Portside

There's a perverse form of American exceptionalism circulating around the Clinton camp: just because things work in other countries doesn't mean they can work here. As Hillary herself put it, "We are not Denmark. I love Denmark, but we are the United States of America." True enough, but that has no bearing on why single-payer couldn't work here. The only obstacles are political -- elites, which include Hillary and Starr, don't want it.

When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result. - James K. Galbraith (former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee - the congressional counterpart to the CEA). Paul Krugman in The New York Times has attacked Sanders' economics. Here a number of prominent economists respond, showing how big a change the proposals actually are. They are HUUUGE.

I knew Friedan and I know she believed the system wasn't just about men and women, either. The author recounts her hours long conversation with Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, Labor Day weekend 2005, five months before her death. Betty was thoughtful. Finally, she commented: 'We didn't challenge the system enough.'

Republicans may have a lock on Congress and the nation's statehouses - and could well win the presidency - but the liberal era ushered in by Barack Obama is only just beginning. The need to win the votes of Millennials and minorities, who lean left not just on cultural issues but on economic ones, will shape how whoever wins in the general election, and governs once in office.

Reader Comments: How Social Change Happens; Bernie, Hillary, Kissinger and Scalia; AFL-CIO Election Survey; DNC Lets Lobbyists Back In; Bernie as the Peace Candidate and Remembering 1972; Teaching - With Protest Music; Obama's Military Aid to Israel; Announcements - 50 Years After the Mississippi Summer Project; Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism; Labor for Bernie and Beyond - National Meeting;

Reader Comments: What do Wealthiest Deserve?; Bernie or Hillary - Ben Jealous, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Lee Saunders; Teaching with Protest Music; Israel Crackdown on Palestinian Peace Activists; Uber Drivers; B-52's Failed Against Hanoi; Announcements: Rebellious Lawyering; "The Fight to Vote Resources: New York Times Spoof Site Back Up; New Rosa Parks website; Black History Month - A Bad-ass from History; Tufts University Study on TPP'; The Armenian Genocide

The scope of Sanders victory took virtually all observers by surprise. He won on the issues. Democratic voters wanted to replace our health care system with a single payer system, are worried about the economy, consider inequality a major issue. He won on all those issues -- a stunning victory. For Sanders, the challenge now is clear: to introduce himself to African-American and Latino voters, whose support is essential for both the nomination and general election.

There seems to be no shortage of bizarrely sexist assumptions as to why I, a Millennial feminist, am not voting for Hillary Clinton. But speaking as a Millennial feminist, let me assure you: None of them is accurate. But the reason for my political disaffection is plain: There's no persuading me that the Democratic establishment — from where it sits now — has the capacity to represent me, or my values.

With relatively little media coverage, some prominent Black leaders have recently endorsed Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, with a former head of the NAACP saying “Bernie Sanders has been a principled, courageous, and consistent fighter against the evils that Dr. King referred as the 'giant triplets of racism, militarism, and greed.’” Are these actions a sign that the presumed 'firewall' of support for Hillary Clinton in the Black community is eroding?