Politicians in fantasy and reality

The public typically likes to imagine that it is selecting its representatives out of some sense of "realism" about what is "realistically possible" given the "political situation." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the political field is littered with fantasy politicians, politicians that people think they are electing but who exist mainly as figments of the public's imagination. A brief look at the "political situation" will allow us to find and identify the fantasy politicians.

Upon the eve of Super Tuesday, last Tuesday, the Democratic Party politicians all saw that they weren't going to make the 15% thresholds required to earn delegates, and decided at once to stop campaigning so that the elite consensus that "Bernie must be stopped" had to be upheld. The current elite consensus has existed before Bernie and is a reaction to the Sixties cultural revolution. Yes, it goes back that far. Its primary attribute is that the public must never, EVER, be allowed to expect anything new for their hard-earned tax dollars (unless new wars or new subsidies for the rich count as something new the public is getting for its tax dollars). Bernie Sanders disrupts that consensus -- his campaigns therefore count as expansions of the public imagination.

Bernie was bright enough, moreover, to understand that a "political revolution" was necessary to achieve his consensus-disrupting aims. He couldn't just run as a politician making promises. Which brings us to examining a significant fantasy about politicians: 1) your politicians can deliver on their promises. Now, really, it is the job of a politician to say "if elected, I will do X." That's what they do. Fantasy politicians deliver on their promises. The key to allowing fantasy politicians to deliver on their promises (within the boundaries of the elite consensus) is to keep those promises away from promises of new benefits. Bernie Sanders, who wants to disrupt the elite consensus a bit, must have a "political revolution" if he is to do so. There's no marked-out path to fulfillment if what you want is something other than what they're already offering.

There's definitely a fantasy Joe Biden out there. He's the guy who "stutters," but doesn't have dementia. The rise of Joe Biden's delegate count has inspired the spread of this fantasy Joe Biden in the fizzy world of social media. We are told that this guy is going to fight for us; he's going to reverse all the bad things the evil fantasy Donald Trump has done, and he's far better than any Republican. The real Joe Biden might be a smiling guy who frequently loses track of what he's saying; but he's not important. The important guy is the one making vague promises on his website, the one with lots of pleasing African-American faces on it. The segregationist dude doesn't count. People go to the polls to vote for the fantasy politicians, and the real ones take their revenge thereafter.

The fantasy Joe also has policy proposals, and I would be irresponsible not to mention them. One can look, for instance, at the Biden proposals in education. The fantasy Joe wants to help with actual problems, student loan debt among teachers for instance; but the proposals themselves stop significantly of concrete pledges to spend public money. The voter is thusly assured that something will be done, without references to concrete action.

I'm not going to go over the real Joe's past involvement in the Crime Bill or the Bankruptcy Bill here -- never mind all the inappropriate legislation and inappropriate touching and so on -- what needs to be noted is that the fantasy Joe Biden, promoting a world with an "economy that rewards those who actually do the work," is stunningly successful with that portion of the population most likely to have been victimized by Joe's past behavior as a policymaker, which is to say, older African-Americans. These are the people who most clearly turn out to vote for the fantasy Joe Biden, and the ones whose suffering comes first in racist America.

There is also a fantasy Donald Trump out there. It's the "Republican-sounding" version of the fantasy Joe Biden. It's a bit more concrete than the fantasy Joe Biden, but in a mean-spirited sort of way; it's anti-immigrant and anti-environment. It still has very little to connect it to the physical world occasionally touched-upon in Sanders speeches -- the world in which most people just getting by. The big Trump fantasy is one of a President who presides over a lot of job creation, without reference to how much the jobs pay.

Now, it is the job of politicians to spread fantasies about themselves, because this is what gets them elected. And human beings are prone to fantasies, and for good reason -- fantasies are the foundation of our visions of the future, our careers, our ideas of what we might be, our concrete plans. The catch is that there are time-honored political fantasies that can be spread by politicians, fantasies connected to what politicians actually do at work which are at the same time fantasies which benefit us. What has taken the place of these fantasies are vague slogans of the sort that one sees in the worst sort of undergraduate writing done in English Composition courses.

In this regard, Bernie Sanders' policy proposals appear as an improvement, because they're connected to concrete policy proposals. There is even a website detailing "how he is going to pay for it all," the question nobody asks when Congress throws trillions at the Pentagon. Yet we need to be careful to avoid projecting a fantasy Bernie Sanders that doesn't help us. The real-life Bernie Sanders can benefit us if he wins elections, because then the fantasies promoted in the Bernie Sanders campaign (the ones undergirding Medicare for All, College for All, the Green New Deal, and so on) stand a chance of influencing reality. The Bernie Sanders who doesn't win at the convention cannot in any significant sense transfer those fantasies to Joe Biden, whom he will predictably endorse if he doesn't win at the convention.

The paradigmatic Sanders slogan is, "not me, us." The fantasy thus projected is that of a politicians whose proposals intend to benefit us rather than merely himself. However, the Bernie Sanders who endorsed, and campaigned for, Hillary Clinton in 2016 was principally about Bernie Sanders, the politician who needed to survive politically as a politician. And, predictably, Clinton thereafter lost, with the good outcome of all that effort being that Sanders cannot be credibly accused of not having campaigned for her. One can only marvel at all that effort to fend off a hypothetical accusation imagined three years down the road.

At some point we will need to decide what we want to do, hopefully with Bernie Sanders' help, but perhaps without it. Having already discarded the fantasy Donald Trump and the fantasy Joe Biden, we will at some point (hopefully later rather than sooner) have to discard the fantasy Bernie Sanders as well. We need to be able to decide what to do without the help of politicians, neither real ones nor fantasy ones. The future of the planet is too important to be left to fantasy politicians.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Don't tell me you have no fantasy life invested in politicians.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

joe shikspack's picture

i am guessing that when a fantasy becomes so appealing to many people at once that, like an angel getting its wings, it becomes a reality.

it's a shame that most politicians have such shopworn fantasies.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@joe shikspack to the real politicians. That's why the Joe Biden example.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

snoopydawg's picture

even though he and MyBoss did them first? Sure I'll buy that. The fantasy is that people believe Biden will change a damn thing that has been happening to us for decades. The PTB wants every dredge of the new deal gone and it's a fantasy to believe that ByeDone won't work towards it.

But the fight between Joe and Bernie is going to be epic.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Daenerys's picture

@snoopydawg The comparison of Biden to Captain America is disgusting, and I'm not even a Captain America fan. (I'm more of a Thor girl, heh.) And Bernie is Thanos? WTF?!? Bad

Have some memes:



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14 users have voted.

This shit is bananas.

snoopydawg's picture

@Daenerys

Why they think Joe can beat Trump when Her failed so epically is just mind boggling ain't it?

The democrats can take their vote blue no matter who and shove it.

People say that she is involved in ByeDone's campaign. But she sure didn't like being called out. If she thinks Bernie would be worse than Trump then...well I don't know what to say.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

This is really funnier then hell because she starts out talking about why she supported Bernie last time by saying it was a vote against the establishment then totally denied that she voted against the establishment.

Later on she says that she won't vote for Bernie because she is from China and socialism 'scares the hell out of her' but then remember she was all in for Bernie last time.

She also attacked Bernie for having dark money super pacs which he sure as hell does not. But oh hell it's just so funny to watch her say one thing then say another while trying to put Bernie down and prop Joe up.

I read that she has been fired from her position, but I am not sure it was because of this episode or some of her noxious tweets in the past. And for awhile there I was feeling sorry for her wondering if she was thinking of how bad she screwed up in the interview, but then watching her smugness again this morning I hope like hell she is having a bad day.

WATCH: Biden Backer Lindy Li Criticized for Saying She Will 'Absolutely Not' Vote for Sanders If He Becomes Democratic Nominee

"I'm absolutely not okay with it, but I'm also almost probably equally terrified and traumatized by the prospect of a Sanders presidency right now," Li said.

But remember she was all in for Bernie last time. It's worth the time to watch the exchange between her and Linda Sarsour who kept her calm during the exchange.

I guess this is what you call a snowflake?

Where is the hit?

Then we have this loud mouth piling on. But my daddy.

Anyone hear of the awful things Meghan says about Bernie and his supporters? I replied to her and said that she can dish it out, but apparently can't take what comes from it. I haven't heard from her yet. lol

Eh?

Sorry to hear you’re dealing with this, but this is to be expected. Bernie is a degenerate communist and your dad was a brave hero who fought like hell to defeat his comrades.

Really? McCain fought to beat his comrades? Um okay.

This:

I hate his supporters, so I will vote for the guy who will lose to Trump. That's winning!

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6 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Daenerys's picture

@snoopydawg Once they get a little taste of their own medicine they cry like bitches.

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5 users have voted.

This shit is bananas.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Daenerys

He and all us who voted for him, were attached to the back of the loser car with a chain.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Daenerys's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal since she supposedly won the pooular vote too.

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2 users have voted.

This shit is bananas.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Daenerys

it.

Gore's "loss" didn't happen because of the electoral college. It happened because the Republican Speaker of the House, Tom DeLay, sent Republican Congressional staffers to stop a vote count in Dade County, FL, which they did by busting in to the Supervisor of Elections office and screaming at the top of their lungs so that the vote counters couldn't do their work. It happened because police checkpoints were set up near majority African American polling places in Leon County, stopping every Black person who drove through there and questioning them. It happened because votes were literally thrown away in Duval County. It happened because, prior to the election, Black voters were purged from the voter rolls as felons by a piece of software ordered for that purpose by the State of Florida. We have the emails between the state of Florida and that company, in which the software company said "This program will pull up too many false positives--it will see people as felons who aren't and purge them," and the State of Florida responded "That's just what we want."

I wonder how people will talk about what happened to Bernie in 2016, a few years from now.

This is how history is rewritten for the monstrous winners.

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4 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@snoopydawg as being the poker players displayed symbolically in this video:

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

The fantasy vote counts.

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mimi's picture

We need to be able to decide what to do without the help of politicians,

Are there examples in history, where people decided what to do without the help oppression of politicians? I have a hunch, but dare not to believe in my hunch.

You are the experts. I decided to do nothing and wait and see, like millions do, when they don't know what to do without help from whomever. Blame me for it. I try not to care about it.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@mimi I suppose Earle and Simonelli's "Uprisings of Hope" is the important text on them, though there are plenty of other good ones.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

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1 user has voted.

"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

wendy davis's picture

but as to this i have a Q and comment or two:

The real-life Bernie Sanders can benefit us if he wins elections, because then the fantasies promoted in the Bernie Sanders campaign (the ones undergirding Medicare for All, College for All, the Green New Deal, and so on) stand a chance of influencing reality.

i've long wondered why so many of his supporters seem to believe that his policies will be enacted. won't most of them need to have congressional approval, especially the ones that use taxpayer dollars to pay for them?

nor do i understand those who posit that bernie is all that stands in front of a burning planet. to, that's magical fantasy, given a whole planet of fossil fuels, as well as the opinions of those 'scientists' who seem to say the planet if past the tipping point, and it's locked in...save for bill gates' sorts of geoengineering, more [on edit.] nuclear power (

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Cassiodorus's picture

@wendy davis The merits of the Bernie Sanders fantasy are those of the "political revolution," the idea that we are not going to be ignored when it comes time to making policy. These are NOT, for instance, the merits of Elizabeth Warren. Ryne Tipton, commenting on Doug Henwood's Facebook page, argues about Warren:

Her whole brand of technocratic politics was never going to go over well with a lot of people. She’s not likable, she is a chronic liar, a fence sitter, and clearly lacks the tenacity to get things done (as signaled by her Medicare-for-All mishap among other things).

Sanders and Warren are really not the same. Sanders is someone who objects to the entire political and economic system as it currently exists. His policies may sound social-democratic (many are), but he is not a typical European-style social-democrat in his assessment of our political system and ruling class. Instead, he genuinely wants a peaceful democratic revolution that would put a lot of the people Warren regularly plays ball with out of a job. There’s a reason Sanders doesn’t back minor incremental improvements like the USMCA; it’s because the kinds of legislative achievements that people like Warren take so seriously are going to do next to nothing for most people in this country. His entire approach is to bring the people into the process, rather than adjusting our expectations to what goes on Washington— and by doing so, making the political system actually serve our interests. This strategy is working. It’s shifting the entire debate around issues like healthcare, the minimum wage; it’s basically what saved Social Security from Obama’s bipartisan effort to throw seniors under the bus. It has also led to the election of a number of progressive officials who have a lot more backbone than liberals like Warren— AOC, Omar, etc.

At any rate, that's the whole of the virtue of Bernie Sanders, or, more specifically, of the Bernie Sanders fantasy. It's also, for public consumption, why Elizabeth Warren didn't share that virtue even though she said, and says, many of the same things that Bernie Sanders said (even with her bonus takedowns of Michael Bloomberg in the Democratic Party debates). Sanders democratizes the process. Arguably he could go further than he does. It is what it is. Otherwise Sanders is a politician.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cassiodorus what attracted me to this topic was the fact that the Joe Biden fantasy appears at present to have very little to do with the actual Joe Biden.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

wendy davis's picture

@Cassiodorus

but it didn't really answer my questions, lol. but talk about fantasy politicians: omar has called assad a 'butcher', and aoc?

Ocasio-Cortez [radical progressive] says she'll support Biden if he wins Democratic nomination’, March 6, thehill.com

how insurrectional! ; ) but never mind; i'm pretty much out of time for now. and i'll vote green again no matter which of the many candidates gets the nod this summer.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@wendy davis When she says stuff like this, ignore her. She is saying it to protect herself. Her, not us.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

Cassiodorus's picture

@wendy davis if people think Bernie's policy proposals will be enacted? Maybe they will, maybe they won't, and it all depends upon whether or not Our Revolution can cook up an alternative to the bullsh*t that goes down every day. What's important is: "what do I do?" Everything else is prologue.

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"People need to be ready for a revolution." - Fiorella Isabel

wendy davis's picture

@Cassiodorus

not to question whether they will...or they won't.

as to biden, i've been looking for evidence that biden's role in bursima/ukrine will be investigated by the US, not just in ukraine, and all i get is odd circular (to me) kanguage from republicans, such as 'Grassley, Johnson: We Would Be Investigating Bidens, Ukraine Even if He Were Not a Candidate, breitbart, feb. 13, 2020

"Democrats are claiming Republican senators investigating the Ukraine-linked activities of White House hopeful Joe Biden and his son Hunter are doing so to help President Donald Trump’s re-election chances in November.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) are moving forward with their investigations despite the criticism.

and odd-bodkins opinions framing from sputnik news: Don't Hold Your Breath, Dems: Biden's Haunted by Burisma Saga Akin to Hillary's Emailgate – Journo

well, anyway, i hope the US will open a wide investigation on al of it, but i did discover that it's not part of thereason that the durham investigation of the fbi went to ukraine.

no, in no way do i look to AOC as a protector of anything i care about, esp. US Global Imperialism.

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