Let me say that if Bernie Sanders is nominated in 2020 to run against Donald Trump, I will not only vote for Sanders, but I will go door-to-door, give money, and, if it would help, donate blood.
The same is true for Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and every other Democratic candidate who has announced or may announce.
Nonetheless, I find Sanders incredibly irritating. Nancy Pelosi wants to reform the Affordable Health Act. With any major policy change, unexpected problems arise. In California after a comprehensive piece of legislation, the legislature routinely passed what was called “the clean-up bill.” It fixed the problems. The ACA needs a clean-up bill.
Sanders opposes the clean-up bill. He wants perfection rather than adjustment. Millions of people would get health care under the proposed reforms. Millions of lives would be better, but Sanders argues that will lessen the demand for “Medicare for all.”
If you want an analogy, many Marxists (though not Marx himself) opposed worker reforms like the eight-hour day or worker safety legislation. They thought those reforms might postpone The Revolution. It is called making perfection the enemy of the good. It was stupid then; it is stupid now.
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