Bernie Sanders is, of course, the lone "out" socialist in the United States House of Representatives - there are plenty of others, but they prefer to be called "progressive" Democrats because, well, lets just say that "socialist" doesn't fly too well in American politics. Sanders is running for the open Senate seat in Vermont in 2006 with the blessing of DNC head Howard Dean - and he's very likely to win.

As this article in The Nation details, our leftwing friends believe that the Democrats could learn a lot from Bernie Sanders. I agree a bit with this - they could at least learn honesty in the sense of not hiding their underlying ideology. In my view, Sanders' positions are uniformly bad and any attempt to enact them into American law would be destructive towards what is best about America...but at least Sanders is forthright about what he believes.

Other than a dose of honesty, I don't know what else The Nation thinks our Democrats could learn - the apparent thinking here is that Bernie Sanders is bucking the right wing tide in the United States and is showing Democrats how to win as "progressives"...I guess the editors of The Nation are unaware that Democratic Party ID in Vermont is just under 60% (PDF), while nationwide it is about 34%; meaning that Vermont is an exceptionally Democratic - and therefore exceptionally liberal/left - slice of America. It is, in short, just about the only place in America where a socialist can win...but what wins in Vermont is not what will win in the rest of the United States (ask former Vermont governor Howard Dean, if you don't believe me).

The problem for our Democrats - and, indeed, for the whole of America - is that the base of the Democratic Party believes that if the Democrats will just slip further left, they will win. In this cockeyed view of the world, the American people are just waiting for socialism and its only a matter of presenting it to them for their approval. What this thinking has led to is the amazing intransigence we see in the Democratic Party (of course, The Nation and other overtly leftwing outfits think that the Democrats are still being way too soft) - the increasing rancor we see in our politics is the natural result of a tiny minority convinced that it is the majority being thwarted by an evil, Bush-led cabal. The DNC embrace of Sanders shows how far the leftwing rot has progressed in the Democratic Party...and it shows we can expect that as 2006 and 2008 approach, things will get even nastier in American politics.