Tag: Bernie Sanders

I side with Bernie

TWICE in the past week, I’ve seen Bernie Sanders referred to as the governor of Vermont; he is not.

sanders.imageI took a couple of those I Side With quizzes. Nothing particularly surprising, except that my affinity with the Republican Party was worse than I thought.

I did take exception to a handful of the answer choices besides YES and NO being counted as the same as mine. For example: “Should National Parks continue to be preserved and protected by the federal government?”

Republicans: Yes, but allow limited logging, drilling, and mining. Your similar answer: Yes. Well, that’s not similar at all, to my mind. This USUALLY is not an issue, but it may skew some results.

Candidates you side with… (links are to the Weekly Sift stump speeches, a work in progress)

92% Bernie Sanders, Democrat (US Senator from VT, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats) on domestic policy, environmental, social, immigration, foreign policy, and healthcare issues. Incidentally, TWICE in the past week, I’ve seen Sanders referred to as the governor of Vermont, once on a network news program, once on the local Time Warner Cable News.

68% Hillary Clinton, Democrat (former US Senator from NY; former Secretary of State) on domestic policy, economic, and foreign policy issues.

28% John Ellis Bush, a/k/a Jeb!, Republican (former governor of FL) – no major issues.

21% Chris Christie, Republican (governor of NJ) on environmental issues. I have SERIOUS doubts that Christie said that thing about a Viagra-like pill for women.

17% Rand Paul, Republican (US Senator from Kentucky) on foreign policy issues.

15% Mike Huckabee, Republican (former governor of AR) – no major issues.

8% Ben Carson, Republican (doctor) – no major issues.

4% Scott Walker, Republican (governor of WI) – no major issues.

3% Rick Santorum, Republican (former US Senator from PA) – no major issues.

3% Marco Rubio, Republican (US Senator from FL) – no major issues.

1% Carly Fiorina, Republican (former corporate head) – no major issues.

1% Ted Cruz, Republican (US Senator from Texas) – no major issues.

I’d be curious how I would have fared vis a vis former governor George Pataki (R-NY), or the other two Democrats in the race, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chaffee.

Parties you side with…

98% Green Party on domestic policy, economic, environmental, social, foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare issues.

95% Democrats on domestic policy, economic, environmental, foreign policy, social, immigration, healthcare, and education issues.

94% Socialist on domestic policy, economic, environmental, social, foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare issues.
And in case you wonder if I’m freaking about that designation, not especially.
From Daily Kos:
Bernie Sanders went on to express irritation with the way journalists slap the “socialist” label on him, as if his embrace of policies common in the democracies of western Europe makes him a radical outlier.
“It is not a radical agenda,” he said. “In virtually every instance, what I am saying is supported by a significant majority of the American people. Yes, it is not supported by the Business Roundtable or the Chamber of Commerce, or Wall Street. I may be old-fashioned enough to believe that Congress might want to be representing a vast majority of our people … and not just the Koch brothers and other campaign contributors.
“He suggested that if the media are going to refer to him as a socialist, journalists also should affix the label of ‘capitalist’ with every mention of his rivals.”

43% Libertarians on foreign policy issues.

37% Constitution Party on domestic policy issues.

4% Republicans – no major issues.

An American Need

Listening to the podcast of Arthur@AmeriNZ recently. He noted that Rachel Maddow of MSNBC apologized to US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for calling him Bernie. Arthur, an American now living in New Zealand was amused/bemused by this apology. In his adopted nation, the prime minister is first among equals, and is referred to by the first name; the same tends to be true in the UK and in other countries that used to be called the British Commonwealth.

So what do they have that the United States doesn’t have?

They have a queen. Queen Elizabeth II, or her representative.

Whereas the United States, the anti-monarchical nation, has a much formal structure for addressing its leaders, “Mr. President,” and the like.

I had to laugh when Michelle Obama, speaking about Hillary, referred to her as “Senator, er, Secretary Clinton — almost said, President Clinton.” Whereas the UK, NZ, Australia use up their formality quotient on royalty.

Like John Oliver, the Senior British Person on the Daily Show noted a couple of weeks back, “the Brits have actual royalty, which is ‘why we can treat our political leaders like the disposable bureaucrats that they are.'”

So it’s obvious: the United States needs royalty.

Seriously, I thought that Ronald Reagan should have been king. For reasons I don’t need to get into, I was not crazy about his politics. At the same time, I recognized the positive impact his optimism had on certain segments of the populace. I decided around 1984 that I did not want him as President, but that he would be great as monarch. He said warm and fuzzy things about “morning in America”; we could feel good about ourselves without him having to have real power that could turn into Iran contra or the like.

So who should be our royal now? I’m not sure. Maybe Queen of All Media Oprah Winfrey. Perhaps a popular Olympiad from the most recent games. Or the mirror ball winner on Dancing with the Stars.

It’d be like king or queen of the prom. We can get all pomp and circumstancy with a royal. Then Rachel Maddow can call senator Sanders Bernie, like, he told her, everyone else does.

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