Even the faux-progressive New Republic's piece promoting the importance of the platform for "how lasting change gets forged" admitted the platform is usually perceived as "an afterthought," "a mere transposition of the victorious campaign's existing promises, set in bland enough language to not pin them down on any particular issue." It is designed, if used at all, to obscure, or lie to voters about, what Democratic candidates intend to do if elected. The platform is at most an indicator of how far and how cleverly the establishment will go in lying about their policy intentions in order to get an establishment candidate elected. But the platform has no bearing on what elected members of the party will actually do in a political system where voters have lost power to the plutocrats who pay to play.
In the past, prior to the systemic corruption of politics that followed the Supreme Court's Buckley v Valeo (1976) decision, a change of platform on the central issue of the era could have symbolic significance. For example, a revolutionary plank like the 1948 change of its platform by the Jim Crow Democratic Party to support civil rights could sink a significant stake in the ground indicating the future orientation of the party which was realized nearly two decades later when Lyndon Johnson adopted JFK's stalled legislative program in order to gain legitimacy after the assassination.
The central issue of the current post-Buckley era is the undermining of representative democracy by its loss of essential political integrity. The Democratic Party has none. It is sold out to plutocrats. Sanders supporters have witnessed that the Democratic Party is at least as corrupt as the Republican Party, is equally in thrall to Wall Street plutocrats and served by their propagandistic media. It operates an election apparatus more effective than the Republican Party's in frustrating a progressive majority from determining the outcome of primary elections and making a democratic choice of the party's nominee.
Where there is no integrity, promises made in the parties' platforms have no point except for use as a propaganda tool. Only the naive would think the Democratic Party could be trusted to carry out any of the progressive policies that Sanders might get inserted in its platform as a justification for executing his contorted pivot from revolution to collaboration. Since the country finds Clinton to be dishonest and untrustworthy, why should Sanders' supporters think otherwise about her verbal acceptance of any given progressive platform position? There is no evidence that Clinton even has any understanding of Sanders' key issue of restoring integrity to the political process.
Sanders can demonstrate that he does know how to accomplish this task by making the following four demands.
1. Integrity has been restored to politics in the past not by platform changes but by rules changes, such as the 1972 McGovern-Fraser rules changes which expanded the primary system and improved the caucus system. Integrity of the electoral process could be sought in the same way now, and Sanders does suggest he might pursue such change. Rules changes prior to the election, even prior to the Convention, are what must be demanded of the Democratic Party as a price for Sanders' supporters to support Clinton. But that is not all that should be given in exchange for this potentially decisive support.
2. Federal legislation could replace this broken primary system with a transparent run-off election process open to every citizen, with every vote reliably counted. The party duopoly would resist such legislation because it would undercut the parties' corrupt gatekeeping function, even though less than a third of Americans think the primary process is currently working. As another condition of throwing his support to her, Sanders could ask Clinton to submit to Congress such legislation within her first 100 days of her administration, along with comprehensive anti-corruption legislation to get money out of politics.
3. At his meeting with Sanders in the White House, Obama expressed his own interest in obtaining Sanders' support for helping Clinton to defeat his nemesis Donald Trump. Obama also has something important he can give in order to achieve his goal which is separate from what the Party and Clinton can give. Obama has nominated a plutocrat to the seat left vacant by Scalia. Obama's nominee voted for Speechnow.org, the case that legalized SuperPACs. This was a major plutocratic ruling for which Citizens United is often wrongly blamed. It opened the current floodgates for unlimited independent political investments. Garland's nomination provides Senate Republicans and their plutocratic bosses an option to perpetuate plutocratic rule at any time they determine they cannot get an even more committed right-wing plutocrat from the next president.
Sanders' whole campaign was about taking power back from the "billionaire class." As he said in his pre-capitulation speech his campaign was, first, "about ending a campaign finance system which is corrupt and allows billionaires to buy elections." Achieving this goal, short of capturing the nomination, will require overturning the Buckley v Valeo line of cases that alchemically converted plutocratic "campaign finance" money placed in the pockets of influence peddling politicians into protected "free speech. The Supreme Court's "money is speech" rulings have legalized systemic corruption of all levels of government. A single appointment now pending for the Supreme Court vacancy could accomplish the goal of overturning the whole line of "money is speech" decisions, not just the highly overrated Citizens United. There are four dissenters on the Court who may be ready to overturn Buckley if Obama could be persuaded to appoint a fifth strong progressive justice during Congress' Convention recess for the express purpose of leading these dissenting justices to that goal.
A recess appointment of a progressive justice vetted by Sanders could be made by Obama at the stroke of a pen prior to or even at the Convention. This appointment would be infinitely more important than any platform concession Sanders might receive, including the removal of Obama's party chair, which Obama refused to do. If Obama wants Clinton to succeed him, and prevent a victory by his nemesis Donald Trump -- which could be dangerous for them both -- this recess appointment is the price for Sanders encouraging his supporters to vote for Clinton. Obama's refusal should be reason for Sanders to advise his supporters to oppose Clinton in whatever way they choose. It would be a sign of the objective by Obama and Clinton to maintain a Court that will perpetuate plutocracy, which, unless they are ready to demonstrate otherwise, should be obvious in any event.
4. Minority Leader Harry Reid also met with Sanders after which he reported that Sanders is going to help Clinton defeat Trump. Did Sanders get anything in return from Harry Reid for this apparent concession? What Harry Reid could deliver is a commitment to work to change the Senate conflict of interest rule as the first order of business in the 115 th Congress. This could be done by adding to Rule 37 (4) of the Senate's Standing Rules the following language which, if enforced, could stop money in politics independent of any change in the Supreme Court: "Any gift made in the form of a campaign contribution or independent expenditure to or for a Member shall be deemed to implicate the pecuniary interest of that Member, if a reasonable person would find that such gift creates a conflict of interest."
This recusal requirement could accomplish the principal goal of Sanders' campaign to stop the influence peddling that has made Congress an agent of the "Billionaire Class." Sanders needs to make this new conflict of interest recusal rule his single litmus test of whether he will use his freshly acquired progressive political power to support or oppose his fellow Senators who are up for re-election in 2018. As the most powerful Senator, with the most powerful national support network, Sanders, with the pledged support of Reid, would have a credible chance of getting the rule adopted in January 2019, if not 2017, along with appropriate enforcement powers to go with it. This alone could open the door to adoption of Sanders' popular policy agenda.
If the presumptuous nominee is as pragmatic as she claims to be, she should be willing to support these four separate demands of herself, her Party apparatus, her patron Obama, and her supporter Harry Reid, as a means to gain the "Party unity" necessary to win election. If Sanders cannot secure these four concessions, he may as well run a third party effort to relieve a large share of the voting public from the agony of being forced by a broken primary system to choose between a corrupt, warmongering servant of plutocracy and a disagreeable, narcissistic and potentially bellicose plutocrat, both of whom -- unlike Sanders -- are justifiably distrusted and disliked by many more people than not.
Sanders' greatest deficit as a candidate was not his goals or ability to articulate them effectively, but his inability to convince some voters that he actually knows how to achieve his goals. By making these very particular demands of all parties concerned at this point he would demonstrate that he does know very specifically the strategies required to take democracy back from plutocrats, as will be necessary to move on to enacting his ambitious policy agenda. More importantly, he would also demonstrate that he is capable of using the power entrusted to him to negotiate effectively and boldly on behalf of those strategies.
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