I’m not trolling, nor am I shitposting here. But I had an interesting conversation about a 1/2 hour ago that turned to me stating:
If Senator Sanders is elected, his administration is going to look a lot like every other Democratic administration. There isn’t an alternative universe of Democratic appointed Federal district and appellate justices or experienced attorneys that have worked for past Democratic administrations, Democratic members of Congress, law firms that tend to represent Democrats or center left to left of center interests, or law school faculty that are Democratic socialists. I mean you’re basically looking at a continuum from someone like Merrick Garland on the center left to Godwin Liu and Caitlin Hannigan. Same thing with cabinet appointments, their deputies, and the 4,000 plus senior, mid level, and junior political appointees that will be necessary to staff the Federal government. There aren’t 4,000 qualified appointees within Sanders’s movement, so these positions will have to be filled with the same people/type of people that a President Warren or Biden or Harris or Booker or Klobuchar or Buttigieg or insert one of 17 other names here would be drawing from. I’d certainly expect the White House/Executive Office of the President appointments to be from the inner circle, but they don’t need senatorial approval.
This isn’t an anti-Sanders’s argument, but personnel is policy. And there just aren’t enough qualified personnel within Senator Sander’s movement to fill out the Federal government. Just within my own professional areas and areas of interest in regard to Defense and Intelligence, who exactly would be chosen that wouldn’t otherwise? Which means a Sanders’ administration would look a lot like that of any of the other Democratic candidates who might reasonably be expected to win in 2020 because they’re all going to draw from the same pool of potential appointees.
Edited to Add at 6:25 PM EDT
And this is without even considering what happens if the Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate. Senator McConnell has already announced that if that is the case, and there is a Democratic president come January 2021, he will shut everything down.
Discuss among yourselves.
Open thread.