us Trump (and then swimming from the sinking, worm-eaten GOP ship he helped to construct, pretending he had no part in it), Bret doesn't get to throw up his hands helplessly, pretending to be innocent. A vote against Bernie would be a vote for Trump.
A Sanders presidency would be a circus of histrionics and a string of disappointments, but at least it would be a real presidency.
5
This scenario is almost nauseating - but as much as I despise Sanders (and for myriad reasons), there's a critical difference between him and Trump; Sanders isn't mentally ill.
4
@Susan L. No, just a recent heart attack survivor and the oldest candidate running.
I got sick after reading the first few paragraphs of this conversation. With all due respect, both Gail and Brett sounded like fastidious, condescending burgers dining on tea and crumpets and spitting on the people. You obviously lead gilded, pampered lives and don't know what economic anxiety is. It is only natural that you arouse our resentment and ire. And people wonder why some Bernie people sometimes get a tad irritated.
5
@David Gottfried Well said
2
Say what you want about Sanders, but you can't say that his policies would willfully harm and demean other people. I have empathy for those who find themselves at the brunt of Trump's tantrums. The children in cages is only one example. The man is supposed to be a leader, and I want no part of where he's going.
I don't want to call people people who fail to remove him from office immoral. But I know Trump is immoral.
2
Think of all of the lovely things that we won't have to put up with, with Trump out of office. A POTUS who would rule by following long-established procedures and protocols instead of petulant and childish tweets. A POTUS who would appoint capable and experienced people instead of yes-men, liars, groveling sycophants and know-nothing cronies. A POTUS who did not engage in treason or corruption. A POTUS who would actually do the work that we hired him/her to do, not ingratiate himself or herself to thugs and dictators, and not embarrass us in public or with other heads of state. A POTUS who had actually read the Constitution, believed in the Rule of Law and did not hanker to be a dictator, King, Queen, an Emperor or God. And someone we didn't have to think about twenty-four hours a day.
1
My fear comes from the way the word, "Communist," is being tossed around like popcorn. Communism is a murderous dictatorship. Stalin alone killed tens of millions of people Then Mao, Castro, Chavez, the Khmer Rouge, etc. Bernie is not a Communist because he is not a mass murderer.
But saying one good thing about Castro will get him killed in Miami. Castro's literacy program came at a price he inflicted on his people very soon after he obtained power, and Bernie has to understand the price of things, including his own propositions.
Also, can you imagine him going into a working-class town in Ohio and saying the words, "socialist revolution?"
This nomination would be a disaster.
2
If Bernie succeeds, it truly will be a moral dilemma for me. I can’t vote for a man who would destroy our democracy. But can I vote for one who might harm the future of the Democratic Party? I only know that I have always voted for a Democrat for President and I will happily do so again—if there is one on the ticket. (By the way, when is Bernie going to explain Democratic Socialism to his followers? After he ends privately owned businesses and does away with capitalism? Or when it’s time for a gigantic tax hike perhaps? I think he owes them some transparency now.)
I agree with Gail; I doubt Bernie can win. I oppose his nomination for that reason. I worry less about him as president, as he would be hemmed in by a divided or moderate congress, and public opinion.
But many, moderate Republicans feel as Brett does. It is they who will decide the Electoral College, and they will never vote for Bernie.
1
This is a binary election. Those who vote otherwise are letting others make decisions for them. We don't know how Bernie would act as president but we do know how Trump does. Although I grew up as a "west coast liberal, I'm a fan of Brett Stephens, But not his argument on this one.
1
DNC allows candidates who do not belong to Democrat Party to participate in presidential primaries. This makes no sense.
Let Bernie run as Independent and if he can muster the support , so be it. And if Democrat Party is so weak to allow a 3rd party, that's on them.
Why my centrist House Rep has to run on coattails of Independent is just wrong.
3
Gail Collins mentions that there are some who assert that voting Green in 2016 elected Trump.
I was one of most Green voters whose vote had no effect on the electoral college outcome because we voted in states in which the would be winner was certain, e.g., Clinton in Maryland where I voted.
For voting Green to have elected Trump in 2016 the number of such votes would have had to effect the outcome in the set of states like Pennsylvania in which Trump barely won but that Clinton would have won had most of the Green votes been for her. Are there analyses that substantiate this occurring?
1
We live in--or are told by the media that we live in (which is not the same thing, friends)--polarized times and the pendulum is swinging. When I'm not frightened, I'm fascinated.
If representing the interests of the people, instead of the corporations and the elite, is "socialist" then the choice is obvious.
4
Between Sanders and Trump, I would be forced to pick Sanders but I also believe that nothing will get done during a Sanders presidency. Certainly not the financial improvements that his followers have put their heart and soul in.
In his 29 years in Congress, Sanders has sponsored only seven bills that became laws: 5 for Vermont and 2 for veterans. He introduced some bills that support his platform but they are all sitting in some filing cabinet. He is a talker not a doer.
Furthermore, I'm not sure he has any idea of how much money will be needed, the amount of disruption to government services and a timeline for this happening if any of his bills actually become laws.
Sanders will definitely cause less harm than Trump who seems determined to sell off America in pieces to the highest bidders and leave us in a third world situation.
1
One thing you can be pretty sure of is that your pensions and personal investments will take a big decent if Bernie is nominated. If he is elected, begin reevaluating retirement plans because you may be working a lot longer.That is if there are jobs available. The same could be said if Warren is the candidate. I have a friend who lives in a country that provides free health care, . In Scandinavian countries that are highly touted for all their free things, the average tax is between 55-65%. One country only takes 50% of what the average person earns for tax but adds on 16% for there social security payment. One NYT "Opinion" writer wants, if Sanders is nominated, to promote the idea that even though Bernie says he is a socialist, he really isn't and the Democrats job is to make him electable. One way suggested in another NYT editorial is to teach him that, "politics is inescapably performative". They will teach him how to perform. Another plan in a recent "Opinion" was to get to the convention and use Supper Delegates to push him out. In 2016, the DNC provided all of those to Hillary and worked to stop Sanders surge. His supporters were outraged How much more will they be if tricks deny him the nomination? Another "Opinion." contributor wrote that the Democrats are in trouble and another predicted disaster. The might be right. We will see.
@Ron I'm not a supporter of Medicare for All, but health care in the US already costs 18% of GDP, vs about 12% for other advanced societies. If US health care costs dropped to other countries' level, we could get almost two militaries, for free. And the poorly regulated private system accounts for much of the 6% gap.
4
@Milo I wished they had expanded Medicaid. Medicaid and Medicare, generally utilize the same medical facilities and doctors the medical insurance companies use. I'm not sure about tuning everyone's healthcare over to the same people who run the V.A. hospitals. One area that could reduce medical cost a lot is to do something about the outrageous costs if medicines. Generic pills that have been around for decades have skyrocketed in costs. A pill for parasites like pin worms, cost about $0.06 - 0.10 a pill wholesale in 2010, now cost $300 a pill. That's just an example. In other countries the pill still cost about $0.02 pill. Birth control pills that cost $0.65 a pack, now cost over $30. But here, pharmaceuticals pour millions into the coffers of congress you hardly hear a peep from them about this problem. The cost of medicine is a significant part of the rising health care cost. If we could reduce medicine cost, I think that is one place everyone might agree and we would all benefit.
I find it fascinating that Bret Stephens, who disparages Trump in the extreme, plainly states that he is likely to vote for neither Trump nor Sanders (in the event Sanders is the nominee). Whether he knows it or not, that is clearly a vote for Trump.
What does that say about the chances of a self-proclaimed socialist to win the election? Unless I'm missing something, it says his chances are not very good. Consequently, this might be the time (maybe the last time left before the window of opportunity closes) for those who ardently wish to see Trump voted out of office, to find a nominee who will appeal not only to Mr. Stephens but to the many, many others who feel as he does. That means a candidate who can bring together voters from both the left AND the right rather than one who will drive many of them away. Otherwise, I think large numbers of those who have told (and will tell) the pollsters one thing will do another when they find themselves in the privacy of the voting booth. If that comes to pass, the election map of the United States on Wednesday morning, November 4, may look a lot like it did on November 8, 1972 when George McGovern went down to a humiliating defeat.
1
@Sid We're going to have to find a sliver of silver lining in the self-immolation of the democracy (trump's re-election). It's that Bernie and his cult immediately shuts their mouth on November 4.
Stephens, you'd vote third party (and keep Trump) just to stop Sanders.
2
great article ! my two cents, between a socialist and a dictator, I prefer Bernie. Congress would never, ever approve his programs. I'm afraid another four years of Trump will turn this Country into a dictatorship !
274
So you are saying, and the editor is picking your comment as worthy, that human rights such as healthcare and education paid by our taxes is something that congress would stop without being kicked out by the voters?
You have to understand something, Congress works for you and me. Not the other way around. If we want something and are willing to pay for it, we own the right. That is the meaning of democracy.
If the voters of this country vote for Bernie as president and the congress people of the red states want to block the will of the majority of the voters of our nation, I then suggest we split as Blue and Red United States. I have nothing that binds me to people who voted for Trump and the Senators and Representatives from the GOP. Nothing whatsoever. Perfectly happy to secede.
21
@Carmen Castillo
If you only knew what modern socialism really is. Democracy, by definition, requires an informed public - without it democracy will fail.
12
@Carmen Castillo its already a dictatorship haven't you noticed?vote democrat, many good candidates better than Bernie.
9
"Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class. Slashing the defense budget at a time when Russia wants to cripple NATO and China wants to run the United States out of the Western Pacific would be another historic and irreversible mistake. He might appoint a Fed chairman who believes in Modern Monetary Theory, which would be a recipe for hyperinflation."
On the first point, he's wrong.
On the second point, we no longer live in a world dominated by us. (Thank God) A multilateral world may be a better world.
On the third point, MMT uses money to employ all productive resources. Current Fed practice is to apply monetary rules to the real world, while hoping all productive resources are used--and they are not most of the time. (So-called "full employment" is far from the real thing.)
5
Bernie's support can be described best as an "overwhelming minority of Democrats".
He controls a sliver of the electorate with an iron grip, which is a bigger amount than anybody else has managed to scrape together. It's just enough to make him into a "front runner".
A forthcoming addition to the definition of "biggest loser".
2
I listened to Sanders on his Town Hall with Chris Cuomo and regret that Cuomo had no follow-up questions when Sanders detailed how he would pay for M4A. If Sanders is elected with Senate and house majorities of Democrats his M4A will create the largest medical system in the world. None of the EU countries Sanders uses as an example for his program have 330 million people. He details all the money that will be saved and all the options. Sanders never mentions the government expansion needed to run a health system for 330 million people. How will M4A get its work done? Will Sanders wave his Magic Wand and all paperwork disappear? Will the employees needed to operate the healthcare system not need to be paid? And how many new employees will the government have to hire and at what cost? And where will all these knowledgeable people come from? These questions were not raised by Cuomo, but they, and many others, are real concerns because Sanders has claimed for years that the Federal Government does not work. Now under Sanders it will be transformed into the perfect healthcare machine and everyone can just ride off into the sunset knowing their medical concerns have been taken of the list of what keeps them up at night. Cuomo should have done a better job and we all need answers before Super Tuesday. Warren is my candidate but she too has to answer these questions. Which I’m sure she can.
3
The fear mongering over a potential Sanders presidency has gotten totally out of hand. Even though I disagree with him most of the time, I respect Mr. Stephens and his opinions. But here he has resorted to the same old tired arguments about how Sanders would be a disaster for the United States.
It is an insult to the intelligence of thinking Americans to suggest that we couldn't significantly reduce our grossly bloated defense budget and still be "safe." We've reached a scary point in our history, where defense budgets now increase annually, and by significant amounts, with almost no questions asked about the long- and short-term efficacy of such profligate spending. One could plausibly argue that our outsized defense budget is making us less safe because of its contributions to conflicts in various parts of the world.
To even put Bernie Sanders in the same sentence with Donald Trump as a threat to democracy or the country's well-being is disingenuous at best, and demagogic at worst. Sanders policy ideas are a threat to people who cherish power and status, and are apparently increasingly willing to say anything about Sanders to make him appear too frightening to the American public to elect as president.
7
@Matthew you had me until "intelligence of thinking Americans". Obviously, that's in short supply.
1
Ok, so I'm imagining Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office. And like a bad movie animation, I watch him morph into Trump for another 4 years. And why is that?
Because Sanders is unelectable against Trump, and Sanders as the Democratic nominee means near-certain reelection for Trump. Wishful thinking by Bernie supporters doesn't alter the fact that the vast majority of voters are moderate and centrist. There has been no voter surge on the left. The most activated and concerned group in the electorate are coming from the center: moderate Democrats and Republicans.
2
For God's sake, just STOP IT with the "price tag" of Sanders' (and Warren's) proposals, at least with regard to health care.
Repeated studies by responsible parties have crunched the numbers and shown that Medicare for All would lead to Americans spending LESS on health care than they do now.
How many times does this have to be repeated before the entire media universe stops pretending it isn't so?
We would trade the outrageous and unpredictable out-of-pocket costs for insurance, co-pays, deductibles, and uncovered bills for a predictable tax package.
We would also end the looming threat of medical bankruptcy, the constant stress of paperwork, claims, appeals, and phone calls, and the absurd arrangement in which for most Americans, the amount and quality of our medical care is determined piecemeal by the decisions of random staff members at a for-profit insurance company.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-agree-medicare-for-all-saves-money
12
"Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class" Bret Stephens
I still don't know why Bret keeps spouting this myth - every other developed nation has some sort of universal health care coverage (be it fully public or a hybrid public-private system) and a taxation level (once all things are accounted for including county of residence tax, county of employment tax, state tax, federal tax, and health care premiums) that is at par or lower than the US for the average citizen.
Moreover, we can 1) go to whatever doctor or hospital we choose (we are not contained to those within a network or pay huge premiums) AND 2) we are not captive to our employer because we don't want to lose our health insurance (however much we may hate our job) AND 3) we don't get these surprise (bankruptcy-inducing) medical bills/co-pays/etc... (look back to a recent Jan 15, 2020 NYT opinion piece by Wendell Potter to back me up on this - https://nyti.ms/2FQ8wgl)
11
@captain canada All these opponents of Single-Payer Medicare-For-All are simply being dishonest fear-mongers. Many of them have either no knowledge of the Canadian system (I know about it from my work colleagues), or they just do not want to tell the truth.
2
Please don't buy into the idea that Bernie Sanders is "Crazy Bernie" He fights for the recognition of dignity of every human being... He deserves better...
12
@Karen 100% right!
2
Stephens you are wrong about one major point. Trump is NOT being contained, and he most certainly won't be if re-elected. He is likely to become much worse and uncontrolled. Wait until you start seeing prosecutions of his opponents by Barr and many other authoritarian moves. Even if you hate what Sanders would do, it will not be hard for him to be contained by Republicans.
387
@Larry Figdill his latest is to demand that Sotomayor and Ginsberg to recuse themselves when the Trump Administration has a case before the Court because they are biased liberals. It is taken for granted that he knows nothing about the three co-equal branches of government and this news only confirms it. Stephens has his head in the sand if he thinks this guy has been contained. Another four years and there will be nothing left of the government.
37
@Larry Figdill
It will not be hard for Sanders to be contained by Democrats.
5
@Larry Figdill I think Bret has it backwards: Trump is the sudden brain hemorrhage and Sanders is the slow-growing malignant cancer.
10
It seemed to me in 2016 that Hillary Clinton had cheated in the primaries. Then the Democrats marched to the left during the Convention. The ensuing campaign was fought in the dirt on social issues like the Access Hollywood tapes.
There were emotional appeals from Clinton regarding the plight of illegal immigrants, but no detailed immigration policy. Both campaigns seemed to be run on inflammatory issues with policies seldom mentioned.
The last straw: Julian Assange released tapes which showed that Clinton supported open borders.
I regard illegal immigration as an existential threat to the US. So instead of joining the 100 million Americans who didn't vote, I selected Trump in the November election.
I am just one person, and I realize that my vote doesn't matter.
But I wake up in the middle of the night terrified of the coming apocalypse---global warming. And in my view, global warming is caused by population growth.
Republicans are in denial about global warming itself. But Democrats seem to believe that population growth doesn't matter, that the doubling of world population since 1972 had no impact on carbon emissions.
I can't understand where they're coming from.
A few blocks from my home in Washington State is a homeless encampment. Why are Democrats encouraging immigration from Guatemala when we can't house our homeless?
It makes no sense. So I hope for Bloomberg (or Trump). At least they won't proclaim that those who oppose open borders are bigots.
1
His Brooklyn accent would be the best.
5
Why are Democrats so eager to continue their radical transformation of America into something it was never founded to be or never intended to be? It is because America was never good enough in their eyes? Or do they simply believe socialism is what made the United States the shining beacon of freedom for the last 240 years?
1
Millennial, the majority of Bernie voters, gravitated towards democratic socialism with proven success in Europe, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea or any other advanced country. They can easily see that countries have better, healthcare, education, infrastructure, retirement, environmental policies, etc.
The failed plutocratic capitalism which began under GOP's St. Reagan created massive economic inequity unlike other advanced economies but more like a third world country. Ask yourself, do you want to be a third world country, or a democratic socialist? To the chagrin of the GOP, corporate democrats and mainstream media, it looks like democratic socialism, hence the Bernie hystria.
Trump won because the over 55 mainly uneducated whites who are left behind because of the GOP's economic darwinism, found a like minded carnival barker who give them the opium of bigory, mysogeny, christian fascism, etc. While their illogical behavior reinforced by the evil Australian plutocrat and his minions in fuax they found a home.
The more educated and global seek proven solutions successfully implemented in other advanced economies, all being democratic socialists except here. Those who benefit from our plutocracy continue to scare voters with fake outrage of socialism to win elections but not with Trump. The damage that the GOP has done can only be undone by progressives who want to do the absolute opposite of our current GOP plutocracy.
8
Shame on both of you for propagating the myth of Bernie's unsupportable spending. Yale University came out with a report that Medicare for All would cost less than what we are spending now on healthcare. You say Bernie's plan will cost trillions. What will it cost us to do nothing?
Also, you fail to define socialist. There are many different definitions. What is everyone so afraid of? Bernie doesn't want the government to take over industries but just wants to expand and strengthen the social safety net. Presidents have always claimed responsibility for how the economy goes. Does that make them socialists?
Every intelligent person knows our economy is a mixed-economy. We support businesses as well as individuals with our tax dollars. American capitalism have evolved into crony capitalism or capitalism for the rich. The rich don't need our help; they need to help us.
Do you believe in universal healthcare? Yes? You're a socialist.
Do you believe in public education? Yes? You're a socialist.
Do you believe in the military? Yes? You're a socialist.
Do you believe in first responders? Yes? You're a socialist.
Do you believe in Social Security? Yes? You're a socialist.
Do you believe in Medicare? Yes? You're a socialist.
Do you believe in the common good? Yes? You're a socialist. Peace.
17
Opinion pieces are great for entertainment, but much like the journalistic junk food they are, lead to serious problems when consumed too frequently. The "arguments" and false equivalencies put out by this tongue-in-cheek piece would be fine, except that it is on the front of the NYT web site and so many people consume thinking this is real journalism and should be taken with the gravitas that implies.
7
@T I totally agree. Well said.
1
1. He would appoint a liberal supreme court justice (assuming RBG doesn't make the same mistake she did in 2008.)
2. Assuming Democrats control the House and Senate, and the Senate gets rid of the filibuster, we would get a Green New Deal plus standard infrastucture bill to fix stuff that should have been fixed over the last 40 years.
3. Same assumption as #2, Sanders would take on the drug companies, but be only moderately successful because Pharma would still control too many Democrats ( as well as all the Republicans.)
4. Same assumption as #2, Sanders would try to reduce the military industrial complex, but again be only moderately successful because too many Dems are controlled by it.
5. Same assumption as #2, Sanders would push for Medicare for All, but would probably get no more than a public option. Still, this would be a massive improvement for most Americans.
6. Same assumption as #2, the Republican tax giveaway would be repealed and taxes hiked on the very very rich and corporations. The financialization of the US economy would be reversed somewhat by adoption of Warren's proposals.
7. Same assumption as #2, daycare and preschool would be funded.
8. Basically, the Democratic Party would return to its roots and the Wall Street wing would start fighting a rearguard action.
7
If the Democrats nominated Mike Pence, I would vote for him over Trump. Sanders is close to my last choice in the Democratic race, but hell, yes, I’ll vote for him if nominated!
6
Stephens was a cheerleader for the Iraq War, one of the worst strategic decisions this country has ever made. He's written off climate change as a hoax. I'm not sure where he stands on climate change these days, but I think it's a safe assumption that anyone who could tolerate four more years of Trump doesn't believe the climate change science. How do people still listen to him?
I think Collins made a great point. Winning the election is one thing, getting your policies through Congress is another. Our war budget is bigger than about the next 8 countries combined, depending on the day and maybe depending on how much China and Russia successfully hide from those figures. Almost 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when Sanders starts talking about spending, people lose it.
11
Bret. Trump only seems containable amd won’t be if he wins another term. You really need to read the rise and fall of the Third Reich and see how long Hitler looked “containable” to smug, satisfied insiders until it was too late.
9
Voting libertarian equals voting trump back in, as does not voting or voting for some wackadoodle Green Party candidate or other fringe party.
3
"And that would mean we’d really get to Feel the Bern in ways I think would be economically and socially ruinous. Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class."
But... for almost every single American, their healthcare costs would go way way down--and this is even assuming there are ZERO cost-reduction effects from removal of the profit motive (and there clearly are, as we have seen from every single other country that has some form of national healthcare.)
7
Mr. Stephens, it is not clear that Trump is ultimately containable, as you claim. Since his recent "acquittal," he has removed the DNI and replaced him with someone who knows nothing about intelligence (somewhat fitting since Trump loathes USA intelligence), told Supreme Court judges they should recuse themselves on any cases involving him and overall become more bellicose than previously. While Mr. Sanders is not my first choice and I don't believe he can pass the sweeping changes he wants, he, as Ms. Collins pointed out, believes in democracy, is generally honest and is a friend of the little guy. How can you possibly believe Trump is better than Sanders?
6
There's an old atheist saying, "If God existed, he'd help those who help themselves." After all the help Bernie gave Trump in the last election, I would have sworn no Democrat would have anything further to do with him. But here he is, giving every appearance of repeating his performance. It appears our prospects are a party that can not learn from the past and a party single-mindedly bent on destroying democratic government in America.
3
@Peter Aretin And my mother was wont to say "and God help those who get caught helping themselves".
It strikes me as peculiar that Mr. Stephens fears a Sanders landslide. I don't think anyone has seriously proposed this-- well, other than Sanders, of course.
By far the more likely outcomes are either a Trump victory, or a very narrow win for Sanders. In the latter case, either the Republicans retain control of the senate or else Democrats have a razor-thin majority. Given the power of the minority to obstruct, there's little chance of a president Sanders accomplishing even a fraction of what he's proposed on the campaign trail. In my more cynical moments I think even he knows this and is just pandering to his base (who are going to be gravely disillusioned by the reality of any Sanders presidency!). Or maybe he's actually smart and views his proposals as a starting point for negotiation. Either way, the actual power of any potential Democratic president is contained within a fairly narrow window of undoing republican sabotage to the ACA and adding some modest upgrades, perhaps a public option. Which is not nothing, but hardly a "socialist revolution".
So you can put aside the smelling salts, Mr. Stephens and no need to linger by the fainting couch. A president Sanders would most likely be big on grumpy rhetoric and small on action-- more of the same, in other words.
1
The likely conclusion to this election is President Bernie Sanders having to work with a moderately liberal House Democratic majority and a conservative Republican Senate majority without a clear mandate to implement his progressive economic agenda.
Sanders is a great politician. He is not Jimmy Carter. He will not allow Congress to stall his agenda. He knows that in the past this has led to failed presidencies.
Instead, Sanders, a career activist extraordinaire, will effectively utilize his bully pulpit to persuade the private sector to voluntarily adopt much of the reforms within his economic agenda.
This strategy has already worked. Remember, not too long ago, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos decided to raise Amazon’s hourly wage to $15 after Sanders drafted a bill designed to financially punish large companies, such as Amazon, for their low hourly wages by making them pay a 100 percent tax on the amount of federal benefits, such as Medicaid and subsidized housing, workers had to rely on to survive.That bill never became law.
Bezos intelligently decided that living wages are inevitable and it is in Amazon’s best interests for Amazon management to control their company’s wages than to allow Sanders and the revived Left to use their intransigence on wages to ultimately push through Congress a wage increase Amazon’s brass found unacceptable. Watch for this strategy next year should Sanders defeat Trump.
5
I would definitely take sanders over trump but every pie eyed sanders lover seems to forget that half of this country thinks trump is great. So all we are doing is choosing for more gridlock and more division in our very strained democracy. Why cannot the smart people supposedly in charge, the adults in the room so to speak just say that we need a candidate that is pretty close to the Goldilocks zone. One that people can agree to disagree on without pushing us closer towards civil war. In case no one noticed, we have a deficit that is about to burst, a climate about to ignite, and a virus about to turn off the gas. but somehow fratricidal behavior is the preferred choice by the democrats who can only see free healthcare and free college and sticking it to billionaires as a solution.
2
I definitely imagine Sen Bernie Sanders in the oval office. Our kids need to know that their country cares for them and their families the same way they care and protect this country. Then you diminish the wealth gap, thus the amount of frustration and violence in the country because there is NO REASON to be frustrated. If you get what you need, safety, security, equality, education- you'll be a good lawful citizen.
9
I will not vote for Bernie in the California primary (nor will I vote for Bloomberg, despite the 3 different mailers I received from his campaign yesterday). But, if Bernie does become the nominee, I can easily justify voting for him with one thought: He is not a crook. Sure, it's a low bar, but that's where we're at.
3
I'm really tiring of hearing the spiel that we'll be taxed at "unheard of" levels if we move to a universal health care scenario. Right now, I contribute $425 per month for my employer provided, high deductible ($3500 per year out of pocket) health care/dental/vision plan for myself and my husband. So that's $8600 per year off that bat. And then after that, copays kick in. Pretty much everyone contributes for their health care (and for a family it's a lot more). Yes, we'll pay more in taxes, but we're already paying for our healthcare, even private "employer provided" healthcare.
9
@Christine I concur with you. I am a recently retired engineer. I was working for a major corporation that supposedly was providing its employees above average health care, and while as an employee my premium was covered by the employer, I was paying $500/month in premiums to cover my wife, and that did not include dental, optical coverage, or hearing aids. In addition, we each had $3750 deductible and $15,000/year out of pocket max if we used in-network providers. If we had to use out-of network providers these numbers doubled. I do not know of many people that have $30,000 lying around to spend in an emergency. I was lucky enough to have a high salary (having been a software engineer for over 40 years), but I remember a young engineer working for me who had to pay $1,000/month in premiums alone to cover his wife and kids. I am on Medicare as is my spouse, and we could not be any happier, even though it has its shortcomings regarding prescription drugs and lack of dental and optical coverage. It is however, much better than my more expensive “private health insurance”. All these opponents of Single-Payer Medicare-For-All, are simply propagating lies and falsehoods and actively practicing fear-lingering and flat out dishonesty !
4
I earn less than an average income and my taxes have only gone up under Trump. I am afraid to even finish doing them this year, the preliminary figures are so bad. On top of this, my bills after having had cancer are slowly crushing me. I don't see Trump doing a thing to help me, or the many other long-term, self-employed Americans who are in a similar boat. Sanders at least wants to try. He is at least attempting to address our concerns, while Trump swans around in his tacky gold-plated environment, playing golf, watching Fox News, and complaining about how unfairly he's being treated by the legal system. Trump benefitted in his early career by securing taxpayer-subsidized loans. He used bankruptcy laws to shield himself from having to pay his debts, and we have all heard him say that dodging taxes makes him "smart." Trump and his party have been willing to throw trillions down the drain giving tax cuts to rich guys who don't need them, fund endless wars that drag us down and create chaos and instability around the globe, subsidize fossil fuels that damage our living spaces, give away our national parklands to environmentally damaging corporations -- and Bret Stevens thinks Bernie's going to spend too much on helping ordinary people with their medical and educational needs? Please.
9
Hi Bret, where do you get this: "Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class."? Sanders has guaranteed that working class Americans will pay less (when factoring in insurance premiums). If he violates that, he will lose any majority he has after two years. You actually think a President Sanders having two years of a majority in both houses -- a significant part of which will be MODERATES -- is scarier than another 4 years of Trump? Are you just trying to be provocative to generate some clicks and ad revenue? This is not the time for that! It may be fun to be a provocative pundit riling up all of us sensitive liberals and progressives, but what you write matters, and what you say on TV interviews matters. So consider your words. Trump is not contained. The executive agencies are being gutted. The DNI is a loyalist hack who doesn't have relevant experience. The duration of this administration is a critical danger. Eight years of professionals quitting in protest leaves a country run by corrupt sycophants with ever increasing power, and ever decreasing oversight.
7
@Dave
"Bret, where do you get this: 'Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class.'?"
Fair question, Dave.
But doubt Stephens will ever argue for Trump by laboring to support that bogus claim.
Much easier to wave the effigy of a socialist bogeyman in front of right liberals in an effort to get them to break w/'Blue no matter who' and vote third party.
1
Bloomberg is not "giving nearly all of it away." He's worth, what, $65 billion? Assuming he earns 5% on that he's making $3 billion a year in interest. He can spend a billion dollars on his own election campaign and end up richer than when he started.
3
Bernie misses the boat on so many levels. His anger. His realism. His utter lack of any record of success (what legislation has he actually produced that has been voted into law in 3 decades). His embrace of despots like Castro. His Israel views (what other nation has he out and out called "bigoted" and essentially boycotted)? I know he spent time on a kibbutz decades ago, but when is the last time he actually tried to make policy with the leaders of Israel to create a lasting peace?
So far, Bernie has managed to alienate the key middle, and basically surrendered the southeast, probably the midwest, and has basically already surrendered the Dem's chances (including downticket). He is Trump's dream opponent.
235
@bakereast Bernie is the only sane man in politics right now. The rest are
to the status quo!
49
@bakereast You need a few more minutes in the oven.So we are supposed to answer your 'what legislation...?' question to make your point? He embraces Castro by saying what was done in Cuba is not all bad? Hardly an embrace . Considering the Trump Putin bromance. When is the last time Netanyahu said there will never be a two state solution? And the other nation he has called out as bigoted is OUR OWN, and rightly so. And it means that he cares deeply for both countries.
85
@bakereast Oh sounds like Bernie is right on regarding many issues then.
37
Are you sure Trump is “containable”? I’m not.
3
In the engineering firm I worked for we used to discuss all the possible outcomes but the vast majority of the time it came down to what was most likely. The most likely scenario for a Sanders presidency is a Republican senate that will continue the tradition of the party of No and we will repeat the Obama years in some fashion.
Trump is dangerous because of his outside-the-law ways. Sanders does not have a history of lawlessness so in that way Gail is correct. Sanders is not an autocrat but he may end up being ineffective and using executive actions to get at least some things done - it's the way of modern presidencies.
3
Bernie would be a bigger disaster than the current President.
6
If Gail even has to ask her colleague Brent today if he would vote for Bernie or Trump, that disqualifies both of them off my pundit list and makes me realize the NYT is considerably more to the right of center than I thought.
7
An outsider promising radical change, who won't reveal how he's going to bring it about. Hmmm... sounds familiar somehow. Don't fall for it, America.
3
@PeteH respectfully, you have no idea what you're saying.
Bernie is not an outsider. And he has been rallying these changes his entire career.
He will bring it about by first winning the white house.
5
Mr. Stephens, with all due respect, you have expressed two big falsehoods. 1. Medicare-For-All will tax very heavily the American taxpayer. That is extremely inaccurate and frankly disingenuous. The proposed Medicare tax is 4%. Even if it was 5% or 6%, it would still be lower than the $10,000-$12,000/Year cost for the premiums in addition to the thousands of $ in annual deductibles and at least hundreds in copays. 2. The cost of the American military is extreme and unnecessary as the US is spending more on the military than the next 9 countries in the list of countries with the highest military budgets. The US does not have to be the world’s policeman. Enough of this nonsense. The taxpayer dollars should be spent on ensuring Americans’ health and education, not building more nuclear bombs. What Bernie Sanders is proposing is no different than what the kingdom of Great Britain has embraced long ago, hardly a Socialist country!
7
Question. What would happen if some Democrat were to win the election and, one week before inauguration, has a heart attack and dies?
TDoes the nominee VP gets to be president? Does Trump remain in office while another election cycle goes forth. What?.
Bret Stevens doing a little fear mongering. Seriously?
Look - the minute ANY Democratic candidate is elected President, we will experience a sudden economic contraction; we are overdue for a dip in the economic cycle and the this unprecedented chain of positive quarters is entirely sustained by consume spending and irrational consumer confidence.
Once anyone but Trump ( and probably Trump as well) is tapped to hold the Oval Office for the next 4 years, the confidence bubble will burst and we will have an entirely natural reset. Everyone will freak out. It will be very difficult for Bernie to pull together the political capital for any radical systemic change and, at most, he will realign some of the discourse in Washington on the plight of the middle and working classes.
On the other hand, Trump, who never met a dictator he didn't admire, would be unfettered with the concerns for re-election and we have every reason to believe that he would just continue to grease the skids for plutocrats and robber barons until the entire apparatus of government is nothing but a smoking wreck.
4
Bret is way over reacting to Bernie. Stephens seems to believe in elite rule rather than democracy. His instinct is to move right and while he says Trump disgusts him, when push comes to shove, I guess not so much.
8
There is health care and there there is European health care.
Have you ever spoken to a person from Britain or Sweden?
They have dreadful heath care which they hate. The waits to see a doctor, get a test approved, see specials are endless.
Check it out.
2
"it would be amusing to watch Republicans rediscover their fiscal hawkishness during a Sanders administration"
Amusing? Did Bret find it amusing when millions had no jobs for much longer than they had to after the 2008-2009 recession start because the "fiscal hawkishness" of the GOP - since proven to be pure hypocrisy - would allow Obama enough money for job creation and infrastructure? It was NOT amusing and his choice of wording displays his insensitivity to those beneath himself.
5
Bret, I support your prerogative to vote Libertarian if you're feeling stuck. We do not live in the 7-8 states in which the "spoiler" argument has any validity. Do what you gotta do.
If Bloomberg/Bernie/Buttigieg/tree-stump-with-a-'D's lead in NY shrinks below 20 points we can have a serious talk about the lesser of two evils etc. like they have to do in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, & Florida.
I am baffled, as a Canadian, at the lack of basic principle here. It doesn’t take a degree in economics to read the character of your president, and how the republican party is toxic not just for the u.s, but the world. When you do good in the world, there is a chain reaction from person to person. The same goes for lies and manipulation of the weak minded. How can you possibly think someone as transparent and genuine as Sanders be as bad a choice Trump, and contribute to such an important newspaper at such an important time? Where are the valid arguments?
9
Honestly, everyone over the age of 55 is having a panic attack. Bernie Sanders has a platform just like every other presidential candidate. He would not rule de facto if he won. He would work with the legislature to pass SOME of his ideas. Many, many millions of Americans like his ideas, which are common sense to a younger Americans who have watched their parent's generation squander wealth on the 1%, cripple democracy, and ruin the planet. Let's all calm down and try not to measure the world by the yard stick of the Republican Party, which has pushed America off a conservative cliff, as evidenced by this conversation.
11
@Michael Oh please blame your parents ? How about addressing the elephant in the room , Citizens United , a Republican baby ! It's the money , yes but not your parents fault . The Republicans have schemed , cheated , planned for this a long time and they blindsided the Democrats by attacking from all areas ie: extreme gerrymandering , hate radio , false stories on social media , voting restrictions , changing state Governors and getting Republicans in , etc . Yes it's a beautiful dream , but you are being ageist and not everyone over the age of 55 is having a panic attack . And speaking of ageist , Bernie is in his late 70's and has been in the Senate for a bit and yet you blame your parents and not lawmakers ???
As a student of history and economics, I really don't understand why people are so afraid of Bernie. He wants to tax Wall Street (good; people have been screaming for this for ages). He wants single payer health care (good; Europe and Asia and everywhere there's civilization has had this for ages); he wants free college (good; Europe has had this for ages); he wants energy independence and modernization (good; America is being dragged into the future on energy and it's about time some led). He's going to get a green new deal to save the world and create a ton of new jobs (good; it's the only way we'll still have air to breath and water to drink in a few years).
So...what's the fear? Is is that radical reform is too much for you? Like how Kennedy said of the Civil Rights movement "The problem with you people is you want these things too fast." ??? So you'd like segregation to still be around? Maybe slavery too? No? Then why should the United States wait EVEN LONGER to approach the quality of life of THE REST OF THE MODERN WORLD???
The U.S. is a laughing stock among modern nations for how poorly it takes care of it's citizens. Oh? What's that? Taxes will go up? CRY ME A RIVER. American may have been founded on whining about taxes but it was built on educated healthy people's backs and in this day and age SOMEONE has to pay taxes to pay for that. And personally think it ought to be the rich.
Long term I don't really care who gets elected but what are you all so afraid of???
7
Trump, containable? Only if you don't count the ongoing erosion of our rule of law, environment, constitution, and moral/ethical standards.
6
America has lived with the Pet Rock for so long that it cannot comprehend the cat litter box. Meanwhile, the people living in the litter box cannot comprehend the glamour of a rock. Welcome to America !!!
1
The abject failure of our education system is evident by the number of Sanders supporters.
2
...And Hillary’s fervent wish was to run against Trump in 2016. How’d that turn out? If Bernie is the nominee, Trump is toast.
3
Bret, you really missed the boat on this one, if you think the dangers associated with a Sanders presidency out-weigh what we have now. Yes, maybe we know what we have with Trump...and haven't you seen enough? You know it only gets worse from here.
5
Instead of Gail asking Brett who would HE vote for, she should ask, “In the long run, who would you vote for to do the best for most Americans.” Now ask same question without Wall St. Stock market considerations. Could either of them even answer these questions?
2
Bernie has no chance of winning the red-purple states. ZERO.
This article shows why, in two ways:
1) Bret Stephens represents, and thinks like, moderates and undecideds in swing states. Since Bernie (and his fans here, in comments) are unable to understand, and unwilling to compromise with people like Bret, there is ZERO chance that Bernie will get their vote.
2) Without Bret's vote (and those of the millions like him, in every purple Swing state), Bernie cannot win 270 Electoral Votes. He cannot win the presidency.
Unwillingness to even acknowledge that Bret is saying what he believes, and what millions of real voters believe -- is a silly way to campaign. It guarantees a loss.
This will repeat Brexit 2.0... Bernie is another Jeremy Corbyn or George McGovern (take your pick!)! With another resounding loss, he will be tar and feathered through media ads!
2
@Incredulous of 45 Bret is not a moderate. He is a conservative disenfranchised Republican. Hardly a Democrat by any means.
1
Free college. Free healthcare. Eliminate college debt. Guaranteed jobs for everyone
And he can't even tell us how he'll pay for it.
Sorry; I'd rather not imagine Bernie in the Oval Office
2
Bret Stephens cannot bring himself to choose between sanity and insanity, decency vs. obscenity. He is representative of a country that has been brainwashed by St. Ronnie and the renegade Libertarians. He is a symbol of our collective insanity. This is unprecedented and extremely disheartening.
Hard to take him, or any Republicans, seriously from now on.
3
Bret thinks Bernie would be a "wave" candidate, like Obama in 2008. And he is all but positive that M4A will be the result, and that's his huge fear, among other things.
Even though the "wave" Pres. Obama could barely manage to pass ACA, which was much less of a leap than M4A would be.
So easy to shoot down. Stephens can't do any better than this?
1
Imagine Americans who can't afford the deductibles and copays for their health insurance continuing to go to work and to the store rather than seeing a doctor or going to the Emergency Room even if they might have symptoms of the coronavirus. How do you feel about healthcare for all now? Maybe a pandemic will help people reconsider Medicare for All.
5
Thinking along the lines of this column, Trump and Sanders are the same in that they both have a vision. That is where they stop being the same. Trumps vision is society run by the ultra wealthy, for the ultra wealthy, at the expense of everyone else. Sanders vision is a society run by the majority, for everyone, with everyone sharing the cost. Which vision do do you prefer? Remember the ultra wealthy does not come up with innovative business ideas and neither do they drive the economy. Sanders represents needed change.
4
While I don't like the choice, I'm willing to pay higher taxes to be rid of Trump.
4
Bartleby ended badly.
Bret Stephens deserves whatever befalls him in a Trump administration. That might include losing his job if things continue as they are and Trump includes Stephens as an “enemy of the people”. Stephens is so worried about his money he accepts the autocrat as the German industrialists accepted Hitler’s horrors to continue earning money. Remember Bret, Jews above all others should recognize evil and replace it. There is no equivalence between Sanders and Trump. Sanders abides by the laws and norms that have made America great. Trump has never in his life done that.
So Bret, hitch up your trousers and #VoteBlueNoMatterWho. It won’t hurt a bit and you’ll be happier in the end.
3
“No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one.” — John Lennon
Sanders 2020
6
“Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman...”
—George Harrison.
The debate continues!
Imagine a man of prince in the White House. OMG!!
1
The question that begs to be asked is why is The New York Times so void of any contributors who could shake our understanding of current affairs. Hire just one contributor who is outside this now overly tired one note analysis. Yanis Varoufakis, Jeffrey Sachs, Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Nader, Chomsky, anyone outside this now overly boring interpretation of how this world is and should be functioning.
2
If Sanders is our nominee , Trump will win again . I agree most people will go with the devil they know rather than the unknown , unproven . Bernie may have been a Senator (from a small state for a long time ) and really he inflates his record for a low profile Senator until in his late years when he decided to run for President . He lacks the heroic stands of Warren , the experience of Biden , the common sense and wit of Klobuchar , the energy and and military experience of Mayor Pete . We need to elect someone who will work tirelessly to amend the damage Trump has done . Bernie is great on inspiration for the people promising he will usher in equality in all areas , a nirvana for the masses . He is not an FDR nor an LBJ . Those men put their money where their mouths were . It will be what it will be but it'll be a mess and lots of turmoil .
2
@sm Sanders is not promising any more than FDR or LBJ. Stop the misinformation. I
@George M. Not misinformation ; he certainly is not of the same caliber or for that matter fiber . Why did he wait until he was in his mid 70s if he was so devoted to bettering the lives of others ? Where was his passion before ? FDR came into office during the great depression and we all know or are familiar how his programs helped protect , enabled the recovery of the country with his public works ; LBJ was a powerhouse in the Senate and as President instituted Medicare , Medicaid , it cost him his cache when he got the civil rights act passed ; don't be disingenuous by comparing him to them. Small potatoes .
Stephens is amusing. He's the Iago of the New York Times, the kind who includes in his comments a link to a firewall (since who among his readers, he likes to think, doesn't subscribe to The Wall Street Journal?). In short, he represents the one per cent. And does it well, so well I would bet a dollar they invite him to their parties - some of their parties, anyway. I'll never forget how recently he tried to get a professor fired for having the audacity to criticize his vapid and predictable opinions and his supercilious attitude. The idea that Donald Trump is predictable sounds like The Onion. Freed from any reelection anxiety, I can only imagine what he might do; such imaginings are an astronomer's guess. It's really time to balance a retrograde columnist like Stephens with somebody who has more backbone and represents actual American citizens: Hightower, maybe, or Chomsky, or your former colleague Chris Hedges. I only with Collins had asked Stephone if he agreed with Chris Mathews when he said that Sanders winning Nevada is analogous to the Nazis defeating the French. I'm still open-mouthed about that one.
2
You are not helping the cause by bashing Bernie. STOP! Geez!
1
trump containable? Why he has become progressively destructive almost by the hour, with late acceleration prompted by the fizzled impeachment process. The trajectory demonstrates that he only gets worse, and given that the the well-being of the planet is already threatened, the logical outcome may be something like obliteration. Not a fair dodge, Mr. Stephens. A vote for Jill Stein would spell disaster.
2
Very disappointing, Brett... the corrosive and vulgar liar in the WH is only going to get worse.
2
Brett, your voice drips with an effluvium of white, straight, male privilege, and false consciousness. It shows that you’d rather keep paying moderately lower taxes (or be bankrupted if you or anyone in your household gets sick), than shut unconstitutional concentration camps on the southern border. It shows that you could care less about how refugees of war-torn countries are treated in the land of the free, than about a tiny adjustment to your bottom-line (unless you happen to be a multi-multi-millionaire). How divisive, anti-democratic smear pieces like this have infected a once great news outlet sickens me.
5
Stephens is amusing. He's the Iago of the New York Times, the kind who includes in his comments a link to a firewall (since who among his readers, he likes to think, doesn't subscribe to The Wall Street Journal?). In short, he represents the one per cent. And does it well, so well I would bet a dollar they invite him to their parties - some of their parties, anyway. I'll never forget how recently he tried to get a professor fired for having the audacity to criticize his vapid and predictable opinions and his supercilious attitude. The idea that Donald Trump is predictable sounds like The Onion. Freed from any reelection anxiety, I can only imagine what he might do; such imaginings are an astronomer's guess. It's really time to balance a retrograde columnist like Stephens with somebody who has more backbone and represents actual American citizens: Hightower, maybe, or Chomsky, or your former colleague Chris Hedges. I only wish Collins had asked Stephens if he agreed with Chris Mathews when Mathews said that Sanders winning Nevada is analogous to the Nazis defeating the French. I'm still open-mouthed about that one.
2
"many of us believe that the people who voted for the Green Party in 2016 elected Donald Trump."
It's astounding and aggravating that GC actually continues to trod out this completely discredited and baseless assertion
It's not supported by facts, Gail
How can a NYT op-ed columnist be this uninformed?
HRC did not lose a single state b/c of Jill Stein
She lost b/c she never bothered to get herself to the mid-west rust belt states - she had too many cocktail parties in the Hamptons to get to.
The Greens did not elect Trump - HRC lost those states on her own - with her arrogance abetted by the clueless DNC elites in DC she listened to
Why does Collins continue to misrepresent the facts?
2
Bernie.
4
What a waste of print. Only scanned. That's five seconds I Won't get back!
1
I would be happy to see Bozo the Clown in the Oval Office...
Wait...
Now before those hungry Bernie Sanders groupies get all excited: Before we reach the end of the rainbow and do everything in our power to ignore the short, old white guy behind the curtain...
Bernie Sanders is Independent Socialist; That title has Trump drooling...
Mr. Sanders has no idea how he is going to pay for all of these wonderful programs (over 60 trillion dollars) that make the depression area socialist programs of the "New Deal" of the 1930 jealous with envy. (about 50 trillion)
(Watch: 60 minutes)
Bernie Sanders is not very healthy and is elderly. It would be a very good idea for Sanders to pick Pete Buttigieg or Hillary Clinton as Vice President.
The largest problem facing Mr. Sanders is that he will be torn to bits from within the Democratic Party, and then he may have to face Trump -who will do everything in his power (lie, steal and cheat) to stay in power.
Can millionaire (oxy?) Mr. Sanders handle being attacked from all ends?
I will vote for any Democrat that wins the nomination and I can see Sander's as President- I just don't think it's likely.
1
Think character, truth, laws, ethics, science, and leadership don't matter; that government is to be severely weakened and hated (except the military); and it doesn't matter if the President of the United States turns order into chaos, staffs government agencies with loyalists to him rather than competent professionals, and that experienced, intelligent people with superb judgment won't work for Trump?
Sit back and imagine President Donald J. Trump in the White House when the coronavirus hits the United States full force.
2
Bret always seems to discount checks and balances. I've been a life long independent with liberal leaning who registered as a democrat in the last presidential election. If he believes that Trump has been "contained" (and despite media hype, I largely agree), that is precisely because checks and balances work (which appears to be what Gail is saying). The swell of a revolution "feels" right after the odious Trump regime, but it will not be violent and it will not break the country financially. There are too many competing powers to block that from happening.
1
"Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class."
How is it that every other developed country has universal health coverage but that it's too expensive for the U.S.? The key is cost containment. Looking at you, insurance and pharmaceutical companies and too-well-compensated specialists.
3
Oh my god, Mr. Stephens. Trump has proven “containable”? Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and Betsy Devoss and Wilbur Ross and Climate Change Treaty and Putin and North Korea and Iran and Ukraine transgender rights and Charlottesville Nazis and...!!! What are you saying? I don’t like Sanders either and I know Buttigieg is the best candidate BY FAR BUT each issue I mention, above, would be light years better handled by Sanders than the gangster in the White House! Your thinking only of your pocketbook and hiding behind your concerns over Sanders to mask that. For shame.
5
Again it’s very interesting to me that in a “representative republic” made up of “We the people” that an authoritarian fascist is okay, but a democratic socialist has everyone shaking in there boots.
Besides didn’t you get the memo, Sanders has refused to tow the line on “These are people we are supposed to hate and everything about them is hateful.” So all your hyperbolic nonsense about “price tags” and “unimaginable taxation” (if only you had scrutinised Trumps slogans half as well!) are wasted breathe! You just need to run with “The evil socialist said nice things about Castro!” Ooh! Scary! “The crazy man said JINA helped it’s people!” OMG! The nerve!
2
Anybody but Trump
3
News Flash! Warren Exists! And Persists!
If you can't feel the Bern, feel the Warrmin'!
3
Bret:
The difference between Trump and Bernie is the difference between fascism and social democracy.
You are choosing fascism and calling it cancer. Same thing.
4
The argument that (1) Bernie can't win the presidency, and (2) even if he does, he'll be a bad candidate for down-ticketers to run with, is like a copy-paste of arguments against Trump in 2016. It's just a bunch of fear-mongering nonsense that party insiders come up with to mask their real fear: This guy is popular enough that he'll be hard for us stiffs to control.
Notice that virtually everyone who predicts "Americans will never buy socialism" is a 65+ year-old who's already enjoying America's most popular version of it: Medicare. (In other words, someone who's done worrying about how our insurance system could personally destroy them.) If you're so sure socialized medicine is too expensive, instead of poo-pooing Bernie's Medicare-for-All pipe dream, you should be advocating for replacing Medicare with Cigna.
Be that as it may, even though Gail Collins is one of my favorite opinion columnists ever, I have to side with Bret on one point: I think Bernie's the only one who stands a chance of beating Trump, if only because he knows how to stay on message. Remember how every 2016 Clinton interview began with a non-apology for the emails followed by 5-10 minutes of argumentation that she did nothing wrong? Ask Bernie about his "Russia honeymoon" and I guarantee you he'll be talking about working-class wages or health care in less than 15 seconds.
1
@Craig Russell
I'm 67 and have the VA and Medicare. No US citizen should have to worry about medical bankruptcy. We are the only industrialized nation that does not have a national plan. That is simply unsatisfactory.
5
Jeez what a nightmare that would be!
Wow, Bret.
Really? Trump over Sanders? That's how you'd vote?
Sanders - who believes in healthcare for all, who will tax the wealthy fairly, who truly cares about Americans and who is a patriot - you would throw him under the bus for Trump? A vile, malignant narcissist who does terrible things literally every single day of his life?
I don't think I can read anything you write again without staring at it through a lens of stunned disbelief.
In fact, I think I'll just skip what you write forevermore.
That you are okay with Trump being president again tells me some awful things about you, your research, and your intelligence.
4
I’m looking forward to the moment when the Times decides its time to stop undermining the inevitable Democratic candidate.
3
I'm sick of the garbage that floats around to disguise the rot that is tearing down my country!! In full view, Trump is transforming the US Government into a criminal enterprise with the quiet full approval of America's elite who now want to take full control of America's other political party to insure forever America's oligarchy of Billionaires!! We are closer than you imagine to a Russian style government!!
2
Bernie on Castro...what does reading and writing get you IF you can’t read and write what you WANT to read and write?
2
"I say this as someone who supported him enthusiastically when he jumped in the race last year." says Gail Collins. Wow. Willing to sell out every principle you thought you had. Talk about hypocrites. You've just devalued the weight of your opinion. You live in NY and you don't know the real deal behind this Republican, would-be Democratic imposter? Perhaps that's good news. One less column I have to read to stay intelligently informed.
Gail, do you ever get tired of telling the incessant disparaging lies about the President? We readers certainly tire of your unfounded accusations and Trump Derangement Syndrome. For example, your remark here calling him a dictator. Absurd.
1
Some people compare Trump to Hitler.
I think the comparison is unfair.
Hitler was an enormously twisted patriot.
Trump is in everything for himself.
The country means little or nothing to him.
When he famously said that he could shoot someone down on Fifth Avenue and get away with it, he was actually saying that a man of his greatness deserves to get away with it.
This is nothing less than megalomania at a fever pitch.
The disaster to the nation that he represents ranks right up there with Pearl Harbor and 9-11.
The country will be 50 years recovering from him.
3
Normalizing “disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless” is far more dangerous for this country and the world. Perhaps you are your kind, who elected Trump, and would even consider actively or passively (via a 3rd party vote) are the real danger to this land.
2
Donald Trump containable????? Hahahahahahah, Oh Mr Stephens you are such an optimist. I can’t stop laughing.
4
The people who moan about money (even when we have an abundance of it) at every step of the way especaiily whwen it comes to saving lives are the increbibly selfish and naive. I sincerely hope Bernie Sanders wins so that these kinds of dumb articles are not written anymore and opinion writers such as Bret beccome irrelevant.
6
As a Canadian, I think the argument that medicare for all would ruin America's finances rings very hollow. In the end, as Sanders posits, it saves money and lives, increases opportunities for everyone to get ahead, reduces inequality and strengthens the economy long-term. It's also the only moral choice. Don't listen to the medical insurance industry, listen to the people of America who should ALL have access to medical care whenever they need it, not only when they can afford it.
5
Wow, Bernie Sanders making Donald Trump look good to Democrats. Laugh out loud. Bernie's shoving down their throats all the righteousness morality Dems have been preaching for the last three and a half years and now they're gagging on it. Sweet.
3
Prof Irwin Corey explains healthcare.
Here's a look at the lucrative Defense commodity since 2001.
Business is booming, right along with Healthcare!
https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/$DFI/technical-chart?plot=BAR&volume=0&data=MO&density=X&pricesOn=1&asPctChange=1&logscale=0&sym=$DFI&grid=1&height=210&studyheight=100
"Bloomberg will have to summon that part of himself that was the hungry young man from nowhere who nearly lost everything before he gained nearly everything"
There's a problem there. He didn't go from "nothing" (I don't think his parents were destitute) to everything by finding care for his fellow man, by learning their problems and acting to fix it. He did that by being all-in for Mike Bloomberg, by going to Wall Street and making money. That is a completely different, almost diametrically opposed path.
3
Oh? He had to work his way through John Hopkins Univ and has sense donated several billion dollars to that university for students who could not pay the tuition to go there...the largest donation ever made to a university...could you do such in your life time? Could any of the other candidates? It’s more commendable that he did what he did as a billionaire when many others distant themselves from real life causes the higher they climb ...is there another nominee who has the brains to run a business that supports thousands, is knowledgeable and sympathetic to social issues, climate change, gun control? I want someone to run the economy who know how to!
#FeelTheBern!
--Trump, 2016-2024
Brett, Let me be perfectly clear.
A vote for anyone but the Dem candidate is a vote for Trump.
Therefore you have two choices: Vote for a normal person who will work for America and Americans, or vote for a mentally-deficient, lying, corrupt, racist, bigoted misogynistic con-man who could not care less about America or Americans.
Got that?
5
Bernie Sanders gives praise to Fidel Castro, and you guys are okay with that?
1
Well, I think you are oversimplifying, but I will play. Let's accept that Sanders did praise some Castro achievements. Trump is Putin's puppy dog, Kim's high school crush, and probably has a shrine to Erdogan and Orban.
2
@David Y.S.
Of course Castro made the trains run on time. Castro the dictator was and is a liberal darling.
Whenever someone admits they deplore Trump but then go on to act as if someone (and usually Sanders in particular is called out) in the Democrat field would be worse, I wonder what America they really believe in. Is it the America that committed genocide of native peoples or the one that believed in "justice for all." Is it the America that enslaved people or the one that abolished slavery? Is it the America that created the Gilded Age or the one that gave us the New Deal?Jim Crow or the Civil Rights Act? And most importantly, is it the America that pretended Hitler was none of our business while enriching themselves doing business with him or the one that despite the horrendous massacre of Allied soldiers during the Normandy landing, forged on at great cost to defeat him and save the world from him. Who are Brett Stephens and the GOP kidding - other than themselves - when they say Trump is, "containable" even as they flatly refuse to do anything significant to stop his consolidation of power? Anyone who claims to believe in democracy and casts a vote that doesn't positively deny Trump another term is as deluded as Neville Chamberlain was about Adolf Hitler.
4
Bloomberg.
1
Bernie is dreadful.
Trump is far worse.
But Trump will easily beat Bernie and both houses of Congress will go red.
And that is the worst of all.
Bernie, you're a 78 year old walking heart attack who has had all the chances in the world to make meaningful public policies. You've failed, completely.
Please, for the sake of the country, shut down your monstrous ego and get out of the way.
1
Stephens argument seems to be better a corrupt, racist, sexual predator criminal in office because we know he’s a corrupt, racist, sexual predator criminal and he can be contained...I have seen no evidence of that.
4
What an incredibly privileged take on the primaries. What life would be as an affluent middle aged white man in this country!
In all seriousness, it is naive to think that Sanders' potential presidency would be as catastrophic as Trump's. I sincerely doubt Sanders' will commit as many, if any, human rights abuses or violations as Trump. Sanders wants to GIVE to the people, not take. He is not threatening our democracy by manipulating our elections, conspiring with foreign leaders, antagonizing dictator's for oil, or further corrupting our politics by feeding into lobbying. Sanders, although as radical as Trump in many ways, will not turn public service into self service. Full stop.
I also think it's ridiculous to keep backing Biden when Pete is consistently polling better. If you're going to talk about a moderate candidate and his potential presidency compared to Sanders, look at Buttiege. Biden may do better than Pete in a few more states, but Pete's the moderate front runner.
2
So sorry, Bret. Conservatives in Germany thought they could contain Hitler, too. Your choice is not between higher and lower taxes. Your choice is between Democracy and Fascism. You make your preference clear.
7
I don't get your drift, Mr. Stephens. Maybe you could explain your claim of "unheard of levels of taxation" substantively against the findings of peer-reviewed studies that show M4All saving us money. Lots of it. Or maybe you could address the hemorrhage of money of 5 million Americans going bankrupt from medical debt each year, or $327 billion our country loses each year to the largely *preventable* costs of DIABETES alone? Or the one TRILLION to incarceration, or * $21 TRILLION* in UNACCOUNTED-FOR military spending over the course of a decade and a half.
So Bret Stephens prefers Trump. A "known" quantity. "Containable". That's what you call a cozy lobster in a warm bath.
6
There goes Bret, clutching his capitalist pearls again. Quick Gail, get him the fainting couch!
3
I agree that Sanders could be another McGovern. Too many voters would be afraid of him. Trump has $250 million for a negative TV budget. Dems need a more centrist candidate.
These centrists would be another Mondale. We need a progressive to turn out the vote.
There's a great piece in the Atlantic you should read if you're going to parrot the McGovern comparison: When Will Moderates Learn their Lesson?
Don't worry, it chides progressives too. But the McGovern parallels are so old and proven false, they're useless.
You know, the last remark, the ability to change one's views when the facts change, is a gift, as it requirs an open mind, some humility, and paying attention to what's going on ('educate thyself'). Anybody, the one sweeping the streets, cleaning the gutters, fixing your flat tires, is infinitely better that lying Trump, a brutus ignoramus by choice, densely obtuse, having lost the ability to tell fact from fiction, and the shame when lying about something debunked over and over. Let's remember that, aside from assaulting the presidency with Putin's assistance, he pocketed emotionally those that felt 'left behind'...by promising what he knew was false (as a 'true' demagogue). Trump, a slow-growing malignancy? You wish; he is a 'bull in a china shop', destroying any and all in his way, our very democracy indeed. Trump,containable? You are kidding right? Just ask his personal lawyer, AG Barr, adrift by being uncovered as a partisdan hack. Republican fiscal hawkishness if a democrat wins the presidency? With what credibility...other than their cynicism, hypocrisy and current cowardice? I guess we all have a lot to atone to, some more than others. Insofar health care is concerned, we know for certain that we cannot afford to deny coverage to the poor..for what we take for granted for ourselves. No sir. We need universal public-private health care, with 'healthy' regulation and public supervision. As it stands, it's too expensive and the quality leaves much to be desired.
3
The fact that a candidate who has always worked within the democratic process and who wants to provide health insurance to all Americans is seen as being as radical a threat to the country as one that wants all 3 branches of government to work for him tells you just how much some people love money over democracy.
9
Here's the thing about Bernie, he's not the radical.
In Europe he'd be center-left.
Let's hope Democratic voters see through this and deliver Bernie a majority on Super Tuesday.
So far Bernie is the most electable candidate in human history!
4
“In human history”? Trump’s hyperbole has migrated to the left! But I agree, to the extent that Bernie is more electable than, say, Caligula.
No, Bret, the choice of Bernie Sanders is not a “poisoned vial.” Trump certainly is, but Sanders offers real hope. Don’t bother with simple tags like “socialist” to describe him. First thing: He is neither corrupt like the current occupant of the White House, nor is he a pathological liar.
And the most refreshing thing: Bernie’s intelligent, unlike Trump. He’s also not racist, nor does he seek to cage children or ban immigrants. That’s enough for me.
6
Bernie vs. Donald. America is truly deplorable through and through.
1
I wonder if Brett got downsized and lost his cushy pundit job and while trying to monetize his blog finds himself working a part-time Amazon warehouse position in-between a part-time gig teaching writing at a local community college from which he does a little Uber-driving on the side if he would change his mind about healthcare for all?
6
Trump is "containable"?? He's upended all expectations of ethics in government, stripped bare environmental protections, pardoned his racist allies, promoted racism, offered favors only to the wealthy and famous, exacerbated immigration problems with corruption, ineptitude, and callousness, and enriched himself in the process (his primary goal to becoming president). And I know I'm missing some other key points - oh, yeah, made the world less safe with his unpredictability. Wow, if he's "containable", I must be missing something - like who's containing him?
2
Why use a picture that makes Bernie look small? Why does the media always beat down the front runner?
3
I thought it made him look like Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea. (Those outstretched arms! Those clouds!). But if your paranoia prepares you to see Bernie being victimized by the evil corporate media, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of examples everywhere.
A 'not' vote Bret is a vote for Trump is a vote for kids in cages, no rule of law, America isolated, subjugation for all minorities.
Nice job, Bret! Your libertarian candidate can't make that go away.
2
Trump containable???
Not in this universe.
4
It's time to shut down this discussion. We're going to be reading the same thing for the next 40 weeks.
2
Will Bernie slash the military budget? Will he start by cutting off military aid to Ukraine?
As long as three or more candidates stay in the race, we're headed for a brokered convention. Bernie won't be the nominee if the convention goes past a first round of voting.
To Jerry Sturdivant please turn your efforts to the amount of fraud in the insurance industry. Crack down on that and you don't have to bankrupt the American public with Medicare for all. And might I add that as important as your pills are (and I am not minimizing that for a second) so, too, is defeating Trump and Sanders will get creamed. You have choices besides wanting Sanders to solve your cost problems. And FYI with ACA preexisting conditions are not a factor.
I can’t believe that educated journalists honestly believe that trump could be a better choice than Bernie Sanders. I need to go back and check if either has a history of blaming Bernie supporters for not supporting Clinton enthusiastically enough. It’s beyond me that refraining from voting (aka letting Trump win) is being proposed as the right decision.
Have you no humanity? Do you see how Trump is pardoning and condoning corruption? How he is inciting hatred and even violence? How he is demonizing minorities and causing a humanitarian crisis at the border? Do you not see how Trump is corrosive to democracy and our values? Our country cannot survive one more term of Trump. How in the world is Bernie on that level? I need people to take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror and see what they are suggesting our priorities should be.
5
"The food is terrible and the portions too small." Describes Bernie perfectly.
1
I'm not sure if I admire Gail Collins' ability to converse with Bret Stephens and, perhaps, even like him. Commenter Jake, the second most picked reader, so far, tried hard to reach Stephens. Here, too, I have mixed emotions about Jake's noble effort. Maybe I am as tough minded as I think Stephens is smug. I could be as closed minded as he is. Does his 'golden boy' persona particularly turn me off? If he had worked hard all his life on a farm, in a factory, as a healthcare aid, a maid in a hotel, a nurse, picking up garbage or as a small businessperson, I would probably would listen better. The guy seems so self-satisfied and fey fair it is as though he is another token like Brooks, but Brooks is older, had emotional setbacks and does seem to reflect thoughtfully on his Opinions. However different our positions, I would appreciate some substantive argument from Stephens that could inform me and get me thinking. I wonder how many readers gravitate to him for insightful Opinions?
1
If Trump is reelected it pretty much guarantees that the next generation of children will have no moral values. Bernie might be grandiloquent but he aspires to a caring America.
At this point mental illness and anxiety is spiking, so at least Bernie will tamp that down a bit. If a single poll shows the Dem beating Trump we will see unprecedented looting in the Executive branch.
“He has a clearly articulated sense of right and wrong that makes it easy for his supporters to feel good about voting for him, without looking closely at the fine print or price tag of his policy proposals.“ How condescending, plus it clearly highlights Stephens’ blind spot. I’ve become a Bernie supporter, after a long period of skepticism over his lack of specificity in detailing his proposals, because I’ve come to see the aspirational nature of the myth he is creating. I know those details FULL well, and they matter little. And I’m anything but alone in this view among Bernie supporters. In the real world of a Sanders presidency - even in the ideal case of a Senate led by Elizabeth Warren - the more costly proposals will be tempered. Pretty much all criticisms that Democratic “overspending” will collapse the economy have been refuted by Trump’s deficit-rich giveaways to the uber-wealthy and to the many (big farmers, etc.) whose votes he’s buying. Stop mansplaining and listen to the woman, Mr. Stephens - she’s right!
2
The potential choice between an oligarch and a socialist shows the very real need for a third, centrist political party.
106
@Howard The Democratic Party is the centrist party, evidently by the hysteria of elites as a reaction to his ascendence as the frontrunner. Maybe Bernie needs to start a third, progressive party.
Its clear that Dems consistently try to please the center while Repubs don't hesitate to embrace the far right. and they win because they are embracing who they truly are. Democrats are always compromising and conceding to center and center right repub agenda.
41
@Howard
The potential choice between two New York Oligarchs shows the very real need for a third, left political party.
23
@Howard How can you get more centrist than a guy who bounces between Democrat and Republican on a whim? Bloomberg is the epitome of the modern centrist Democrat. His being an oligarch is ancillary. Your main complaint is that there just aren’t an centrist Democrats that are lovable.
8
Bernie wants a top rate of 50% on the ultra wealthy. The rate under Eisenhower was 91% with a GOP Congress. Yes, all enacted under FDR, and let's not forget Eleanor's influence. But still, what did the GOP of those years do about it? Eisenhower took the revenue and immediately set about building the interstate highway system with New Deal taxes.
Bernie needs to double down as a Socialist if he is to catch up with the 1950's GOP.
4
Bret doesn’t think, as many Americans don’t, he votes his immediate self-satisfying wallet desires. Keep it Simple.
2
So many commentators, journalists, and editorialists showing their true colors these days.
Fear of change is the hallmark of conservativism. Healthcare and climate change form existential threats to our economic security - both at the macro and micro levels. To do nothing in the face of these issues or to advocate for moderation (conservativism, status quo), indicates that you are part of the problem and not the solution.
look in the mirror folks.
3
Unlike Republican or other presidents who've done great harm through deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, mercenary wars, Trump is obviously mentally incapable of endorsing anything that works if it was initiated or implemented by someone else. He just can't. He has to reinvent reality with himself as the star on a moment to moment basis.
Similarly, Bret Stephens is so blind to the fatal limitation in Trump (a former Democrat who switched out of pique rather than considered opinions) he has no case against Sanders.
1
wow you two are in your bubble. medicare for all is just an expansion of medicare and reduces costs. why do we need such a large military budget to send soldiers off to endless wars when that money could be used to help the poor without health insurance and a roof over their heads. The reason the establishment is still in power is narrow minded rigid party wonks like yourselves
3
Bret Stephens is not worth reading or listening to on TV! He is always wishy-washy! He always acts like he knows better. He is the master of splitting an hair into two to show how smart and knowledgeable he is! I cannot care less about what he writes or what he says!
1
Russia has ALWAYS wanted to cripple NATO. China has ALWAYS wanted to run the US out of the Pacific.
What’s different this time around is that the current American President wants those things too. Sanders does not.
Treating the size of the candidates’ defense budget proposals as a proxy for their fitness to serve as commander-in-chief is so obviously misguided one has to wonder whether Stephens is even being genuine in this conversation.
6
Brett, the rule of law, the Constitution, and our democracy matters to me. The two political parties are asymmetric. Think about this:
1) Donald Trump committed treason on national television when you requested the Russians hack into Hillary Clinton‘s email server’s. We know from the Mueller report that the Russians hacked into the servers five hours after the request. Solicitation of a crime is a crime. Accepting a foreign enemy aid to interfere in our democracy is treason.
2) gerrymandering, The last I read there are 13 republican states that have done this, and only two democratic states have done this. This is asymmetry. And I do not approve of any political party gerrymandering.
3) When the Democrat Blagojevich committed a crime they sent him to prison. When Gingrich was engaged in criminal activity they gave him the option to avoid prosecution in exchange of signing a contract stating he would never run for political office again. But when the statue of limitation ended on the contract he ran for president.
4) Republicans acknowledge the inappropriate power dynamic between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. But are unwilling to acknowledge the inappropriate power dynamic between Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine. Attempted extortion and attempted bribery is still a crime.
5) The poisoning of the flint Michigan water supply. How many Democrats were involved with this? None. It was the results of the Republicans.
4
It is mind boggling and disrespectful that Sanders (not a fan) is being compared to Trump and the suggestion that the solution is a third party.
We are in the middle of catastrophic constitutional crisis and the democratic process is in peril, the last thing we need is to divide the anti-Trump vote.
4
Okay, first - would you predict an election with only .255 of precincts reporting? There are 3879 first-ballot delegates to the Democratic Convention and only 100 have been committed. Bernie needs 1,991 delegates to win and he has a whopping 45.
Second, with Donnie v. Bernie you have a demagogue on the Right versus a demagogue on the Left. ANY of the candidates will crush Trump in the coastal mega-cities. But the Emperor plays small-ball, relying on the results in Purple States. And, like 2016, an unpopular Democratic candidate will keep Democratic voters away from the polls altogether. Its not a question of voting for one or the other - its a question of voting AT ALL.
And since we veered off at the end into NYC's favorite - Bloomberg territory - if Bernie wins the nomination and alienates Moderates, will Bloomberg buy into the Reform ticket or run as an Independent? He may see himself as being the only moderate and therefore capable of beating both extremes. But here's a tip - most of Mike's money has gone to campaign in Liberal strongholds like NYC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. His position on firearms regulation will guarantee nobody - Republican or Democrat - will vote for him in the flyover states. Them folks would sell their children into slavery before they give up their guns.
And Trump is re-elected in a landslide plurality of 38% (versus 42% for Bernie).
I am no fan of Bernie; but I will support him should he be elected. If he cannot get any of his ideas pass, I must accept that in today's circumstance.
What else can I do? Bernie or anyone else should be still far better off than keeping Trump in the white house.
Warren is my choice. She will meticulously get things done. Vote Warren.
3
Not enough attention is being paid to the immediate and long term danger to our democracy and the Democratic Party in particular, of having an individual with a net worth of sixty billion dollars literally purchase a position as a leading contender for the Presidency of the United States. In the process we see the real possibility, if not probability, of his employing his enormous wealth to take de facto control of the Democratic Party. That would be a disaster for democracy in this country and would probably result in the birth of a third party and the gradual slide of the Democratic Party into impotence and irrelevance. That's why I can only shake my head in amazement at the almost detached attitude of your two columnists. It seems to me that they dwell on the small stuff and talk to each other as if they are observing affairs on Earth from another planet.
2
How long must I wait for the political class in Washington and New York to understand that the middle is falling out because it isn't the 'middle' and doesn't provide for the country anymore.
It is time for change in this country that does more than pay lip service to working class issues. Those of us on the left aren't willing to let the neo-fascist Republican Party be the ideological agent for that change. We've spent 30 years watching the overton window being pulled right by a radical Republican Party and a 'moderate' and 'wise' cohort of Democratic technocrats. We are fed up and it's time for something new. 'Moderates' cannot stop this fight from happening. I suggest you join us.
3
You bet Trump wants to run against Bernie he will trounce him.
As a more moderate Democrat, if forced to choose between Trump or Sanders I vote for the man who didn't brag about sexually assaulting women, didn't make fun of a fellow Republicans female candidate's face, didn't say a Navy pilot - who was awarded two purple hearts, two bronze stars, two silver stars and was tortured in a POW camp for five years - was not a hero, and was impeached for betraying our country. etc. etc.....
4
We would be doing this ‘gun to head choose’ scenario no matter who the front runner. We don’t have another Barak Obama but every single candidate and my miniature schnauzer would be better for this country than the current occupant. Last time it was Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein duking it out for Boogeyperson and Chief except — Hey — Hillary won the popular vote. Remember? So this time let’s look hard and deep at the real boogeyman (and here I am presuming it’s a man because I DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE), the electoral collegians. They are the disrupters. Let’s see their taxes, their nannies, their passports, their prescriptions. How did they get to decide the 2016 election? Let’s see who they are. This is not OK.
3
You don’t need to like Bret Stephens to know there are millions of people like him, so called swing voters in this Trump era, who could be captured by a moderate talking progressive policy pursuing candidate, but who will run to the heavens when Bernie comes into town and will ultimately hurt Dems down ticket.
This talk of a Bernie revolution is just hot air the same as Trump’s was. Trump and Clinton saw depressed voter turnout. The middle does not want polarizing candidates. And the wrong takeaway about why Clinton lost would be her positioning as the moderate in that race. She was as far to the left on identity politics as you could be in 2016. She was the least liked candidate in decades. But the 2016 Bernie coalition has splintered off into supporting a myriad of other candidates. What does this say? The Bernie ideology is not the reason for his 2016 successes or failures. But rather his not being Hillary Clinton accounted for a large percentage of his appeal.
He won’t have that in a general. And despite people on the coasts losing their minds at every Trump tweet, for most Americans the only thing Trump has taken a baseball bat to is Washington. A place many considered beyond redemption.
2
Imagine Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office; a President Bernie Sanders; a President who does not lie; What a relief !!!
Imagine another 4 years of Trump in the Oval Office: a President who lies and disinforms the public every single day.
Well we the people want to look forward to an honest President;
and we the people just do not care if he or she is a Democrat or a Republican ; we just do not want to have a President who
lies; whose allies lie; we do not want a President who is so
unstable that he denies that the stock market just lost millions and the cororona virus pandemic ihas been contained ; world leaders want the USA to be responsible
and honest ….so we want Bernie/or anyone who can ake us
tell our kids our grandkids you want to be President ….well be
like Bernie...and don't ever lie.
2
Here's a thought I keep having about this election.
I am certain, absolutely certain, that Trump is going to try to cheat to win.
Are the moderate candidates actually prepared to deal with that? Because people on the left are DEFINITELY prepared to try to win with a deck that is stacked against them. If Biden is cheated out of a win, I don't think people are going to take to the streets. But I think they will for Bernie.
1
Democrats who describe themselves as centrist negotiate with the right wing starting from the center. Thus, all decisions and legislation veer to the right. I am sick and tired of the rightward trend in our country. Sick of waiting for decades and decades for good things to happen regarding the disparity of wealth, the way the rich and connected have a separate and more lenient justice system, sick of our health care system, sick and tired of environmental issues not being solved. With Bernie we'll have someone negotiating from the left, as it should be. That's how you get stuff to move toward the center.
4
I haven't read a more clueless, self-serving analysis than this. Why do we care what these two 'pundits' think? They have been wrong about most everything, all the corporate media has done is throw shade at Bernie and keep bringing up the most asinine questions that have been answered repeatedly.
Feel the Bern!!
2
To Bret:
Your points that need to be debunked.
1. Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class.
Are you including the cost savings that Americans currently pay in co-pays, deductibles, premiums and out of pocket expenses. Our current system is what people can't afford hence, charity work and online fundraisers like go fund me. Again, we can;t afford our current system. Do conservatives only care when it happens to them.
2. He might appoint a Fed chairman who believes in Modern Monetary Theory, which would be a recipe for hyperinflation.
Printing money doesn't cause inflation, shortages of needed products causes inflation. Usually food or energy. Haven't people been saying printing money for social security and medicare and deficits would cause inflation for years, it will never caused inflation and never will. Something else might cause it, and then your ideology will blame it on printing money. Look at Zimbabwae, inflation was caused by shortages of farm food. The cause of general inflation is shortages.
So much for being a NeverTrumper!
3
Pundits and his base attribute his success to being “authentic”; some see him as delusional. His is hybrid of delusional authenticity: he is a true believer. An idealist guided by idealism over realism. He is the opposite of Trump in that he is an unprincipled cynic guided by self interest to bend reality to his will.
Bernie is a true believer in the mold of 1930’s socialists who admired the Soviet experiment.
The Great Depression, the Great Migration and the rise of Fascism brought white and black folks together as victims of unfettered capitalism and bigotry (especially Jews whose parents fled here to escape persecution and who saw it on the rise in Europe) . Bernie is a classic example of a “lefty “ miplded by this world view. Soviet communism promised a better way, and its propaganda highlighted US racism even attracting Paul Robeson.
But the true believers were blinded by their idealism. Communism was enforced by oppression and “Uncle Joe” was a corrupt psychopathic killer on a greater scale than Hitler.
Bernie’s idealism likewise has blinded him to the reality that capitalism is the source of our wealth and government paternalism morphs into oppression. Thus his promises are not based on realistically regulating capitalism but promising an undeliverable utopia.
His campaign is from the heart, but so is his brain.
“Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable.”
You sound like the Republicans in the 2016 election. He was not containable then and the last three years demonstrate he is not containable now. You can, and probably will, pick up and leave this country if he wins. Most of us can’t. Shame on you!
4
Very important points here. I am with Bret Stephens, although if the choice is between Trump and Sanders, I will write in Bloomberg or Steyer. This country definitely needs unification under a moderate--right now, a business man with liberal ideals makes the most common sense. Enough of the civil war among neighbors and family. It is scary out here. When fanatical cults are the only options, nothing but disaster can occur.
2
@sandhillgarden Did you knox that Steyer's platform is almost the same as Sanders'?
1
@Marilyn Burbank Steyer can listen and works well with others. He gets things done. There's the differences, some of them. Plus, Steyer is not a Communist or "Fellow Traveler". Bernie is making that more evident everyday.
1
What are voters like Brett willing to allow for for the hope (hope not reality) of low taxes and a working economy? A racist president who emboldens the worst of our nation? You’re willing to allow for that? Universal health care...oh no that’s socialism! But let’s allow for a president who bribes a foreign country to steal an election. You are willing to allow for that? Universal preschool... no don’t teach kids that’s socialism and radical. You Brett are willing to allow for the deterioration of our democracy. For a few extra bucks? How much does your conscious cost? If you need cash just ask a friend but don’t take us all down with you.
5
Imagine Donald Trump in the Oval Office beyond 2020 as the continuing enduring pawn pet puppet of Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Recep Erdogan, Xi Jinping, Abdel el-Sisi, Kim Jong Un, Victor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte and Narendra Modi.
Because Trump will have been 'elected' that will be the effective end of our divided limited power constitutional republic of united states.
Trump didn't run a covert stealthy subtle campaign. Every American knew who Trump was and was not and voted accordingly.
Among the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 was 58% of the white European American voting majority including 62% of white men and 54% of white women.
Trump can't be blamed on divine royal sanction selection nor an armed uniform military coup.
2
Voting "Libertarian" is a vote for Donald Trump
4
Gail, you did all you could;d to trash Bernie in 2016. Remember Hilary playing mahjong with Jewish ladies in the Bronx, while Bernie met with the pope? Now you're doing it again. Look what happened last time. Do you really want the same result?
2
Ya know what? Nothing would get done.
"Bartleby the Scrivener" is the greatest story in our language. It is about alienation, about meaningless work done in an awful environment, cut off from nature. It is prophetic. We will all be replaced by machines. Bartleby was replaced by Xerox decades ago. It is a rewriting of the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus explains to the lawyer who is his neighbor. As good a man as the nameless narrator of "Bartleby" is he must do more to be a good Christian. It is about the frustrations of being a great writer and being forced to write what will sell. Bret doesn't experience alienation. He obviously tosses off his columns at a Starbucks while playing a video game. He doesn't care about nature; he's a proud climate denier. He's happy to ignore his neighbors; he wouldn't be caught anywhere near a Bernie rally. Melville's stunning condemnation of Wall St somehow speaks to Bret even though he worships Wall St. Even Gail, who can find humor in anything, isn't amused by your nihilism anymore, Bret. It's depressing enough that the Times allows you to write about politics and economics. Please leave poor literature alone.
2
Imagine we all just vote for who we prefer, rather than second guessing who others will prefer. It's easy if you try!
But I strongly suspect the candidate most people prefer will not win, only because everyone is guessing wrongly about who others will prefer.
2
"Sanders can win at least some of the working-class voters who went for Trump last time and who feel the president has done nothing to make their lives better."
Mr. Stephens: This hypothesized bloc of voters does not exist.
You seem to picture there's a significant number. What, one or two million? Some hundreds of thousands?
Not wishing to be dismissed as brashly peremptory before I make my point, I won't say the number you imagine is actually Zero. Nada. Zilch. Aught.
Let's say it's forty.
Have you seen a Trump rally??
1
Speaking of socialism, the current system is socialism for the rich. Until the billionaire class gives up their tax loopholes, their corporate welfare, their free trade agreements...they should keep quiet about universal healthcare and other programs designed to help the vast majority of the people.
8
Bernie is a lock-down win for the Trump 2020 campaign (as Putin also knows). I didn't vote for Trump in 2016. Not because I liked Hillary but she was the lesser of two evils. That's the reality that the Dem's seem to be ignoring. Clinton won the popular vote but did so with a whole swath of voters that simply voted against Trump and not for her. When again voting for the lesser of two evils in 2020...well...I'm not a socialist. And more critically, I have basic math skills and Bernies's budget "plan" (yes, the quotes are deliberate) is simply not going to work. The Dem's anointed Hillary in 2016...had they chosen Biden (don't fear the middle-ground people), Trump would still be hosting a game show.
2
Bret, Trump has completely warped not only the boundaries of the Executive branch of government, but he has hollowed out the State Department and appointed crooks or ideological hacks to basically every major agency when he had the chance to do so. He has turned the Justice Department into his own personal law firm and won't even recognize the House's power to subpoena. He took the country to the brink of crisis after bombing Iran's military commander unilaterally, which is surely an act of war not approved by congress.
Just because the Dow Jones is going up doesn't mean Trump is not a threat to our Democracy. His presidency has shown that the only thing holding our Republic together are shared values and norms, and Trump respects none of them. Bernie is a sitting US Senator, formerly a House rep and mayor. Who do you think is more likely to respect the rule of law?
5
I believe nominating Mr. Sanders will result in 4 more years of Trump, a disaster. My moderate Republican friends feel about Mr. Sanders almost the same as I do about Trump.
1
Regarding Bret's concern that Medicare for All will break the bank: Single payer is the only way the overall costs of medical care can be significantly reduced. To say that taxes will rise, without mentioning the fact that overall medical expenses will fall ignores reason.
If we were to match the models of most of the rest of the developed world, we could also choose to spend more per capita, have better services, and still save a trillion dollars per year. Bret (and Bernie's Democratic opponents) choose to ignore this fact. Convenient, yes. Truthful, no.
For many Americans, reaching age 65 is the first day of their lives to feel medically secure. To have all Americans feel this relief will bring enormous social and financial benefits - including freeing up money to successfully make the energy transformation we need to save our planet.
8
I am somewhat dismayed Gail and Bret did not delve more into presidential election history. For example, just look at Barry Goldwater vs Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. Goldwater (today's Trump) vs Johnson (today's Bernie Sanders). America got it right in '64 and we survived. This year we will survive when we vote for and elect Bernie Sanders, the Johnsonian -styled Democratic Progressive President!
5
I am from Europe and have now dual citizenship. I am not sure why you are keeping saying Sanders is a left wing extremist. I can tell you that in Europe he would be considered a moderate. What is wrong in claiming "health care is a human right", why is wrong to ask big corporation to pay taxes? Why is wrong asking to invest in green economy ? There several scientific studies showing that the current american system does cost a lot to the government. I have done an echocardiographic exam last week. The hospital charged 2,400$. I work in the health care and this cost if hugely inflated and not justifiable. So please stop to call Bernie "a radical left wing". May be this will help to have a President at the White House that is a decent man, that knows the rules and is respectful of the institution he is representing.
13
@Michele B
There are many people in America that are incredibly selfish. They have medical insurance and in some cases it's pretty good. They do not seem to care that other Americans do not have health insurance, or that some Americans are homeless, or they have no chance to get the job skills they need to get a decent paying job.
They also deeply resent for a variety of reasons seeing their tax dollars used to improve the education of poorer Americans. A lot of this resentment is deeply rooted in the American mythology that individual is responsible for themselves, and the government should offer as little assistance as possible should a person experience difficulty in life.
That type of thinking may have been fine for a 19th century pioneer in the wilderness. But 21st. century reality is that healthcare costs bankrupt many Americans, and it is extremely difficult to "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps," if you do not have adequate job skills or education.
1
The Democrats have selected 2.5% of the ~4000 delegates that will be able to vote in the first round, and Collins is ready to call the primary process as over? Lets see how things go through Super Tuesday.
Keep in mind that one needs about 2000 votes in round 1 in order to be declared the nominee. If nobody has a majority, they go to round 2. In that round, the delegates are free to switch candidates. Also, the 800 superdelegates will be able to join in the vote. They are more likely to support a moderate rather than Comrade Sanders, as they are actual Democrats.
I am in a restaurant, asking the owner how he can have this incredibly delicious and complicated dish on his menu given that he is missing many necessary ingredients, and also, the best he could show in the past are boiled eggs. Instead of giving me a convincing answer, the owner keeps talking, in a very loud voice, that everybody has the right to a decent meal, and besides, the same dish is on the menu of every other great restaurant in the neighborhood (which is half-truth at best). People tells me that he has been giving the same speech whenever someone asks about his menu.
I decide not to eat there. But that’s just me.
2
@chw1121 Yes. I too choose the freedom to go bankrupt if I get cancer. Only I wouldn't say that's a choice because that's NOT a choice. The government's NON-INVOLVEMENT TOOK THE CHOICE AWAY. As long as the evil government does not get involved, then my insulin will costs $1,500. And that includes the freedom for everyone to pay 1,500. Again, that's the capitalist choice. It dictates health care should be driven by profits and insurance industries. The freedom of capitalists to profit from diseases and misfortune.
2
Like it or not, Trump has changed the rules of the game.
To turn back the clock is almost impossible.
Bloomberg cut a sorry figure at the debates and his run can be considered to be over before it begins.
Sanders is 'old school'.
The younger contenders are too 'new' and represent values that miss out on the 'conservative backlash' that brought in Trump.
And if after a term that is nothing but one public relations disaster after another, the Dems can't focus on a 'strategy' against Trump but instead all the debates do is an image of a fragmented party and worse a fragmented constituency, then the Republican constituency will stick with Trump and there will be far too many Democrats who will vote against the 'chosen' candidate and either vote for Trump or opt out.
So again Trump.
Too bad. He was a real easy target. Too bad.
2
@Nirmal Patel There's nothing unusual happening in the Democrat primaries. In the past there's been crowded fields, there's been small fields. Trump emerged from a very crowded Republican field. If there's a half dozen people running for the nomination it's not "fractured". You're still channeling 2016 when the dynamic was that Hillary pushed Bernie out of the way and took the nomination. It's actually LESS fractured if the competition field is more crowded and broad. And I think this field has several good candidates. Trump IS an easy target, and Hillary was a terrible debater. The next person won't let him just talk more loudly and interrupt with dumbtalk.
2
The comparison of Trump to Sanders is barely comprehensible--only a committed Republican like Stephens can ignore the facts and figures showing that Sanders' ideas aren't impossible fantasies, or would believe the scare stories of humungous costs (when Medicare for All would actually save money). I'm still hoping for Elizabeth Warren to win the nomination and the presidency, but Sanders is an acceptable option, and I think he might be surprisingly well positioned to beat Trump. There's too much turbulence in the voting population at the moment to take anything for granted.
7
Bret very effectively voices the establishment's fears. Sadly, he personally makes the wrong choice: Trump over Sanders. Trump, who would destroy democracy to assure an even more entrenched plotocratic kleptocracy, over Sanders, who would merely attempt to establish MORE DEMOCRACY.
Bret raises the important question: will the establishment side with Trump to preserve its wealth, or will the establishment side with Sanders, then share some of its wealth?
However, in the end, it does not matter what Bret or the establishment thinks, or who they would choose. The establishment is being thrown out of power, first by Trump in 2016, and now by Sanders in 2020. The establishment is finally being held to account for its inability to empathize with - or even know about - the common people of this country.
The choice is clear: Trump or Sanders. If Sanders is not nominated, Trump will defeat whatever establishment nominee is put forward. If Sanders is nominated, then at least there will be a choice: Trump or Sanders. And that is the choice the establishment has, both now, in the Democratic primary, and later in the general election.
I recommend the establishment pick Sanders and risk the possibility of having to share more wealth. For choosing Trump will destroy democracy and establish a society none of us wants to live in.
10
Trump is not contained, he is out of control and his cabinet ministers are as well. Trump has invited in the swamp and they’re having a heyday. Bernie will have reasonable, experienced cabinet members who will work for the environment, consumers and American taxpayer. He probably will not get much past McConnell, if he is re-elected, however Bernie can resolve a lot of cabinet-level problems that are going unchecked thanks to Republican’s desire to hold onto big oil, etc.
Will health care for all come about? Not sure, however ACA can be strengthened, not challenged, which is now the case, and Social Security and Medicare will not be cut. We will have a more stable economy under Bernie, without weird, uncalled-for trade wars.
9
Democratic status quo hawks make the same tired arguments about Bernie that the Republicans make when Democrats are in office. Bernie is fiscally irresponsible, wants to increase the welfare state, and is against the military and capitalism. Meanwhile, Republicans run up the debt, provide corporate welfare, cut the social safety network, and do absolutely nothing about medical insurance, climate change, or reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Arguing that moderate Democrats as the only ones who can win against Trump keeps us in the same place policy wise. Corporations run America. Moderate Democrats are just as cozy with corporations as Republicans. Stop pretending otherwise. Moderate Democrats and Republicans both lack vision for a different way of doing things and so things stay the same.
14
Scott
Can't agree with your petty and false equivalence between moderate Democrats and all Republicans. You attempt this to defend an extreme position; that position is valid, but your means are deeply flawed.
Well said!
@Scott Yes. Exactly. The candidates come on and say "I'll change things just ever so slightly so that it will be acceptable to everybody" and I wonder why do they bother to be in politics? If one side is going hard right then we should go hard left because if we're operating from the middle then they win. The middle does not win. The middle is pointless it's just a word for how things are right now before anything gets done or changes.
1
Completely agree with Brett Stevens on this one. Gail I would so love those to be your words but unfortunately you don’t have the keen insights that he does. you have a great sense of humor however.
1
Praise be to Gail Collins - she is one sensible voice in our unsetttling times!
Good to know that a Republican who would vote to keep Trump in office (by not voting for the Democrat) is "enthusiastic" about Bloomberg! That tells you all you need to know about Mikie. We don't need TWO arrogant, narcissistic, lying, bullying, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, billionaire REPUBLICANS running in the 2020 election!
7
"It’s like asking me to choose between a slow-growing malignant cancer (Trump) and a sudden brain hemorrhage (Sanders)."
That's the two-party stranglehold for you.
Voters in a general election ought to have more options.
To that end, let’s hope the U.S. will soon follow Maine’s lead and adopt #RankedChoiceVoting.
7
is Stephens afraid to do this with his colleagues Jamelle Bouie or Elizabeth Bruenig? if the NYT actually wanted to print a discussion between columnists with opposing viewpoints, either of them would be a far better choice than Collins
2
The majority of Americans would take Bernie's complaining about a moderating Congress over the current dictator's toxic vomitus any day. Whether the corrupt electoral system will do the will of the people is a completely different question. And dear Mr. Stephens, there is no comparing the fascist dictator's poison in vial #1 with the hard but necessary pill in vial #2 that may just save the USA from its current despotic, lawless downfall. Good grief, Man!
9
"Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable. " Really? It looks to me like he is doing whatever he wants, without restraint.
16
Oh dear god.
Bernie may not be who many of us want to be the nominee but, at the end of the day, this Vermonter is here to tell you, he is a decent, caring man who is, give or take, about a billion times better than the uncaring ignorant fool we have as president now. Any vote for anyone who is not the Dem. nominee is a vote for trump, plain & simple, a vote for an evil uncaring immoral buffoon who cares not a whit about our democracy or most Americans. You will not need to love Bernie, or whomever the nominee is, to vote for him or her, you will need only to love our country.
23
So Bernie. You say that Castro was a brutal dictator but also instituted a literacy program. How’s that any different then Trumps statement that there were “fine people” on both sides in Charlottesville?
1
@RG
Your attempted analogy makes no sense. A program that is good is a good program. A program is not a person. Sanders slammed the despot. Is it that you cannot understand that? Ironically Obama said the identical thing about Castro's literacy program. Obama also tried to make Cuba an ally.
2
@RG The difference is Bernie wasn't praising Castro for being a dictator. Nobody would do that because that's nonsensical. He was saying dictator bad, literacy program good. That has nothing to do with tramp saying very clearly Nazi's are fine people too. That's an unrelated event ok? That's about how trump thinks there's high quality Nazi's down there in the confederacy. Two completely different people and events mm'kay?
1
@Paul Kiefer
He wasn't praising him, he was saying that in addition to being a murdering dictator, he also did some good things too, as if the good things balance out, you know, all the bloodshed.
These hand wringing columnists, and gosh do they all sound alike, stating that they would love to vote against Trump, but just couldn't support someone as radical as Bernie, need to take a long look in the mirror.
Trump said the Nazi's in Charlottesville were fine people, not Bernie.
Trump locked children in cages at the border, not Bernie.
Trump fought to ban followers of Islam from entering the country, not Bernie.
Trump has increased the deficit by trillions in order to benefit only those who already have billions themselves, not Bernie.
Trump has been credibly accused of sexually predatory behavior, behavior he himself bragged about, not Bernie.
Trump is alienating our allies around the world through acts of whim, not Bernie.
Trump is encouraging racism, sexism, xenophobia, and violence against dissenting voices, not Bernie.
If it is even conceivable that you would vote for the disgusting monster that currently sits in the Oval Office, you have no right to claim to be a reasonable moderate. You are a right wing extremist of the highest order.
And everyone who chastised Sanders supporters to get in line and support Clinton in 2016 better be ready to take a dose of their own medicine. Unless the DNC stops him, Bernie is going to be our candidate. Anyone who cares about this country better be ready to support him with everything we've got.
6
@Ben
Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, Nicolle Wallace, WaPo and Jennifer Rubin are all pretty much Trump supporters. Money over America in the end apparently.
Why is it during these exchanges that Bret, who understands the least about everyday Americans, and is typically manipulative and disingenuous with his commentary, logs 4X more words than Gail?
7
@BeBetterAmerica
That's how conservatives roll.
"And that would mean we’d really get to Feel the Bern in ways I think would be economically and socially ruinous. Medicare-for-All alone would entail levels of taxation unheard-of for working-class Americans, never mind the rich and the middle class."
This is a reckless assumption and frankly class-status bigoted one by a journalist, Gail Collins.
It is clear that Gail failed to perform any legal and medical-economic research on the matter. In Point of Fact, there is a new Yale study published in Lancet,(I am certain the NY Times Library holds the recent copy) which validates Senator Bernie Sander's concepts, and plans.
"A Single-Payer System Like ‘Medicare For All’ Would Save Billions In Billing And Administrative Costs, Study Finds
1) save 60,000 lives
2) hundreds of billions of dollars.
Please stop trashing a possible future President. Please stop pushing the Times' status (upper middle class white privileged status) in this multi-national paper. The New York Times still serves the monied classes.
3
Don’t you all think it is a little early to assume Bernie will be the nominee?
3
"Bernie" would be a catastrophe. In addition, he does not convince me that he is unaware that he has some supporters who publish false statements about his competitors for the nomination. "Bernie" is a screaming demagogue.
2
@BJM
If you believe that Israel should have the unrestrained right to oppress the Palestinian people and just completely take over the West Bank, you are right Bernie is a disaster for you.
If you endorse the thug, and crook Netanyahu, then you are right Bernie is a disaster. He is one of the few American politicians that is not intimidated by AIPAC.
1
Bret Stephens’s disapproval of Trump rings hollow with his support for Mike Bloomberg. As mayor of New York, Bloomberg expanded stop-and-frisk despite overwhelming evidence of its racist impacts. While a Bloomberg administration would certainly be less harmful than a Trump administration, can we not hope for anything better? Why not support a candidate who doesn’t have a history of implementing—and then laughing about—racist policies? Stephens’s ideological commitments are dangerous for many in this country. We can tolerate a racist criminal justice system, he says, as long as it’s fiscally responsible to do so. Can we not demand better?
5
@Matt
Not sure why you think Bloomberg would be better than Trump. He holds many of Trumps values. He thinks Xi is not a dictator. He thinks it’s Ok Russia invaded Crimea. He did not think he needed to address workers being on corporate boards. He just called it ridiculous. I have not heard one actual plan from him. Not one. He says he is running for his children. We know how that works. He didn’t say he is running to make American’s lives better. Imagine a smart Trump. That’s frightening!
@Matt
Brett Stephen's and many Bloomberg supporters are privileged enough not to be concerned about stop-frisk.
Never forget in America, there are racists, and people who really don't care if other people are racists.
That's what makes many many moderates shift so easily between Trump and Bloomberg.
The title of this piece is striking: reference to a Bob Dylan song, followed by a discussion between two people who don’t understand that the times, they are a changing. I see the fire in my young adult children’s’ eyes when they return from Bernie rallies. I am old enough to recall a time when we really did believe that we could change the world for the better. When we thought our country could continue forward on the “arc of the moral universe” as it bent towards justice. As Bobby Kennedy had his eyes opened by the horrors of poverty in his own nation. Then later, as Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow Coalition” ( supported by Sanders) briefly captured our imaginations.
I may be old, but I’ll go down swinging with Bernie, win or lose. It will be much easier to Rest In Peace knowing that at least we tried.
“Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand”.
11
Bret Stephens' position that he would basically sit out the election if the choices were either Trump or Sanders is immoral. This immorality is an outcome of the blinders caused by his ideology. Put simply: he's "values deaf": as if the bad that Trump represents is somehow equivalent to the bad that Sanders could represent. But that sort of immorality doesn't suprize me: he is a contributor to "Prager University", the right-wing propaganda mill that mostly targets college-age kids. How did he rationalize that? That association alone should disqualify him from having the bandstand that a position as a NY Times Opinion Columnist provides. Its one thing to be a conservative intellectual, another to inadvertantly support an Administration that for example separates children from their parents solely for policy reasons.
4
@Victor
I’m ok with Brett not voting. Actual Trump supporters are welcome to stay home.
1
Bret may be opposed to Sanders for all the reasons he enumerated. But he conspicuously left the main reason for his opposition: Israel. He's convinced that a commander and chief Sanders would be ruinous for Israel's security. I suspect Bret doesn't want the blow back for stating this forthrightly.
4
Bret even with a wave election Bernie will never get the votes to create Medicare for all and maybe get some education reform past but every day of the year he is far superior to the criminal gang that’s running the country and Trump. The fact that you with a Trump by not voting against him is selfish and sad.
3
I don't get people who truly think Trump and Sanders would not be that fundamentally different as to the damage (real that we see now and frantically imagined) wrought on our country...we are in a time when we must change course on fossil fuels, cleaning up the environment (we are killing off bees, animals, ecosystems at an alarming rate), helping the 99% do more than scratch out a living, etc. but so many people only think about the economy and the comfort of their perceived power! Really, when the future of the planet and humankind is at stake?! Is Democratic party leadership (as it is) really SO important that Trump is preferred over Sanders? Really?! God help us all, if this is how a lot of people think.
6
I can't believe that we have sunk to the point of debating who is better, Trump or Bernie! Any person or any ham sandwich on the planet would be preferable to Trump. Everyone should just know this in their gut of guts, and not overthink the pros and cons of such an absurd question. I agree with Gail, the biggest downside of Bernie is that he would probably get trounced in November. As president, he would be incomparably better than the incumbent. Bret, you've unmade my day on this one.
6
The only way he is in the White House is in someone's imagination, like his empty promise to improve health care. What has he been doing for the past 30 years that indicates he could ever pull off a major piece of legislation and would we really want it?
1
"Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable. I fear a Sanders presidency would infect the Democratic Party with its own form of ideological extremism, from which it would take many years to recover and would mean an American system with two political parties that have gone bonkers-"
1) Translation: Stephens wants Trump: because a Trump win will preserve the capitalism that is increasingly immiserating Americans, and the right liberal political order (with its right liberal and right wing parties) that perpetuates it; and this is preferable to a Sanders win will challenge that economic and political order.
2) Given this Trump-favoring subtext, we can see that - contrary to Stephens' 'I choose neither' statement is false: he not only wants Trump, but is giving Wall Street Democrats the wink of authority to publicly declare 'they're both bad!'...
...but to, practically, support Trump - whether it is giving money to right wing candidates, repeating anti-Sanders propaganda, or privately pulling the lever for Trump.
5
Sanders brings the far left into dominance, and the middle is expected to shut up and like it. For that reason, I don't want to vote for Sanders, who still isn't a Democrat. He doesn't represent the majority of the party; he's just revving up the rabble like his flip side, Trump. They are both dark candidates, and I am hoping for a Biden surge to quiet down this insanity. I really hope for a Bloomberg surge, but Biden will help.
1
@PS
Right. Because a living wage and healthcare for everyone is dark.
1
The biggest 'tell' in these Collins-Stephens conversations is how ultimately 'happy' Bret is with Trump. For a so-called never-trumper, I don't get it. Does Bret REALLY think Bernie can instantly achieve M4A, destroy all institutions and the economy in order to inflict equality? That's scarcely revealing of Bret.
I think if Bret were a senator, he would be standing there right next to McConnell, voting in line for acquittal, judges and tax breaks. Sad and revealing.
6
Three plus years of the Trumps have made politics and people's thinking toxic. I wish people would pause and take a deep breath and start to think things through. Forget Repubs vs Dems or any other divisive language. Think more about what we want vs what we don't want. Positive thinking will create a better world. Try it. Notice how your perceptions change and how much happier you are. No, I'm not a Pollyanna. I do this for my mental health
5
It's always interesting to hear what's coming out of the fantasy world that Gail and Bret inhabit. The rest of us who live in the real world of crumbling infrastructure, shoddy health insurance, and economic uncertainty don't have the insights that these two residents of the top five percent.
Besides, why are we talking about Bernie Sanders? Didn't the NYT have it figured that either Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar would get the nomination?
2
I stopped on this one at "brain hemorrhage". These pundits need to start sprucing up their resumes... or consider wage jobs for a decade or two to get some truly useful experience.
9
Does anyone really believe that Bret Stephens would vote for a Democrat? He says he’s quite willing to vote for a Republican (Bloomberg) but that’s about it. Gail, quit wasting our time with that line of debate. Please.
6
I usually consider Gail's input insufferably snarky. But on this subject, she is quite logical and correct. Brett's unbridled sophistry, is the mind bending equivalent of the often aggravating Ms Warren, viciously taking a meat cleaver to Bloomberg in the debates, then without skipping a beat, she blithely declared in the next sentence, that she would vote for Bloomberg if he becomes the nominee. She offered that thoughtless tidbit while in the middle of a hard fought race. That, about a billionaire who thumbed his nose at the process, and hopes to crudely purchase the Democratic nomination. No wonder her poll numbers remain weak. And I actually like Ms Warren. However, be calm, Brett. The following remains true: 1. The undemocratic nature of the Senate, and systematic Republican chicanery, make it near impossible for Democrats to control both Houses. 2. Such an enlightened event, could produce a salutary reckoning for the naked bottom feeders that disgrace the Republican Senate. 3. Only you and Ms Collins believe that Trump is, or can be contained. All emperical evidence point to the opposite. 4. Yes, profligate Republicans will oppose any Democrat's determination to spend monies on fixing the country's infrastructure, or the Affordable Care Act. They would righteously oppose such spending and whine about deficits in the same way that they did during Obama's tenure. Now, they ardently lick Trump's boots, while he does just that.
3
Gail, Bret, love your conversations, look for them, but I'm dismayed that you're following the media narrative, not the reality.
Yes, Mike Bloomberg stunk in the debate, but as of the latest polling afterward, it did not influence his standing. He's still tied at #2 with Biden. (Check your own newspaper.)
You're also failing in ways the Times has failed. Yes, Bernie won New Hampshire, but with only half as many votes as he got against Hillary Clinton in 2016. That is, against lesser competition, he lost half his support. Similarly, in Nevada, he struggled to hold the 47% he got in 2016, again against lesser competition and with a huge effort.
Now, realistically, he may have a few more delegates than the kid from South Bend, but so what? He hasn't gained any ground by shouting and condemning for five years running.
Only in the mainstream narrative is Bernie winning much of anything. He's holding his own against nobody in particular, and head to head, Bloomberg -- who can draw from both parties and independents -- and Trump would have him for lunch.
Somebody must be praying that not too much of the Republican oppo research oozes out before they and media can ease Bernie into the nomination.
1
Almost agree with Brett. As the Clash song goes, when they kick down your front door, how you gonna go?
How you gonna go When trump makes non believers wear an emblem so as to discern your faith? Or, Fly a trump flag above your Stars and Stripes?
When they kick down your front door?
1
Like the old horse blinders that kept the horse from seeing anything but the old, familiar route beneath him, so your pundits circle round in the comfortable horse race, horse trading mind set of bourgeois political 'races'.
Cynically they wearily declare, don't worry, let the foolish voters elect a Socialist, for all the good it will do them . . . . In short, they are deluded. Their old political world has been exploded by Internet contributions and a new generation of Socialist Americans and they appear not to know it.
2
I cannot believe that the New York Times thinks Bret Stephens is a voice that readers want to hear. It is sheer madness to suggest that Trump is " contained," but Sanders an ideological danger to the Democratic Party and country.
5
Imagine.
It's terrifying.
If someone truly believes that a Sanders presidency would be the equivalent of a "brain hemorrhage" as compared to a "slow moving malignant cancer", that person should be ignored. The candidates are in no way equivalent in terms of the damage they'd do to the country no matter what your politics are. The fundamental differences are just obvious:
1) Even if you hate the idea of medicare for all and a wealth tax because you're a raging libertarian, anyone with even a passing familiarity with the current legislative deadlock knows that Sanders has zero chance of enacting such an agenda. But as a President he will respect the rule of law, and he will at least genuinely attempt to work in the best interests of his country.
2) Trump in contrast believes in absolutely nothing aside from furthering his own financial interests and his narcissistic ego projects. And to achieve those ends he will continue to openly solicit foreign assistance for person ends, and corrupt the law of law to either try to stay in power indefinitely and will openly sell out American interests.
I'm sorry but if you can't see the difference, you have no business writing in a paper of this stature.
5
Bret, after listing horrible values and action s of the would-be president-for-life you declare him "containable." Please,do a column on how you contain the megalomaniac who controls the Senate, the DOJ and the courts
Sanders proposes tat the US, 'the richest country on Earth,' provide its citizens the services now provided to the citizens of practically every other industrialized democracy on Earth. Hardly radical proposals. Sanders possess the diametric opposite traits of every negative aspect of the incumbent, you cited yet he somehow frightens you.
Why not save your trolling for Facebook and strive to make our print media accurate and fairr?
4
You don't have to be a Bernie Bro to choose Bernie over Trump. Healthcare as a right is not extremism, the rest of the developed world has it. A university education is not extremism, the rest of the developed world has it. Anyone with a global perspective can recognize that the "Far Left" of America would be wholly mainstream elsewhere. Stop crying socialism. You bought your kitchen at Ikea.
4
Bernie has some faults. But he has been a responsible and productive elected office-holder for many years and he has been respectful and an advocate of democratic norms. Trump is a fascist. He rules only to serve himself and those who sponsor him, be that Putin or other oligarchs foreign or domestic.
The objection to Trump (as expressed by Stephens and others) is not so much that Trumps is an oppressive oligarch but rather he is an impolite and crude oligarch, who by his style embarrasses the ruling cadre of oligarchs. Bloomberg would be so much more subtle and stylish on that role.
1
Bret, really? "Would I feel comparatively somewhat worse the day after the election if Sanders won? Yeah, maybe I would."
Just look at the multiple articles non your NYT front page today. Trump wants SCOTUS justices to recuse themselves from cases about himself; he's purging the intelligence agencies because they've been reporting consistently that Russia continues to attack our elections in favor of Trump. This is just one day!!! This isn't about policy or the economy, it's about whether we will have anything left of the United States republic and the Constitution one year from now.
2
Good lord. After reading that colloquy, I felt like I had been stranded at the worst cocktail party on the Upper West Side.
4
Gail, get your facts straight. More people (4x) voted libertarian than green. If anything, third party voters hurt Trump more than Ms HRC.
The US will not elect an avowed socialist. Period. Bernie's the only candidate the dems have with charisma, but you may as well call his policies -- old crazy bernies agenda - because his platform is ridiculous. He's a horrible candidate, except the rest of the field is even worse.
By the way, for those who don't know, medicare ain't free. I'm paying more for medicare and the supplements than I did for insurance from my employer. A lot more. Like 4x more. So medicare ain't free.
"Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable. I fear a Sanders presidency would infect the Democratic Party with its own form of ideological extremism, from which it would take many years to recover and would mean an American system with two political parties that have gone bonkers-"
Another right wing journalist dutifully scolding Trump for being personally ugly and politically undemocratic - but a) ignoring the ruinous impact of Trump's economic policies and political attacks on vulnerable and oppressed groups, and b) obviously siding with Trump as the 'lesser of two evils.'
But that's a little embarrassing - and, besides, Trump may do far worse - so Stephens can't admit that...much like those interviewed by pollsters who said one thing, then went and privately voted for Trump.
2
I guess wanting all Americans to have health care and for our children not to be saddled with student loan debt is considered extreme in this sociopathic country.
5
“But when a democratic system offers you awful choices you have a right, like Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, to say: “I would prefer not to” — and go vote libertarian.”
This is how we got Trump - people voted for the Libertarian or Green party candidate in greater numbers than Trump’s margin of victory in several States.
2
How to imagine Bernie in the White House ?
It will be an unmitigated disaster !
2
If we can live Trump, we can easily imagine Bernie.
1
Of all the ludicrous statements by Bret Stephens, the comment that Drumpf is “containable” is the most laugh-out-loud preposterous.Just exactly who is containing him at the moment? The Congress? Unless Dems win back the Senate by a large margin, the Senate is completely derelict in any oversight duty. The courts? What happens as more of his appallingly unqualified and partisan judges begin to exert their influence? Do you think they’ll “contain” him? The Department of Justice? Pardon me while I dissolve in hysterical laughter. And what happens as his purge removes non-partisan, experienced government workers from their jobs? Who will be left who even knows how to run the government, let alone “contain” his insanity? People like Ken Cuccinelli who can’t even figure out where to find valid information on the coronavirus he’s supposed to be preparing us for?
Mr. Stephens, you live in a privileged alternative reality that casts Bernie as the socialist bogeyman without actually listening to what he says or looking at how he has governed in the past, both as a mayor and a senator. To even posit that you would prefer 4 more years of Drumpf over any of the Democratic candidates just reveals how seriously skewed your moral compass is. And I’m not a Bernie fan. But you obviously can sleep comfortably at night knowing that you’ll be protected from the worst of Drumpf’s depredations. Must be nice to be a white man in his America. Some of us don’t have that luxury.
2
If the presidential race becomes a contest between a fascist and a socialist, a majority of Americans will vote for the fascist.
Nominating Bernie is not a good strategy to save the country from Trump -- and fascism.
Bernie's candidacy is beginning to mirror Trump's. We are being told that Bernie is a bad choice, and that we're not smart enough to understand how his policies will compromise us. We even have Chris Matthews comparing the Nevada primary to the Nazi invasion of France.
And you know what? Voters aren't buying what the corporate masters have to sell. Trump won due to vast middle class discontent with the status quo. Bernie will win for the same reason. This time, we're going to get it right.
We're finished being told what to think, and to vote against our best interests. If America flails in the effort of providing free education, a decent living wage, and a more balanced economy, where three families don't own most of the wealth - so be it.
1
Bernie is the best Dim candidate & I hop he becomes nominee & then President. The only Dem(?) candidate I would not vote for in order to get rid of Trump is Bloomberg. He was the worst mayor NYC has had in my life time (I vaguely remember Laguardia), & would be a horrible president.
1
How do you discuss the difference between Trump and anyone and not bring up that he has taken children from their parents put them in cages and then lost the children! It's a crime against humanity. Oh, the real problem isn't the child kidnapping its that he pressured a grown adult over the phone. NO the real crime is the child kidnapping. The complete willingness to ignore the most horrific of crimes is shocking.
1
I would rather imagine a Sanders than know a Trump!
2
Bret...
"You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand
You try so hard but you don't understand
Just what you will say when you get home
You're very well-read, it's well-known
But something is happening here and you don't know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones?"
- Dylan
3
@ExPDXer
"Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked."
--Bob Dylan
More to the point, "Money doesn't talk, it swears."
--also Bob Dylan
"A known quantity"? With no way to stop it! Listen to yourselves!
For the past week I can't get Dylan out of my head . . .
And you know something's happening but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
. . . or a smile off my face.
3
Mr. Stephens, your defeatism and willingness to capitulate to the odious and dangerous Trump makes me concerned for your sanity… or are you perhaps one of those closet Trumpers, those who publicly decry him but pulled the lever in 16 and will in 20, because Trump openly allows and promotes racism, misogyny, xenophobia and climate change denial? I suspect many, many voters are in this sick and secret club. Some in my own family included. Just come out and proudly side with Trump if that's where you are. Or will the glare of shame if your support is known make you cower? This sad club makes me weep for our country.
3
Stephens: "Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable."
Lawless is contained? How is that not the definition of uncontrolled in a rule of law system? What possible understanding of American values could lead you to make such a statement?
Read your arguments in this column over again and hopefully grasp how small and transactional your fidelity is to our Constitution.
2
To Mr Stephens: I would definitely choose a sudden brain hemorrhage over malignant cancer! And the present pretender to the throne does not appear at all “containable”!
FYI: for Democrats, taking the Senate majority is at least as important as winning the presidency. The present assault on democracy is one of the worst developments in our history.
Where are the “people” of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”?
At present, this is a choice between fascism and socialism.
We must find even keel to our ship of state, our union, our democracy. Fast.
Bloomberg 2020.
PS Here's my forecast for Warren vis a vis Bloomberg tonight: She'll attack him again -- probably even stoop as low as referencing Weinstein & Trump as she lectures. Why . . . since she has zero chance for garnering the Dem 2020 nomination ? She's strategizing for a cabinet position in a Sander's WH.
Sadly, all to prove that the venal Trump is actually correct about her -- she's a hypocrite . . . and furthermore can't see the forest through the trees.
I have to add to many other voices anyone who stays home or votes third party in this election is completely irresponsible. You’re a fool Brett to think Sanders would be anywhere near as harmful to our democracy as trump and the sycophants of the Republican Party. Frankly, Brett, what Republicans need right now is a 2 x 4 across the head just to get their attention. They are so caught up in turning this country into trump inc. they can’t see straight. Sanders is that 2x4. I am so tired of extremist republicans who start whining and moaning saying let’s not be rash whenever Dems start pushing back simply to regain the multitude of things lost since the greatest generation decided nobody should have anything except themselves.
1
Bret Stephens, it is time for you to become a leader of the loyal opposition. You need to step up and show your fellow Republicans that loyalty to country is far more important than loyalty to any political party or its ideals.
This president has turned what used to be the Republican Party into a party of zombies and roadkill who are now mindlessly enabling his psychopathy and treason. Instead of attacking and dividing Democrats, you should be building a coalition to defeat Trump and letting that coalition know that you will vote blue no matter who for President, even if you nearly pass out from holding your nose while doing it.
Bad policies can be blocked or fixed but the country may not survive four more years of the current occupant of the White House.
2
The guy is incompetent—couldn’t even handle the mess in veteran hospitals. Renaming post offices is his forte. His candidacy is a joke—a guy from a tiny state who has never been a Democrat but who promises a lot of free stuff is not a guy who can handle a huge 330M nation and a 2M federal workforce,
I do and the U.S would be a a whole lot better mentally as well as on a path back to what the founding fathers intended..by the people, FOR THE PEOPLE. Stop fearing the worst and work toward the best. That's what Bernie is about...Getting rid of the Bully Mentality and involving everyone in their government...not just those who want control and will do anything to get it, not corporations who want to rape and pillage every resource, every dollar, every public trust and certainly not right wing groups who want to go back to the Plantation mentality where anyone who isn't white or rich, doesn't belong here.
Opinions should focus in on "Groundswell" and their agenda and how a Supreme Court Justice's wife can be part of such a group and not influence his decisions. Mother Jones wrote an article about Groundswell...time to pay attention to them instead of focusing on what a Democratic progressive president can and would do to put people first instead of his own welfare.
Once the Trump Campaign slime machine gets into high gear they will be all over those Sanders quotes like the one about how the DSA's goal is to overthrow capitalism and the one where he praises Castro's literacy program. It's like praising Mussolini for getting the trains to run on time.
Sanders will repel battleground state independents and undoubtedly lose. The only remaining questions will be how many down ballot races the Democrats lose because of him and whether the Republic survives another four years of Donald Trump without blood flowing in the streets.
Lawless Trump can't be contained, Mr. Stephens. It's a mistake to think so. His vindictive, authoritarian ways are a clear and present danger to our republic. He is entirely corrupt — the closest thing to a fascist we've ever seen, enabled by his complicit party, continually degrading the separation of powers and our Constitution, while raking in profits at his properties in violation of the Emoluments Clause, and appeasing autocratic pals like Putin. You're really ok with all of that, Mr. Stephens? Any of the Democratic candidates are better than this, including frontrunner Sanders, who would still need to get his plans through Congress. I'd rather have a president who gives of him/her-self, as a public servant, vs. takes, like self-serving, unfit Trump.
1
No fan of Bernie fan here, but nothing he might do as president would come close to the utter disaster of the ignorant, dishonest narcissist who exhibits not one single positive value as a human. Democrats have not fielded the best candidates they could have despite having an absurd two dozen to start with, but then the Republican clown car of 2016 was even worse and we now have the incompetent-in-chief running for a second term.
Trump has undermined all of the positive values we can sometimes stand for and is little more than an authoritarian fascist who happens to be a Republican. Sanders may not be what many really want, but compared to the angry narcissist in the White House he is a decided improvement. That alone is worth getting rid of the worst president in modern American history.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
1
The fact that Bret admits that he is willing to vote for a proto-fascist authoritarian over Bernie Sanders is proof that Never Trump Republicans are a group of people you need to write off. They are not a real constituency. They are small group of people who make up the pundit class and people who read the NYT. Democrats will shoot themselves in the foot trying to pander and beg for the vote of a group of people who are electorally irrelevant.
Bernie Sanders is not my first choice for the nomination, and not may I add because I fear democratic Socialism, but I will vote for him without hesitation next November if he is the candidate.
Bernie Sanders is a decent human being who cares about America and his fellow citizens. Donald Trump is a repugnant excuse for a human being who cares for no one but himself and is destroying everything decent about our country. For me the choice is pretty simple.
5
"By now, Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable."
Really? REALLY? And how containable will he be in, say, 11 months?
2
#WheresWarren?
Really Gail? As the adult in this conversation, you didn’t even give her a mention? You just cannot help yourselves, it’s really unbelievable at this point.
And how on Earth does Bret get this platform to speak about Democratic politics when he thinks Bernie would be just as bad or worse than Trump?
So just because Bret thinks Bernie miiiight choose someone whose economic policy he disagrees with, that’s as bad as putting a stooge in charge of the DNI? That’s as bad as putting kids in cages?
Go home Bret. I beg you. You are not in the Democratic Party, you’ve made that clear, and your columns are akin to republicans trying to throw open democratic primaries.
How your employer lets you do this is beyond me, but we’re sick of it.
1
"Bret: [Bloomberg can improve his standing by] mak[ing] the case, as strongly as possible, that Trump’s fondest wish is to run against “Crazy Bernie” in the general election.
But Mr. Stephens - then Bloomberg would be lying: Trump was recorded in 2016 saying the only Clinton VP he wouldn't want was Sanders; and, as the NYT reported, when some of his advisors said Sanders would be good to run against, Trump disagreed...
...as you know...which brings us to the question of why you are repeating false talking points.
2
I’d rather have a socialist, (which Bernie isn’t), than a fascist, (which Trump is).
4
It appears, with no rational objections against a Sanders presidency, that Stephens real concern may be about Israel. Sanders , as our First Jewish president......and a strong believer in human rights, may be tougher on Israel’s expansion and our foreign aid than anyone running for president.
Trumps “caring” for Israel is based on his main voters. Evangelicals.
2
So many mainstream media folks are showing their true partisan affiliation colors. If you all would vote for Trump under any circumstances, you are just as unpleasant as the republican sycophants that have broken our Constitution and democracy... you can praise yourselves for breaking the Fourth Estate as some kind of non-partisan check and balance of the U.S. government. As my true hero, reporter and New Yorker Jimmie Breslin said, your a bunch of bums.
1
Yes, Bret, decent health care for all. Oh, the horror . . .
3
Everyone who is thinking of voting for Bernie (or any other leftist for that matter) should watch "The Killing Fields" to see what happens when the socialists take control of a country.
What? As opposed to when a narcissistic monster is in control? Perhaps you should watch Schindler’s List, my friend.
1
I wish we would all just vote for who we like best, rather than second guessing who others will like best.
I strongly suspect the candidate most people like best will not win, only because everyone is guessing wrongly about who others will prefer.
Gail writes: "And second, will all the Dems who piled on Bloomberg in the last debate turn around and pile on Bernie? If they actually want to have any hope of getting the nomination, it’s time."
I disagree. Attacks on Bernie will backfire, as they always do.
Millions more in donations will flood into his campaign and his supporters will become even more energized.
Bernie supporters who might have stayed home will be more likely to vote.
Candidates who bash him in the debate will see their support wane.
This would be just fine with me. Bernie 2020!
2
Medicare for All (single payer system) will mean a general degradation of health services for those on employer-sponsored insurance and even Medicare supplemented insurance. Everyone says, "but but but, look at Europe." Yes so let's look at Europe. Healthcare isn't free there, everyone pays A LOT OF TAXES for their healthcare. And after that, the services are slower and not the most cutting edge. The best drugs get approved there later, the best practices for complex conditions, ie cancer are not the best, they are somewhat dated. In addition, death for their elder population is more accepted. The vast majority of our healthcare costs come at the last years of our life. In these single payer systems, they do not pull out all the stops to save grandma. Her death is more accepted and that reduces healthcare costs tremendously. We would have to do the same here. Also,unfortunately, the US subsidizes the world in drug research and development. The upside to this is we get access to new drugs quicker than the rest of the world. The higher price tag sometimes isn't worth the clinical benefit, but sometimes it is.
1
Once more, for the Brets out there: There is a huge difference between paying a couple hundred more in taxes each year, and paying hundreds--or thousands, or tens of thousands--out-of-pocket with AFTER TAX dollars for medical expenses (assuming you don't have an HSA) each year.
Look, I get it. I've read prospect theory and understand loss aversion (the pain of a "loss" is twice as strong as the pleasure of a "gain," and people will take bigger risks to avoid a loss than to secure a gain). But Medicare for All is not a matter of raising taxes. It's all about lowering health care expenses.
Framing the issue entirely around taxes is a fallacy. It's also dishonest.
3
If only for the sake of returning the Supreme Court to a more politically neutral stance, Stephens should vote for whomever becomes the candidate.
Ginsburg would probably like to retire. Thomas will want to retire in the next eight years.
Vote Dem, Stephens, even if it's for Sanders.
Unless, of course, you like a far-right Court.
Do you?
1
Bret is literally ignoring the dozens of studies that all indicate that Medicare for All will actually be cheaper and more effective than the current system. As for Bernie's other ideas, like the Green New Deal, what's the alternative, Bret? Destroy the planet or make it uninhabitable for human life? We're well on the way-- can't you see the mass extinction of virtually all forms of life in all corners of the planet already in progress?
Unlike the GOP, at least Bernie's proposals will have virtually guaranteed returns. Think of it as an investment. The risk is minimal and the returns will be great. We've already tried everything the GOP has to offer and nothing has worked. It's time for real change---that's what progress is.
2
So far, about a third of Democratic caucus participants (i.e., the more politically active of the general electorate) in 3 states have opined in favor of Sanders. In other words, about two-thirds of Democratic caucus participants opined in favor of someone other than Sanders. If one assumes (which I don't) that caucus participants are representative of the less politically active general voting population, and further assumes an approximately 50-50 split between Republican and Democratic voters, that would translate to an overall approximately 16-17% favorable rating for Sanders.
Further truths will be revealed as the primary season progresses, but on today's topic of imagining Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office, one first must imagine him winning the 2020 election. That is where my imagination currently is failing me.
I'm wondering how much Mr. Stephens paid in taxes last year as a percent of his gross income. I also wonder how much he pays for his healthcare as a percent of his gross income.
I have a feeling that both of these percentages are much lower than for Mr. Stephens than they are for the average U.S. taxpayer.
I also don't understand how anyone who understands that climate change is real can even think of voting for Trump and, while I may not agree with 99% of what Mr. Stephens writes, I can't imagine he doesn't think that climate change is real. Of course I also don't understand how many Republican members of Congress sleep at night. Are tax breaks really a higher priority for our government than health care?
4
The headline had me reaching for my smelling salts. Bernie in the Oval Office? No. Tom Friedman's proposal for a team of rivals harkens back to Doris Kearns Goodwin's book of the same title about Lincoln. We may not have a Lincoln in the crowd, but we sure can learn something from him. And the Democratic candidates are a lively, intelligent, creative bunch who would rescue the country from the Trump tribulations. And it would rescue their campaigns from assured doom.
Mr. Stephens, it's hard to swallow that the costs you're talking about are really worse than the costs of uninsured children, millions of Americans having to choose between one life-saving medication or another because they don't both fit into their budget, or medical bankruptcy that makes the "Breaking Bad" premise even a thing that could happen in a first-world country... but I'm open to you trying to explain it.
2
I'm so tired of hearing that Bernie can't beat Trump. Clearly he can given the numbers and votes coming in. What is this mounting anxiety from Democrats about Sanders? I hear it from my liberal family and I read it in my NYTimes. Are we finally being called out to 'walk the talk' of our liberal beliefs that poor and lower middle class families should also have access to good health care and education? Bernie has opened a door to potential solutions for our country that may not be easy but he is at least going to try. I have lived in France for 20 yrs and have seen how socialized medecine works. It works. No system is perfect, but healthcare for all is more important than our stock portfolios.
3
It wasn't people who voted Green Party who elected Donald Trump. You only say that because the votes were so close, but they never would have been had Hillary Clinton been a palatable candidate. Most of those Green votes were votes against Clinton, not for Green. I didn't go that route, but I don't condemn those who did.
It's time for the center-right, Republican-lite Clintonites to cede control of the party they've so badly damaged so we can move forward with the kind of change we need and some real progress for the American people and not just the stock market.
2
Bret, get back to me when Medicare can bargain over drug prices and we have a rational non-racist immigration policy calmly enforced at the point of employment.
At this point, what besides a Trump v Bernie general election promises a 10 percent chance that the political establishments who control federal politics and their backers will pay heed to the proposition that in a representative democracy they should listen to the voters at least periodically and to some extent?
And what happened to the word “moderate”? I thought I was one. I like Ike, esteem both Roosevelts, Al Gore is my president, and LBJ was about as far left and Jerry Ford was about as far right as I cared to go. Nowadays the term seems to denote Democrats who go along with repealing Glass-Steagall without sufficient consumer protections, free trade without sufficient resources devoted to things like wage insurance and retraining, and pushing the frontiers of the culture wars (beyond things like dignity for all without regard to race, color, creed, or sex) from a lefty perspective.
I think it’s madness to ban fracking as the next step in addressing climate change or go to Medicare for All without first demonstrating a workable public option. But I just voted for Bernie. Y’all need to listen and respond like wise leaders in a democracy are supposed to.
1
In order for Bernie to win and be successful, he is going to have to organize a movement that takes the streets as well as the ballot boxes. One of Obama's big mistakes was let the right take the streets (i.e., the Tea Party) and essentially control the debate about healthcare. Socialism -democratic or else- can only prevail if it is a mass movement -not a bunch of talking heads in armchairs. So they will have to organize, and never let up the pressure on elected officials who must be made to feel the Bern.
2
Bret says Trump is "so far, containable???" How has he been "contained" so far? This is an utterly ridiculous assessment of our present condition.
5
Yes, the world needs another Russian puppet that all yelling and no action or plans on how to pay for anything.
"[W]hen a democratic system offers you awful choices you have a right, like Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, to say: 'I would prefer not to' — and go vote libertarian."
A fair analogy for your choice, Mr. Stephens...
...considering Bartleby was a broken cog in a mechanical labor system who could only - like a malfunctional robot on autopilot - repeat "no" until he was institutionalized.
2
These columns are always fantastic — they're the conversations I wish I could have with my Republican neighbors.....but the climate is too toxic to do so. You two need a podcast.
1
Better Bernie than anyone else!
2
The idea that Bernie is the new McGovern is completely unsupported by the polling facts regarding both candidates. McGovern NEVER came close to Nixon in the polls, whereas Sanders led Trump more than Hillary did in 2016, beat him handily in the Rust Belt exit polls that year, and has typically led him by 7 or 8 in the past year. Recent polls now show Bernie beating Trump worse than any other Dem does, one even shows him beating Trump by the same margin Bloomberg loses to Trump. It's only natural for the neoliberal megaphone we call the MSM to constantly wring their hands about Bernie's electability, ignoring all the facts the same way Fox ignores them on climate. But facts are stubborn things. Bernie's gong to beat this idiot.
1
What’s with the Morning Joe crowd anyway?
The way they’re hanging on to the Castro thing its as if they’re getting orders from the St. Petersburg troll factory. Ironic that in their vehement hatred for Cuba, they play right into Moscow’s hands in amplifying the internal schisms within the Democratic Party.
1
Why are you people torturing us. Bernie will NEVER get elected. Never.
1
The average per capita cost of health care in the United States is more than $11,000. Per capita. The private health insurance sector consumes in admin costs, conservatively, three to four times what Medicare pays.
Let that sink in.
And along comes Bret Stephens who thinks proposals that expand coverage and lower admin costs are "economically and socially ruinous." Say what? Whether its Medicare for All or some other vehicle for universal coverage, we can definitely do better than what we have. Ruinous is what we have NOW.
6
I'll vote for Bernie, thank you.
7
He’s not my first choice, but, if he’s the nominee, he has my support and my vote. Four more years of this? Time for the circus to be run out of town.
1
@obo He has my vote!
1
I think it's a mistake to assume Trump's style of leadership -- disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless - can be contained. It looks like it's spreading.
4
If Bernie is elected most of his time, energy and political capital will have to be devoted to repairing the damage wrought by Trump. Bernie's campaign agenda will necessarily have to take a backseat to that.
1
That Bloomberg's stop and frisk policy was not much mentioned by the Times says more about the Times than it does about Bloomberg.
4
Bret, if you really were Bartlyby the Scrivener-- you would vote for Bernie Sanders-- like the rest of the working class!
4
NYT will be a hold-out against Bernie longer than anybody else, as we see in the views here of its columnist Gail Collins. The paper more or less black-balled Bernie in 2016, and lost whatever claim it might have had, as I saw it, to intelligent positioning. This time such a stance probably won't matter thanks be to god . . . or to whatever political deity happens to exist.
6
What's to imagine ?
Bernie Sanders will be sworn in as our 46th President on January 20th., 2021, and immediately thereafter will we see or Democratic Republic be reborn.
And Trump will be an unpleasant rapidly evaporating memory, as will his Republican partners and the damage they wrought.
Americans are sometimes slow out the gate, but when they decide to do the right thing, it's wonderful to witness.
7
How I pray what you say will come true! Please God, are you listening!
3
Bernie supporters should take into account the fate of the UK's Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party. I'm not equating Sanders and Corbyn as the latter brought in some terrible personal baggage - Bernie is a far better person. But the public's reaction to a far left government on its own is far more instructive. Becoming the Democratic nominee without some hard research on US voters reactions to a far left program, will doom the Democrats.
Pray for a moderate white knight making it to the head of the line in the upcoming Democratic primaries.
Bret, you know why the other moderate candidates won't just leave the stage so that one moderate centrist Democrat (Biden?) can forge ahead in the polls? Two reasons:
First, each one of them is passionately committed to her or his agenda, and this commitment is a strength necessary to achieving the unity that transcends Democrats' diversity of race, age, sexuality, income, religion, regionality and ideology.
Second, the candidate with no competitors is hopelessly weak, lacking the rigor of debate that we must rely on to sharpen the candidates' and our own thinking about policy proposals, to remedy flaws, and to make the concessions necessary to win acceptance of any policy, to unite the party at convention time.
We're not there yet. Let the messiness, and the education of the people, continue!
4
From the Frances Perkins Center: "When, in February, 1933, President-elect Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of Labor, she outlined for him a set of policy priorities she would pursue: a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; unemployment compensation; worker’s compensation; abolition of child labor; direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief; Social Security; a revitalized federal employment service; and universal health insurance.
Perkins made it clear to Roosevelt that his agreement with these priorities was a condition of her joining his cabinet. Roosevelt said he endorsed them all, and Frances Perkins became the first woman in the nation to serve in a Presidential cabinet."
At the time of Roosevelt’s death in April of 1945, Frances Perkins was the longest-serving labor secretary and one of only two cabinet secretaries to serve the entire length of the Roosevelt Presidency.
In 1944, a piece portraying Frances Perkins in Collier’s magazine described her accomplishments over the previous twelve years as “not so much the Roosevelt New Deal, as … the Perkins New Deal.” She had accomplished all but one of the items on the agenda she had presented to the newly elected President in February of 1933: universal access to health care."
Let's get it (universal health care) done. Better late than never.
9
@Innisfree
I keep repeating it; Bernie Sanders is our modern-day FDR, without FDR's wealth.
A vote for Bernie Sanders is a vote for a rebirth of decency, respect, and compassion, in our fading Democratic Republic.
3
@Innisfree, applause for this fact-filled bit of political history, and thank you!
2
"But, as someone once said, when the facts change, so do my views."
Don't know if Bret looked at the stock markets this week, or if he ever heard of the Coronavirus. But, as my mother used to say, "The world doesn't leave you alone." My father used to say, "You don't know, what you don't know."
To my mind, that's where we sit today. A nation subjected to a Viral replication algorithm and the program traders.
3
"and would mean an American system with two political parties that have gone bonkers, rather than merely one."
Am I crazy but I'd say we're well past that? The DNC is clearly loosing its grip on power, and reality. That's what's left them so exposed to a Sanders-like candidate...
Ms Collins would be a much better chess player than Mr. Stephens. She remembers history and can see 3 or 4 moves into the future.
3
The title of this article is not discussed at all by the writers. Clearly there is a disconnect between headline editor and the writers.
Regarding Bret Stephens assertion that Bernie will break the bank, I have several suggestions:
- Medicare for All. I am not sure where the $1.4 T - $2.8 T per year comes from in the CFRB.org's study. But if it assumes the healthcare pays the exorbitant hospital, doctors, and pharmacy bills, then we will blow the budget. After all, private insurance is not helping contain costs. But if we adopt sane steps to reign in cost can by adopting European health care methods, we can cut costs 30-50%. So, let's get the best of what's being done in Europe; get rid of health insurance companies, and provide healthcare for all. And, please, let's stop Republican branding of "access" to healthcare? A door to a hospital or doctor's office provides access. We need health care!!! not access to healthcare.
Finally, cut the military budget in half, break-up the too big to fail corporations with a mandate that the largest they can get is 49% of any market. That will level the playing field. And it should be done in every industry across the board.
6
The one common thread with the 'opinionators' as well as the 'commentators' is a common fear of the unknown (i.e. change). With Trump its seen as too much change in our values going in the wrong direction, continuing to help the rich and powerful by any means(seen as corrupt by many). With Bernie its a fear of too much change going to help the poor, lower class, the sick, the youth, and and those who are generally under-privileged and powerless. My impression is that few if any of the people here fall into Bernie's Base. It seems that everyone here wants their 'cake' but still not share it. Ultimately , that makes us, collectively, part of the problem. So, the question becomes what is your definition of progress? Is it something that makes us equals ? Or is it something that makes us feel better by sharing the economic 'crumbs' without lowering our standard of living? Fear paralyzes.
2
As coronavirus fears sink the market, and pinch supply as well as demand, it is becoming increasingly likely that Trump’s only real selling card, the economy, isn’t going to work for him in November. In a referendum election, any Democrat, Sanders included, is going to beat him. By November, as we watch our retirement accounts sink, we may all become Democratic socialists.
3
Since Stephens is able to accept another four years of Trump, I can't value anything he says. There are hundreds of individual reasons I think Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy, our citizenry, and the world at large. Hard to know where to start or end. But, I will mention climate change. Even this last year of Trump is causing increased and unalterable warming to our world. A vote for him is a vote against the planet.
7
Bernie has good intentions and good ideas that we can’t pay for. Trump has bad intentions and bad ideas at the cost of our democracy. Better a president you're able to keep in check with a congressional budget than one that requires a bazooka.
9
@Andrew Pritzker
"Bernie has good intentions and good ideas that we can’t pay for."
This is the heart of it, but for all of his radicalness, he is focused -- and so are so many of the NYT commenters -- on health care. (1) Health care is not a crisis overall for the whole country; it is for some, which is why I agree with Biden on fixing problems in Obamacare, not destroying it. Obamacare is working for an enormous portion of the population. (2) Health care is only one of the two most fundamental life needs. The other is housing. Regulation of out-of-control capitalism, house-flipping, speculative pricing, and market-priced (supply-demand) rents are IMMORAL. And that immorality affects every age segment in this country, including the very old.
1
@Andrew Pritzker
"Bernie has good intentions and good ideas that we can’t pay for."
This is the heart of it, but for all of his radicalness, he is focused -- and so are so many of the NYT commenters -- on health care. (1) Health care is not a crisis overall for the whole country; it is for some, which is why I agree with Biden on fixing problems in Obamacare, not destroying it. Obamacare is working for an enormous portion of the population. (2) Health care is only one of the two most fundamental life needs. The other is housing. The failure to regulate of out-of-control capitalism, house-flipping, speculative pricing, and market-priced (supply-demand) rents is IMMORAL. And that immorality affects every age segment in this country, including the very old.
Bernie is toxic and creates division- that's one of the reasons Russia supports him because he makes his followers despise the other candidates and makes everyone unelectable. Toxic.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-staffer-mocked-elizabeth-warrens-looks-pete-buttigiegs-sexuality-on-private-twitter-account
.
3
@JessD Is this really the best you can do for evidence against Bernie Sanders? And are you trying to make a case that Sanders is a magnet for this kind of person? Don't tell yourself that story. There are Moras in every campaign.
1
It's sad and frustrating because the world needed a tough, fighter like Trump to help with all the work around climate change, but Trump and all his boys do not believe in climate change. We could have used them.
I really enjoy your back and forth and have watched your "live" comments during all the debates. It is refreshing to read both of you! I fall in Mrs. Collins camp.....I voted for Trump because Bernie got shafted by the Democrats last time around. This time I'm all in for Bernie because I've seen what type of President Donald Trump has become. What is so scary about Medical Coverage for all? What is so scary about Universal Child Care? I really don't get it.
Anyway, keep up the great debate.....
Peace!
3
@David
Good grief. Would you folks please finally stop with the junk that the other Democrats are afraid of the Sanders promises? All of the Democratic candidates agree that good and affordable health care is a right for all Americans. To say that stuff and then say "peace" is kinda slimy, no? Oh and your vote for Trump in 2016 was, in fact, mathematically two votes for him. Good for you. In the swing states, the Sanders voters who switched to Trump were 2 to 6 times larger than Trump's winning margin. As reported in this paper on average the Sanders voters who voted for Trump were motivated entirely by two things, and they weren't the lie that the primary was rigged. They were racial resentment and gender resentment. Finally, how in the world can say you voted for Trump without even the littlest bit of I'm sorry or I might have been mistaken? "Peace!" Good grief.
2
@Robert He kind of did by speaking as one of the many who voted for Trump out of anger at an obviously, admittedly rigged process. (From my home in a Blue state I sat it out.)
David's comment might make others like him make the switch away from Trump.
@Gypsy Mandelbaum
"... an obviously, admittedly rigged process ..."
Repeating this baseless claim is divisive and counterproductive. So long as you keep pushing these conspiracy theories, you folks are encouraging others to throw the vote the vote to Trump again. You've just gotta provide some actual convincing evidence if you say things like this. And I don't think you can do so. And maybe also you should give some thought to the practical outcomes of things you say. How many millions of votes more did Clinton have than Sanders? By the way, your sitting it out was one vote for Trump, mathematically speaking. If you will recall, 10+ percent of the Sanders voters voted for Trump and another 10+ percent either voted third party (e.g., Stein) or sat it out. In a close election decided by a handful of swing votes that is a whole lot of votes.
1
"Trump is a known quantity: disgusting, corrosive, vile, lawless — but so far containable." Containable?...really Mr. Stevens?
If the megalomaniac in the White House has so far been "contained", then heaven help us when he truly becomes unleashed.
5
Bret Stephens thinks the cancer trat is Trump is acting *slowly*? SLOWLY?!
How fast exactly is he looking for our nation's international reputation and domestic environmental concerns to be destroyed?
2
Bret, listen to Gail!
5
When are these writers going to stop poisoning the well of the Democrats so that one of them can actually have a chance to win??
3
The Bernie is the bogeyman coming to tax you into oblivion is just nonsense. Every democratic socialist country in Europe has done pretty well these past 50 years with standards of living far above ours, especially in Holland and Scandinavia. I find it astonishing to hear Stephens keep insisting on this false equivalence between Sanders and Trump. So here’s a question,...if Mussolini was running against Hitler, and it was a given that one of them was going to win, who Mr. Stephens, would you vote for? And don’t say Petain.