“The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Democratic Presidential Candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders: Gallup

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

At the risk of facing attacks from supporters and detractors of Democratic Presidential Candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, there is a new article out this week analyzing public opinion related to the Sanders platform from the Gallup poll that I feel compelled to comment on.

You know me. I tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may.

If you have been following me for awhile, you know that I keep up with public opinion and the Gallup poll, but often come to different conclusions about what survey results mean.

This week, Gallup ran a piece talking specifically about Sanders and his platform, pointing out that he has built his campaign on the idea that the federal government should provide all Americans with many of the basic necessities of life.

In analyzing this, Gallup brings into the analysis a concept from the field of Psychology, Abraham Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” pyramid. The basic needs include “physiological needs,” food, water, shelter and clothing, as well as “safety needs,” security, employment, health and shelter. Maslow argued that these needs must be met before humans can move up to fulfill higher needs such as love, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid: Google

Sanders joins Maslow in agreeing that these needs must be fulfilled as basic life necessities, according to Gallup, but he goes further by arguing it is the responsibility of society as a whole — government — to provide for these needs if people can’t do so on their own.

But Maslow was not the first to write about this. In Walden, published nearly 100 years before Maslow’s theory, Henry David Thoreau talked about these needs.

“The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success.”

I have written about this before.

An Update on Thoreau’s Necessities of Life

There is no doubt that by being the first candidate in modern political history to talk about this openly is part of the reason Sanders has become so popular on the campaign trail, but also controversial in some circles and the mainstream media. Since to some Americans this seems to smack of “socialism” and stands in opposition to bootstrap libertarianism and capitalism, it is very unpopular to more moderate and conservative Democrats and Republicans.

Sanders talks about universal health care, the linchpin of his campaign, as a “human right,” but he is not the first politician in the history of the United States to do this.

A very popular president from 75 years ago proposed a Second Bill of Rights.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt talked about this in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944, arguing that the “political rights” guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had “proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness” guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence.

He thought the time had come for the federal government to recognize a “right to work” that would provide every American with a job that paid enough income to provide food, clothing and leisure time for creative pursuits. He advocated for farmers’ rights to a fair income, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, and said even disabled and poor Americans should be provided basic housing, Social Security, unemployment insurance and a free public education.

He died before he could push through these rights in Congress, and the capitalists found ways to discredit this view in the decades since. In the 1950s, it was the Red Scare and spreading fear of Communism. That ballooned in the 1960s to include making even the word socialism a bad word, even though there is no doubt that public education, a 40 hour work week, overtime pay, and Social Security itself were in fact socialist public policies.

President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded on Rooselvelt’s vision with his “War on Poverty” program, as part of what he called the “Great Society” initiative. Even Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford expanded on these programs, but then along came the so-called “Moral Majority,” the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and Ronald Reagan’s “conservative revolution,” and the pendulum swung back to capitalism.

There is little doubt that the American democratic republic could never survive solely on run-amok corporate capitalism. That’s what we have now and the Trump administration wants to drive us even further down that road, putting more and more wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer rich people and making even middle class workers more poor than ever before.

This will not work in the long run of history. If people can’t make enough money to buy the products being produced, at some point the economy will collapse, leading to a global depression.

Changes in technology and the economy are inspiring others to look at ways to prevent people from being left behind, including presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who proposed universal basic income of $1,000 a month for every American adult over the age of 18. Yang’s “Freedom Dividend” would “enable all Americans to pay their bills, educate themselves, start businesses, be more creative, stay healthy, relocate for work, spend time with their children, take care of loved ones and have a real stake in the future.”

The underlying philosophy behind Yang’s and Sanders’ proposals are similar, according to Gallup, a commitment to providing a basic necessities “floor” for all Americans. Sanders would have the government provide these necessities one by one; Yang would have the government provide direct income that residents themselves can spend on necessities.

Many other developed democracies around the world have already implemented programs to take care of their populations in these ways, but we don’t hear so much about that in the American news media.

Even South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg endorses Medicare for all but would allow workers to keep their existing plans and talks about “lower costs” for healthcare, college, childcare and housing through public regulations and other means. Senator Amy Klobuchar supports a healthcare plan that provides, but does not mandate, a public option, and supports housing vouchers (instead of “housing for all”), free one- and two-year community college (but not “college for all”), and changes in work laws and regulations (but not “jobs for all”).

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren, along these same lines, each have their own plans for shoring up the necessities floor for Americans, but both stop short of advocating such benefits for all.

The idea of pooling income through taxes to provide basic necessities for those who need them is already in many ways an active part of government policy in the U.S., Gallup points out.

All K-12 children in the U.S. receive free public education, based on pooled money that comes from all, not just from families with children in school. Healthcare is provided to all Americans aged 65 and older, based on pooled money from all workers. Income is provided to older Americans who have worked previously, based on pooled money from those still in the workforce.

Billions more in government money is spent each year to meet other basic Maslovian needs. As one recent review put it: “Today, the means-tested welfare system consists of 79 government programs that offer cash, food, social services, education, training and housing for low-income Americans.”

Of course President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are following other Republican presidents in trying cut back on that system, either to save money or for political purposes, since attacking “socialism” seems to be popular with Republican voters.

According to Gallup, Americans are used to having a progressive income tax system, “but there remain questions about how well an acceleration of this type of redistributive policy will fit with public opinion.”

Americans generally support government efforts to reduce poverty, increase minimum wages and efforts to expand who is eligible for overtime pay. And the public generally favors higher taxes on the rich, with most polls showing support for some type of wealth tax, according to Gallup.

“But there are limits. Some polls show pushback when the hypothetical tax rates reach levels as high as 70 percent. And many Americans clearly like the idea of having a rich class — if only because many want to be rich themselves,” writes Gallup analyst Frank Newport.

This goes all the way back to the American Revolution, when only about a third of the population of the colonies were for a war with Great Britain. Another third were quite happy being part of an empire and a monarchy, with a strong role for the church in making demands on the state. Another third either sat on the fence or traded with both sides.

Beyond these attitudes toward the concept of extracting more money from the rich, Newport asks, what do we know about Americans’ views of the concept of their government providing all of the country’s residents with core, basic necessities?

“The American public is far from sold on this idea if implemented across the board,” Newport says, “but there is evidence of support for some of the component ideas.”

Gallup polling shows that two-thirds of Americans tilt toward the view that government should have more responsibility for making certain that all Americans have adequate healthcare, and that all Americans who want jobs have them, he says.

“But separate Gallup research shows Americans prefer that the ‘free market’ rather than government be primarily responsible for such things as the economy overall, wages, higher education and healthcare,” he says, “preferring the government only for protecting online privacy and protecting the environment.”

Somewhat oddly, Newport brings in Historian Yuval Harari, author of the book Sapiens (which has sold 12 million copies worldwide), who says there are three major challenges facing the world going forward: nuclear war, ecological collapse and technological disruption — and that all other societal challenges pale in comparison.

Newport stops short of actually explaining why he throws that into the mix, but it certainly needs more analysis.

He concludes:

“Thus Sanders — or any other candidate who aspires to be U.S. president in 2021,” Newport says, “will have to balance multiple objectives simultaneously if they are to succeed. Finding the right mix of an emphasis on government redistributing resources internally with the need to focus resources on external challenges is going to define the nation’s ability to survive and flourish going forward.”

My Conclusions

It is clear that Bernie Sanders is on the right track in trying to direct the country toward what some call Democratic Socialism, or a socialist democracy, a more altruistic approach to governing. But the questions remain about whether he can either win the nomination of the Democratic Party by this summer with this same stump speech, or even if he puts together enough delegates, whether that message alone can beat the selfish approach of Republican Donald Trump in November.

(I will have more to say about the selfish gene and the altruistic gene in a series of articles in the works for this week).

If Sanders can’t find a way to talk about uniting all the factions in the Democratic Party, his chances of success are limited.

While the support of Sanders appears to be a grassroots movement of young people to his campaign and approach, what no one else seems to be reporting is that his campaign is paying for the buses and free pizza to get college students to his rallies. What’s worse, his army of supporters on social media act like he is a messiah.

The last thing we need in American politics is another politician with a Messiah Complex. Trump’s followers also treat him as some kind of a messiah.

We don’t need more religious fervor in our politics. What we need is a better understanding of science, social science and the role of the press and social media in making democracy work.

If I were advising the Bernie Sanders campaign — and I’m not — I would say that it might soon be time to deliver a “promised land” speech quoting Moses and Martin Luther King, Jr.

As the story goes, Moses climbed Mount Nebo, where god showed him the whole land, then said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … I will let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” — Deuteronomy 34:1–4

In his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop Speech, King told the story of Moses, and said:

“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

Bernie Sanders has influenced the direction of American politics in the correct direction. But I harbor serious doubts about whether he will ever occupy the White House. For starters, the women who supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 seem to hate him, and I don’t think they will ever vote for him. They make up a significant voting block in the Democratic Party primary. How can he win without them?

Maybe democracy and the planet will somehow make it through the difficult era of Trump. Maybe we won’t.

I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the outcome. But I’m working on a series of articles this week to explain how we might approach saving democracy and the planet by looking to science, the social sciences, journalism and social media.

The game we are playing now looks like a losing game to me. Let’s see if we can change the game, while we may still have time.

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