cdub24 @ The Daily Kos has a post entitled “POLL finds 80% of Republicans AGREE with BERNIE SANDERS“, which links to a post at PoliticsUSA:
Sen. Bernie Sanders is often characterized by the media as an out of the mainstream presidential candidate, but a new CBS/New York Times poll revealed that 80% of Republicans agree with Sanders on the issue of getting money out of politics.
The CBS/NYT poll found that:
– 80% of Republicans believe that money has too much influence in our politics.– 54% believed that most of the time candidates directly help those who gave money to them.
and etc., all related to campaign finance.
So, we can look at this and say, Wow, isn’t this amazing, maybe we should elect Bernie and get things DONE.
But here’s the thing: Presidents are Executives. They Execute the law. They don’t make the Law. They may make War, but even then they are supposed to retroactively get permission – and risk getting booted out, if the Legislature is up to doing its job, rather than playing tribal politics.
The Legislature makes the law. And that’s where just about all the positions of Bernie’s would need action. (Constitutional Amendments also start in legislatures.)
So this sort of headline is all hot air and no red meat. It can be used to embarrass your favorite conservative relative, if that’s your conception of politics – tear up the family and friends, that sort of thing.
But what it really needs to be is the extension of a hand to the family and friends and the remark, Hey, I hear your Representative isn’t in step with the conservative movement, yeah, that one that happens to think there’s too much money in politics, that corruption is rampant – what do you think should be done to correct or replace your Representative?
As entertaining as I find the modern conception of politics to be, the use of embarrassment, contempt, and scorn are the first materials to use – when burning bridges. What do you think should be used when building bridges?
