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January 26, 2018

Please, Bernie, no

Bernie Sanders is reportedly deliberating a 2020 presidential run.

First, if he does, these questions:
1. Will he take a foreign policy stance outside the bipartisan foreign policy establishment in general?
2. Will he comment in favor of Boycott, Divest, Sanctions, or BDS?
3. Will he condemn Democratic coups and semi-coups, like Honduras and Ukraine, as much as Republican ones? Erm?
4. Will he be honest about voting to bomb Libya?
5. Will he be honest about F-35s? Drones?
6. Will he tell you that while he voted against the Iraq War, he voted for the Patriot Act?

For readers of this blog, you know those are of course all rhetorical questions, and you know what my rhetorically expected answers are.

So, let's add a sixth.

6. Will he condemn the Russiophobia that still lingers around Mueller's Trump investigation? (That's not to say that Trump and family may not have laundered money with Moscow — or Beijing. It is to say that I don't believe the "Putin Did It" line of alleged election meddling.)

You know the answers to that.

Other questions.

First, now that the Sanders Institute is established as a fairly conventional mix of a think tank plus political incubator, plus the lack of transparency and related issues, such as the clearly dark money of Our Revolution, combining for a Sanders money machine, will Berners call out Bernie if when he starts acting like Just.Another.Politician.™? And, if that does happen, how will Bernie handle it? And, in 2018, with Bernie officially raking a million in 2017 for the second straight year, he could funnel money to Our Revolution.

Second, if the Jane Sanders bank fraud investigation is still in some sort of media res 18 months from now, how will Bernie handle THAT?

Third, if Berners start thinking about foreign policy and non-rhetorically asking him those questions above, how will he handle THAT?

Fourth, if Berners start thinking about the full reality of his legacy and then asking questions, how will he handle THAT?

Finally, his one-note trumpet campaign style of 2016 probably will wear thin quicker in 2020. And, age will be a legitimate question for a man who would turn 80 in 2021, not just with him alone, but with that age showing the overall gerontocracy level of national Democrats.

I'm sure that a certain amount of Berners, reading something like this, will accuse me of accusing Bernie of moral equivalism. No, but within the lesser evilism framework, from a leftist perspective, on foreign policy, he's on the same trajectory overall as most Dems.

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