Bernie Sanders Isn't Very Familiar with American Political Process

Kind of makes you miss Elizabeth Warren…

Sanders said that after a “brilliant campaign” Obama made a mistake by expecting that he could easily negotiate with the other party.
“He thought he could walk into Capitol Hill and the Oval Office and sit down with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans and say, ‘I can’t get it all. You can’t get it all. Let’s work out something that’s reasonable,’ because he’s a reasonable guy. He’s a pretty rational guy,” Sanders said. “These guys never had any intention of doing [serious] negotiating and compromising … I think it took the president too long to fully appreciate that.”

But Sanders didn’t have a firm answer for how he would more successfully broker deals, saying the only way things will actually get done with a divided Congress is if the general population stays engaged in the political process and demand it.

“I don’t have any illusion that I’m going to walk in, and I certainly hope it is not the case but if there is a Republican House, and a Republican Senate that I’m going to walk in there and say, ‘Hey guys, listen. I’d like you to work with me on raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour,’” he said. “It ain’t gonna happen, I have no illusion about that. The only way that I believe that change takes place … is that tens of millions of people are going to have to stand up and be involved in the political process the day after the election.”

Conventional wisdom during the decades I have been involved in American politics is that it is easier to implement an agenda if tens of millions of people stand up and get involved in your cause the day of the election.

Maybe the Left’s favorite slobbering socialist grandpa knows of a secret loophole in the Constitution.

What’s most pathetic is that this isn’t a departure for Sanders, it’s pretty much on the same level of illogic as most of what he says. Even sadder is that this is precisely the kind of nonsensical populist rhetoric that deeply resonates with Democrats, particularly progressives. This man is a serious candidate for president on the Democrat side and he’s essentially saying, “I have no plan whatsoever, but if you all just yell loud, I can get my way.”

Sort of like Occupy Congress.

Obviously, the Sanders approach would be an executive-order frenzy that would make Barack Obama’s look restrained. There’s really nothing else that can be inferred from his statements.

It’s also quite ridiculous that anyone on the left is still asserting that the current occupant of the Oval Office spent even a moment interested in compromise.