Bernie Isn't Running to Push Hillary to the Left. He's Running to Help Reclaim Our Democracy.

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

08 May 16

he media are brimming with stories about “how far to the left Bernie can push Hillary."

Utter nonsense.

American politics is no longer arrayed along the old left-right divide, with big government on one side and the “free market” on the other. The new divide is establishment versus anti-establishment.

On the establishment side are Wall Street moguls and CEOs of big corporations and the Washington insiders who do their bidding. They want more bailouts, subsidies, tax loopholes, monopolies, global investment, big money in politics, and a faster revolving door between Washington and the Street.

On the anti-establishment side are those who want the reverse – thereby ending the upward distributions of income from the paychecks of average working people to the crony capitalists and monopolists, and reclaiming our democracy.

So the real question isn’t how far to the “left” Bernie can push Hillary. It’s how far Bernie can move Hillary and the Democrats away from the moneyed interests – getting commitments, for example, on the public financing of campaigns, full disclosure of all sources of campaign funding, nominating justices who will reverse “Citizens United,” not nominating to the Treasury emissaries from Wall Street, ending the revolving door, strengthening unions, and using antitrust laws to bust up monopolies.

What do you think?