Recently, the Democratic National Committee released a summary of their revised platform to be implemented throughout the next four to eight years. It was written by surrogates for both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns as well as DNC Chairwoman and walking contradiction Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and, sweet mother of God is there a lot to talk about. The fact that Bernie Sanders got a say at all is a huge victory for the progressive movement and Team Revolution, especially considering the DNC has never really liked him. The platform, which hasn’t been officially adopted yet, has outlined some positions that are a pretty good step forward for the Democratic Party and are really admirable. The thing is, it also has some really telling policies on the state of the Democratic Party.
The Good:
A Fight for Fifteen
Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows this election season when she came out against the idea of a living minimum wage of $15/hour, opting for a more “moderate” $12. This made her an enemy of the progressive movement, especially when she took credit for New York’s implementation of a living wage earlier this year. Bernie Sanders has been struggling to push her to the left on this issue, and Hillary seemed to give in during a past debate when she changed her stance on the living wage mid-response. The new platform calls for supporting an increase in the minimum wage, a clear win for progressives.
Killing Capital Punishment
The death penalty was a polarizing issue for years in the Democratic Party, with the frontrunner this cycle saying it should be used only for heinous crimes and Bernie Sanders saying that the government potentially kills innocent people on a regular basis (which it does, by the way). The platform summary calls the death penalty “a cruel and unusual form of punishment,” showing clear influence by Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
Common Sense Security
Another instance where Bernie’s influence has seeped into the platform is his call to expand Social Security, a program supported by a majority of Americans. Even Donald Trump, who doesn’t really want to be President but is so far in character at this point that he just can’t stop, distinguished himself from his opponents by being the only Republican candidate who was against cutting Social Security. It’s honestly a no-brainer, it’s kind of unbelievable it’s taken the DNC this long to support the country’s most popular social program.
The Bad:
Trans-Pacific Disaster
Bernie Sanders heavily criticized the Clinton administration for taking so long to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would cost thousands of jobs and disproportionately hurt the middle and working class. Hillary had famously lobbied for the TPP almost 50 times and pushed for other trade deals like NAFTA, which Bernie Sanders calls “disastrous,” during her husband’s administration. Apparently, this is echoed by Wasserman-Schultz and others in the DNC establishment, because Sanders’ idea to condemn the TPP was shot down.
Netanyahu is always right!
Who’d have thought that the first Jewish politician to win a primary in the U.S. is actually more in favor of a two-state solution in the Middle East than Hillary? Bernie criticized his opponent on the debate stage for acting like “[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu is right 100 percent of the time,” which gave the media room to call him anti-Semitic. The Democratic platform killed Sanders’ proposal to bring peace to Gaza and denounce the Israeli occupation which has disproportionately killed civilians and denied equal rights to Palestinians, which is kind of depressing if you ask me, but others may disagree.
The Ugly:
Healthcare as a privilege
Hillary made a name for herself in the 1990s for being in favor of healthcare as a right of all people, and led the effort to make sure that happened for the better part of the first Clinton administration. That is, until she got money from the healthcare industry during her New York senate campaign, and then suddenly she was in favor of a public option. Bernie Sanders then took her place as the leader of the fight for single payer care, saying “it is time America join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee healthcare to all people as a right, not a privilege.” The new platform seems to disagree, as the DNC voted down a proposal to be in favor of a single payer system.
What the frack?!
I won’t comment too much about this, or I’ll get too angry and throw my laptop out the window. I’ll just say that now both major political parties in the second biggest polluting nation in the world believe that fracking is a good idea. You’d think Democrats would be more pro-environment and condemn fracking in their platform, but you’d be wrong.
Now it’s important to note that the Democratic nominee, whoever she may be, can ignore some of these positions in her general election campaign. She might go back to fight for a $12 minimum wage, or advocate for the death penalty for heinous crimes. The problem is the Democratic Party now holds incredibly disappointing and harmful positions that could mean a march towards neoliberalism, interventionism and corporatism. On the bright side, this might make the resistance of the progressive movement and Team Revolution stronger than ever, and lead us to a Party more in line with progressive values. In the words of Bernie Sanders, “change takes place when people struggle.”
