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CAN BERNIE SANDERS STILL PUT HIS STAMP ON BIDEN'S AGENDA?
(snip)
That $3.5 trillion wouldn’t be anything to sneeze at; while it’s far lower than the $6 trillion Sanders has identified as his preferred starting point, it would still check every box on the White House priority list and could go a long way toward delivering real gains for everyday Americans. But it won’t have the sweep of Sanders’s original proposal, and may prove unsatisfactory to both him and the rest of the progressive caucus. “A lot of work has gone into the effort and much more work needs to be done,” a Sanders spokesperson told Axios. “Senator Sanders wrote a $6 trillion proposal to address the desperate needs of working people and the existential threat of climate change, and he’s confident that Democrats will come together around a reconciliation bill that does just that.”
Doing so could be difficult. A single Democratic defection would doom the package, giving Manchin and others who would prefer a smaller bill a good amount of leverage. But Sanders told Dowd that a two-to-three trillion bill would be “much too low” for him to support, saying that lawmakers have an opportunity now to “address concerns progressives have had for decades.” Sanders has made clear he doesn’t want to squander that opportunity. But he has also sought to build bridges between the progressive movement and the White House—and even between his coalition and the white working class, whom he suggested to Dowd could be pulled away from Trumpism if the Democratic party better met their needs. “We’ve got to take it to them,” he said. “I intend...to start going into Trumpworld and start talking to people.”
“If we don’t do that, I fear very much that conspiracy theories and big lies and the drift toward authoritarianism is going to continue,” he added.
Sanders, then, sits at the axis of three political coalitions: a progressive movement concerned he’s not doing enough to pull Biden to the left; a faction of Democratic centrists seeking to temper his plans; and a Republican base he wants to save from the MAGA cult but who have been trained to regard the democratic socialism he embodies as an existential threat. In some ways, his position underscores the extent to which his progressive politics have gained influence within the Democratic establishment — the one-time insurgent now a senior leader with a friendly ear in the White House. But the infrastructure negotiations could also illustrate the limits to his power. “You know politics,” he told Dowd. “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/can-bernie-sanders-still-put-his-stamp-on-biden-agenda-infrastructure-bill
86 replies
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he did name 2 post offices
He can stamp his feet as hard as he might. It will make no difference in the outcome.
It would be misinterpreted and people would be inclined to believe that Bernie has more power than he actually does. That's all I'm saying.
child that President Joe pauses to talk to has more power than Bernie does. But don't let that get
around. 
So good to see you.
Missed ya~ 
and Sanders 93.5% of the time, less than 10 percentage points over the next in line, Susan Collins. 
