I'll post the counterargument to all of this, because there is a very strong one. I apologize for the long post, but I think this is important.
I missed this post earlier. I would probably consider his protectionist and somewhat nationalist stances on trade and immigration harmful and unrealistic.
I guess this would be probably be the strongest line of attack against Sander's platform on a substantive basis, but realistically, I don't see where the problem is. For the past 30 or so years, we've undergone a global liberalization of trade to the point where there really aren't many barriers left to "free" trade between the major economies of the planet. At the same time, that liberalization was conducted in a manner that largely ignored negative externalities such as environmental harm and economic displacement.
I don't see Sander's proposing mass deportation or building a wall like Donald Trump, and I don't see him proposing to erect massive tariffs like Smoot-Hawley. As a matter of fact, Sanders currently appears to be line with the rest of the Democratic Party regarding immigration, and on trade, he seems at most skeptical of future agreements designed more to facilitate movement between regulatory regimes than anything else. To put a more positive spin on it, I would say you could characterize his position as being more mindful of the negative externalities associated with trade agreements.
He is hardly Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot.
Similarly, "breaking up the big banks" is a nice populist slogan, but doesn't seem like something that should be rationally entertained as it is impractical, costly and I'm not entirely sure what the proposed benefit of it is, beyond making the US financial system less competitive.
This part of his platform dates to the financial crisis and its aftermath. During the run-up to the financial crisis, the major banks of the U.S., along with other bank-like entities, over-leveraged themselves to the point that they faced bankruptcy or the threat of bankruptcy when the housing bubble popped. As a result, the flow of neccessary liquid capital through the economy (e.g. short term loans) froze, which threatened to send otherwise healthy companies into bankruptcy. Because of that "freeze", the U.S government, along with governments around the world, were forced to inject massive amounts of capital into their "banking systems" to prevent a worldwide depression that could well have been worse than the 1930's.
Although the "bailouts" were neccessary, they carried with them the problem of "moral hazard". The term moral hazard refers to the idea that if an entity that engages in reckless or otherwise irresponsible behavior is shielded from the consequences of that behavior - in this case bankruptcy - then there is no incentive not to repeat that behavior.
Now, the response to all of that is of course the existence of the Dodd-Frank regulations passed in the immediate aftermath of crisis, which are supposed to prevent the kind of behavior that necessitated the bailouts. However, it should be noted that the entities whose behavior caused the crisis and were subsequently bailed out continue to donate heavily to both parties because of their privileged location in the U.S. economic system. As a result, the repeal of Dodd-Frank is a major plank of the Republican platform, and many "centrist" Democrats are quietly sympathetic to weakening Dodd-Frank. Those facts lead to the main justification for "breaking up the banks": limiting the political power that comes from the economic power those banks possess, which would ultimately better protect the entire economy from events such as those that led to the financial crisis in 2008.
Things that are frankly unrealistic include magically providing healthcare and college educations for everyone, while simultaneously injecting a $1T infrastructure-based stimulus programmer, somehow balanced out with some relatively non-descript tax on Wall Street. This all while only in control of one of the US branches of government.
Well, to your first point, I can only say that continental Europe must be a magical place. Countries like Germany and France manage to operate a completely publicly funded higher education system while maintaining a robust infrastructure consisting of roads, bridges, mass transit, power grids, and sewerage systems that are not falling apart, decrepit, non-existent, or underdeveloped like in the U.S.
In reality, we can't afford
not to fix and upgrade our existing infrastructure because current economic activity, future economic growth, and the very functioning of our society depends on it. We are already way behind on repairing our existing infrastructure, and even assuming we can keep our existing assets in working condition, population growth alone is going to have effects like turning I-95 into a parking lot over the next 30 years.
In addition, all of that doesn't even begin to take into consideration the need to upgrade and transition our infrastructure both to mitigate climate change and deal with the effects of the the temperature increase that is already "baked in". Is there any amount of money that we could spend now that is less than what we would lose should Miami and NYC end up buried under the Atlantic?
As to your last point, I agree. None of these proposals will get past a Republican congress. Then again, no major proposal by a Democratic President will get past a Republican congress. We are looking at the likelihood of, at the very least, gridlocked government until well in the 2020's. Why not keep good, neccessary, ideas on the table?
While the gap between wages and productivity growth in the US is relatively ridiculous, and there is academic literature supporting that minimum wages can ostensibly be increased without dramatic impact, the degree and rate of change I would presume is important. It also fails to take into account regional variation in living costs. On balance, while I consider raising the minimum wage to some degree a sensible progressive plank, even if he was able to institute his policy, I think there would be some negative impact of a more than doubling in a four year period. It would make for an interesting experiment though.
We'll find out because New York State is raising the minimum wage for fast food workers to 15 dollars an hour. I suspect the results will be less than apocalyptic considering Australia has a national minimum wage that is slightly more than 15 U.S. dollars, and many other countries have effective wage floors much higher than the U.S. that are enacted through collective bargaining laws.
Of course, under Sander's proposal to raise the national minimum wage states and localities would be free to enact higher minimum wages. What the "moderate" versus "radical" fight in this context is really about is whether the minimum wage in places like rural West Virginia should be 10-12 dollars or 15 dollars. In the end, the difference is more about rhetorical positioning - moderate versus radical - than any substantive difference. I am sure that workers making the minimum wage would appreciate the extra money, though.
I'm not entirely sure how he expects to prevent corporations offshoring.
Every Democratic political at the Presidential level has a plan to "prevent offshoring". I am not sure why the inability to prevent offshoring completely should be held against Sanders.
Citizens United was a ridiculous ruling from my understanding of the situation; that said, the system there is the system as is, and refusing to use it to try and change it seems like folly.
For the general election, I definitely think this is a real concern. On the one hand, the lack of funding I think definitely hurts the ability of the Sanders campaign to communicate beyond individuals who are plugged into social media or who are connected to existing political networks. On the other hand, the freedom from reliance on large donations may give the the Sanders campaign greater latitude to craft a platform that resonates with people. At the very least, the Sanders campaign is an interesting example of both the advantages and pitfalls of running a campaign outside of the traditional media and political fundraising system. I doubt his campaign would be possible as constituted even 10 years ago.
I can definitely see being nervous about it though. I am too.
In all, his policy positions are woefully devoid of specifics, completely ignore potential unintended consequences and several of the points under different subheadings are just repetition of the same points under income and wealth inequality.
In terms of being devoid of specifics, I think you will find that is true of all the political candidates across the spectrum at this point. Each candidate has a mixture of policy themes, policy objectives, and more detailed plans. I don't see Sanders as any more or any less substantive in this regard.
In all, I think that Sanders is both more and less than he appears. He is more than he appears because, for most all of the planks across his platform, I could point to a working example of the proposal in another country or a prominent figure calling for such a policy. In many ways, Sander's platform would bring the U.S. more in line with the rest of the world. At some point, we in the U.S. have to start asking ourselves what other countries see about some things that we don't.
Conversely, he is less than he appears because he isn't really a fire breathing radical in the traditional sense. He would probably find himself, rhetorically speaking, at home in the Democratic Party of the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and in terms of his platform, most of his proposals wouldn't look out of place in the Democratic Party of the 60's and 70's. Globally, he would probably be towards the center. Of course, all political positioning is relative to the contexts of time and place, but then again, contexts themselves change. To name just one change since the 80's and 90's, economically our country is in a much different place.
In all, I am glad he is in the race because he is getting people passionate about making neccessary and vital changes to our country. If all he manages to do is excite "young college kids", then so be it. Often times, such demographics are early adopters of views and attitudes that spread across society.
Better Sanders than the Paul family, I say.
