14 December 20
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It's Live on the HomePage Now: RSN: Norman Solomon | Bernie Sanders and Progressives in Our Winter of Discontent
After a summer and fall dominated by the imperative of defeating Donald Trump, progressive forces are entering a winter of discontent. Joe Biden has offered them little on the list of top personnel being named to his administration. While Sanders wants to maintain a cordial relationship with the incoming president, he doesn’t like what he’s seeing. “The progressive movement deserves a number of seats – important seats – in the Biden administration,” Sanders said last week. “Have I seen that at this point? I have not.” Sanders foreshadowed the current situation back in mid-November, when he told The Associated Press: “It seems to me pretty clear that progressive views need to be expressed within a Biden administration. It would be, for example, enormously insulting if Biden put together a ‘team of rivals’ – and there’s some discussion that that’s what he intends to do – which might include Republicans and conservative Democrats – but which ignored the progressive community. I think that would be very, very unfortunate.” At this point, Sanders and avid supporters of the Bernie 2020 campaign have ample reasons to feel frustrated, even “enormously” insulted. It’s small comfort that Biden’s picks so far are purportedly “not as bad as Obama’s” were 12 years ago. That’s a low bar, especially to those who understand that Barack Obama heavily corporatized his presidency from the outset. And given the past decade’s leftward political migration among Democrats and independents at the grassroots, Biden’s selections have been even more out of step with the party’s base. Reporting on Biden’s overall selections as this week began, The Washington Post found that “about 80 percent of the White House and agency officials he’s announced have the word ‘Obama’ on their résumé from previous White House or Obama campaign jobs.” Biden conveyed notable disregard for Sanders by nominating an OMB director with a long record of publicly expressing antagonism toward him. The Post just reported that “the transition team never reached out to” Sanders about “Biden’s decision to tap Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to a person familiar with the lack of communication, despite Sanders’s role as the top Democrat on one of the committees that will hold Tanden’s confirmation hearings.” Away from Capitol Hill, many progressive organizations are regrouping while “the Bernie movement” evaporates. Coalescing in its place are a range of resilient, overlapping movements that owe much of their emergent long-term power to his visionary leadership. Nationally, Sanders became a shaper of history in unprecedented ways. Unlike almost every other major candidate for president in our lifetimes, he has always been part of social movements. For 30 years, Sanders not only continued to have one foot in the streets and one foot in the halls of Congress; somehow, he often seemed to be relentlessly in both places with both feet. Bernie Sanders has fulfilled what the legendary progressive activist and theoretician Saul Alinsky described as a key goal of political organizers – to work themselves out of a job – so that other activists will become ready, willing and able to carry on. At this juncture, while Sanders is ill-positioned and uninclined to push back very hard against the evident trajectory of Biden’s decisions, many progressives are starting to throw down gauntlets against the corporate and militaristic aspects of the incoming presidency. While the lunacy of the Trumpian GOP is nonstop and corporate Democrats have control of party top-down power levers, the broad democratic left is now stronger, better-funded and better-networked than it has been in many decades, with greatly enhanced electoral capacities as well as vitality of its social movements. Those electoral capacities and social movements have long been intertwined with the tireless work of Bernie Sanders. But a crucial dynamic going forward into 2021 and beyond will be the resolve of progressives to methodically challenge the Biden administration. Senator Sanders is unlikely to have the leverage or inclination to lead the fight. Sanders has tried to call in some political chits, but Biden – probably figuring that Sanders won’t really go to the mat – does not seem to care much. Days ago, Sanders said in an interview with Axios: “I’ve told the Biden people: The progressive movement is 35-40 percent of the Democratic coalition. Without a lot of other enormously hard work on the part of grassroots activists and progressives, Joe would not have won the election.” Bernie Sanders was the catalyst for galvanizing the grassroots progressive power that propelled his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. His deep analysis, tenacity, eloquence, and bold actions created new pathways. As this century enters its third decade, the torch needs to be grasped by others to lead the way. Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
It Will Take Months Before Everyday People Get the Shots
First in line will be two groups considered to be exceptionally high risk -- health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities such as nursing homes. The groups are part of what federal health officials call Phase 1a of the vaccine distribution plan. Together they add up to about 24 million people. Residents of long-term care facilities have been especially vulnerable, accounting for about 40% of coronavirus deaths in the US. With cases soaring across the country, protecting the health of doctors and nurses is crucial. More than 240,000 health care workers have been infected with coronavirus and nearly 900 have died, according to the CDC. But state health officials and governors across the nation may not receive enough vaccines in the initial shipments for the top priority groups. States will have to prioritize who should get the vaccine first. And limited first shipments will ultimately affect when members of other groups down the line roll up their sleeves, leaving timetables fraught with uncertainly. Essential workers could be on deck Experts advising the CDC have recommended that the next group to receive the vaccine -- perhaps in January -- include essential workers, such as emergency medical technicians and police officers. Also included are older adults living in congregate settings or crowded conditions. The first part of the four-phase vaccine rollout might include people of all ages with underlying conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease considered to be at a higher risk of dying or getting severely ill from Covid-19. It's possible that the US will still be in the first phase of vaccination in March given the sheer numbers of people involved. Anyone healthy and under 65 who is not an essential or a high-risk worker should not expect to get vaccinated until later. The timetable will depend on the number of vaccines to get FDA approval and when that happens -- and, of course, how many doses are available. The vaccine requires two doses: one to prime the body, and then a few weeks later, a second shot to boost the response. The CDC estimates there are 21 million health care personnel, 3 million long-term care residents, 87 million essential workers, 100 million adults with high-risk medical conditions and 53 million others 65 and older. The federal government anticipates that 40 million doses of vaccine could be available in the US by the end of December if both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are approved. Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday voted to recommend Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older. The vaccine this week received emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration. Next phase could include teachers Again, depending on whether more vaccines have been approved, the second phase could begin by April. Phase 2 might include kindergarten-12th grade teachers and staff and other child care workers, as well as other critical workers such as retail workers and transportation workers. This group could also include people in homeless shelters and all people over 65 who were not already included in the first phase. Phase 1 and 2 combined would cover about 45% to 50% of the US population, according to an independent committee to help policymakers fairly allocate and distribute a coronavirus vaccine. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told the Senate in August he did not think the general public would be able to get vaccinated until the "late second quarter, third quarter 2021." April is the beginning of the second quarter of the year. What about the rest of the population? The rest of the population is going to have to wait for months before rolling up their sleeves for a vaccine. Phase 3 would include young adults, children and workers in industries essential to the functioning of society and at increased risk of exposure who were not included in the first two phases. Phase 4 would include everyone else. So healthy adults under the age of 65 and children may well have to wait until the spring or even the summer, depending on how many vaccines get approved, how quickly they can be manufactured and distributed, and how the debate goes over allocation. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that groups receiving the vaccine over the next four months will likely include those in "high priority groups." "I would project by the time you get to April, it will be ... 'open season,' in the sense of anyone, even the non-high priority groups could get vaccinated," Fauci said. Pharmacy chains and big-box stores are also gearing up to deliver vaccines -- including places where people normally get flu shots, grocery store pharmacies and physician offices. |
ernie Sanders is not in a good political position right now. Yes, he continues to speak vital truths to – and about – power. His ability to reach a national audience with progressive wisdom and specific proposals is unmatched. And, during the last several decades, no one has done more to move the nation’s discourse leftward. But now, Sanders is in a political box.
ome Americans should receive the 
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