The Bernie Problem

by Scott Hogenson

I like Bernie Sanders. He’s something of an anomaly in American politics because he’s one of the most honest politicians on the scene, not just today but going back decades. It took a lot of courage for Sanders to declare himself a Socialist when running for mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981.  He went on to win four terms in that office. By the time I moved to Vermont in 1989, Sanders was already a political legend in the state because with Bernie Sanders, what you see is what you get. 

I respect that.

 But Bernie Sanders is making things uncomfortable for Jefferson County Democrats. Like many of their fellow believers nationally, they belong to a party in search of an identity and message.  The local political landscape makes that exponentially more difficult.

It’s no stretch to call today’s Jefferson County Democrat Party the party of Bernie. In the county’s 2016 presidential primary, Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton, 54% to 45%, a hair’s breadth from a landslide.

So where is the county’s favorite son on the big issues? We got glimpse on June 13, when Sanders addressed a gathering of progressives in Washington, D.C.  He proudly proclaimed, “A few years ago, just a few years ago, and I want you to think about it, many of the ideas that we talked about were thought to be fringe ideas, radical ideas, extremist ideas. Well, you know what? Because of your efforts those ideas are now mainstream American ideas.”

It was a pretty stunning statement. He may be correct that his radical, extremist, fringe ideas are becoming mainstream. There are certainly many enclaves of Bernie supporters across the country in which this is true but Jefferson County is not one of them. If anything, the people who live here are moving away from Sanders’ political vision. 

We saw this in November, 2017, when voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 1, the proposal to further tax home owners to fund a plan promising to pay for affordable housing. Unlike the Sanders-Clinton primary of 2016, the Proposition 1 vote one year later was a landslide of epic proportions, with the measure going down to defeat with a 68.2% “no” vote. The result was more than a profound embarrassment for Jefferson County Democrats; it entirely disrupted the political calculus of party stalwarts. 

Recognition of some of this anti-Big Government, low-tax sentiment is reflected by all three Democrats running for the open seat on the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners. All have rejected, to varying degrees, the manifesto of Bernie Sanders and the local Democrat Party through their criticism of onerous land use regulations and restrictions.  They are all calling for increased freedom for local property owners and developers. I’m not privy to discussions among local Democrat bigwigs but it’s a good bet that shrinking government is not part of their platform. 

So which Democrat Party will emerge in Jefferson County this election? It could be a party that heeds the sentiments of people who want to keep more of what they earn through their labor and live on their land without the heavy hand of government intruding at every turn. It could also be the party of Bernie in which government foists a central command and control structure on taxpayers, taking from those who produce and giving it to those who do not. 

More to the point, will Democrats be responsive to the more than 2/3 of voters who rejected another hike in their property taxes last year or the 54% of party loyalists who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary and supported his, “fringe ideas, radical ideas, extremist ideas”? 

Many of our friends and neighbors are coming to the same conclusion as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who observed, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”  We just won’t know how many agree with Thatcher until the votes are counted. 

Scott Hogenson is a resident of Jefferson County.