I would guess nothing on Bernie’s agenda gets through Congress, no matter which party controls the the respective branches of the Legislature.

Practically nothing. As @josie says, the republicans will stand in his way on almost everything. And a lot democrats think Sanders is far too left wing.

Voting for Sanders is means nothing, seriously nothing, gets accomplished for 4 years.

So which democrat that’s out there now can get the most done?

Free tuition.

International opinion of your “country” will turn positive again for a few years.

Left wing or not, Bernie is apt to advocate for measures that people GENUINELY want which are anathema to the corporate puppet masters currently pulling the strings on our politicians.. He is a particular threat to the insurance and drug companies, Wall st & the banks—and believe me, THEY KNOW IT!

So was Obama. Was he too much of a statesman? Should he have just thrown the hammer down more than he did?

@Dutchess_III: “I know he’s big on universal health care, and I’m glad for that….but so was Obama.”

Correction – he was not.

@Dutchess_III: “He was only able to get the ACA through.”

He implemented Romneycare and didn’t even bother with the public option, despite the makeup of congress at the time.

@Dutchess_III: “Do you think Bernie can do what Obama couldn’t?”

Many people are already stating the obvious – the US is a corporate-owned shit country that is unlikely to become more democratic anytime soon. But Bernie is the only candidate who has a chance help us get single-payer M4A. As he has stated for years, he can’t do shit without the continued organizing and getting more people active. His role would be organizer in chief, and it will be a difficult fight.

He’s literally the only candidate who is willing to take on power. Warren has already gone back on single-payer, as we suspected. Nothing would happen. She would absorb all of the energy and activism of M4A and kill it. Then in 4 years, we’ll see someone worse than Trump.

If there is any chance of the whole thing surviving, it’s going to have to take someone who is really just someone who can use the position to cut through the filters to reach out to people so they can demand action from their reps.

@Dutchess_III – If you’re asking about tax implications, I’m surprised you haven’t just looked into the actual plan. We need a single-payer M4A now. That’s it. It’s completely reasonable, will save most people tons of money, empower workers who no longer are held hostage to employer plans, help the economy by eliminating the near half-million people per year who file for bankruptcy for merely getting sick, etc.

Of course, this is just healthcare. There is the green new deal, drug legalization and record expungement, tuition-free public college and trade schools, etc.

Not much. Congress won’t pass most of what he proposes. He can follow in Trump’s shoes and try to do everything by executive order, and I’d feel the same about it as I feel when it happens now-trying to bypass the legislative process is non-democratic and heretofore un-American.

As an aside – to those who are (appropriately) cynical and don’t think an actual center-left candidate can effect change – keep in mind that those with money in power are not as certain as you are, and are pulling out all the stops to make sure Sanders is not president. You might be convinced of the impotency of a Sanders presidency. But corporations are not (including the 2 corporate parties and corporate media).

Change very often seems impossible right up until it’s happening.

From an outside perspective, it seems clear that you desperately need a healthcare system that’s more appropriate for a developed nation, as well as much more protection for the beautiful parts of nature America calls its own.

Any steps that bring you closer to basic physical safety of all citizens will have a huge effect on society. It’s like the Broken Windows Theory in reverse.

I think there will be movement on climate change if Bernie or any Democrat gets elected and there is a majority in Congress. i also think there will be movement on gun control.

That was another thing I know that Obama was passionate about, gun control. It just seems like if anyone could have done it, it would have been him…..

@Dutchess_III Obama thought he could reason other people into agreeing with him. He should have pushed for getting more things done in the first two years when he had a Democratic Congress. He was a good President but he made mistakes as they all do.

My attorney once told me that was my problem. I thought that if I could make it as obvious to other people, as it was to me, everyone would see the light.
Boy, did I learn a hard life’s lesson in the fact that some people don’t CARE about the truth. They don’t CARE about right or wrong. It was when we were going through a custody battle for our oldest.

It’s amazing to me how pervasive the idea is that resistance by the establishment to the best of Bernie’s ideas would be any kind of reason to vote for some worse candidate instead.

Congress being full of corporate tools is a reason to vote them out, and not a reason to vote another corporate tool into the White House!

I believe the more pervasive (and accurate) belief is that the Democratic Party will be adept as before in depriving Bernie of his legitimate right to the nomination. The coming election is unique in my lifetime in that my sentiments fall in line exactly with the theme dominating Democratic machine politics——no ideological position of any candidate takes priority above the mission to DUMP STINKY! The coming year will in all probability find the fool embroiled in never ending impeachment hearings, Stinky is so prolific in his criminality that he is STILL giving the House more rope to hang him. The House could literally tie the Senate up with a separate impeachment trial every week for as long as STINKY remains in office.

How does that make any sense. That thinking seems like just another form of the same sort of mistake, unless somehow someone believes that a generic corporate Democrat is going to be more electable than Bernie Sanders?

@elbanditoroso “Voting for Sanders is means nothing, seriously nothing, gets accomplished for 4 years.”

If Sanders is elected, that means several things have happened. The first is that there was a massive voter turnout, which also means the Republicans will be pushed out. Remember 2008? Next is that corporate Democrats are going to have to do some calculations. They can oppose these overwhelmingly popular programs and policies and keep taking money from corporations and the elite. If they do so however, they are going to face some serious heat from their constituents because Bernie said he will go to those states/districts and support primary challengers to their seats. I suspect several will hold out, but once they get replaced, most will fall-in-line. It happened with the Tea Party.

Bernie has actually done this before at the local level. When he was elected Mayor, the establishment there was trying to obstruct his agenda, so he drove out enormous turnout and was able to stack the council to support his agenda. Interesting article about his career at the local level

@Dutchess_III “I know he’s big on universal health care, and I’m glad for that….but so was Obama. He was only able to get the ACA through.”

Here’s the dirty secret: Obama wasn’t ever really for universal health care. He said the right things during the election, but when given the opportunity to implement major change he did what he was paid to do—ensure that a true Medicare-for-all plan never gets passed.

I know if Bernie is President, he’s going to fight with everything he has to push forward his progressive policies. I think he’s going to be effective because most Americans agree with his ideas, and Democrats win when they actually fight.

I checked your sources. I can’t find anything impeachable about them. :( That is utterly disappointing.

@Dutchess_III Obama had me fooled. When I saw him try to “work with Republicans,” at the time I believed him. Later I realized that it was his tactic for avoiding having to actually implement the major change he promised. He faked left but moved right. In Obama’s words:

”...my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican…” (source).

Also, please don’t interpret this criticism to mean that I think that McCain or Romney would have been any better. That said, I do think decades of repeatedly firing up the people on working-class policies and then consistently letting them down has produced the insideous result of people losing faith in politics. This is the goal of the establishment and the elites that don’t want to see the boat get rocked. They love the boat just the way it is, thank you.

Ultimately this political apathy is a big reason why Trump won, and why it’s going to take an authentic progressive to beat him instead of a Republican-lite corporate Democrat.