Time to Bern? Not likely

Relax Right America, Bernie Sanders isn't going to be president.

His time is going to run out, much like it did for William Lloyd Garrison and Lucy Stone. The former was an early abolitionist, while the latter led the women's suffrage movement.

History will remember Sanders, too, once the United States completes its transformation to a complete social welfare democracy. Yes, it's inevitable.

If you're scoffing at this point, please consider the history of the American psyche. We are progressive, as all humans are. But we are the scared, suspicious, white-knuckle-freedom-clinging kind of progressive.

And that usually means the rest of the free world is likely to evolve long before we do. We like to scuffle over an issue for a few decades before we grudgingly give change a try.

Consider slavery. By the time Lincoln issued the Emanicpation Proclaimation, we were one of the last first-world civilizations still sanctioning the foul practice. It took decades, and the loss of 620,000 lives, for Americans to overcome their deep fear of change and renounce slavery.

Consider Social Security. Signed into law by FDR in 1935, the U.S. program trailed many European nations by 30-40 years. The need had existed for much longer. American ex-presidents Madison, Jefferson and Monroe all died penniless, or in significant debt, in 1825 and 1833. One can imagine how ordinary elderly citizens (if they lived that long) suffered through their final years throughout the 19th century.

Still, it would take another century and a calamitous depression to produce an old-age pensioners program. And it wasn't exactly hailed by all either. Another two-year battle would rage before the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Roosevelt and Social Security began.

Not before Sen. Alf Landon voiced the specious fears of the change-haters: "It will impose a crushing burden on industry and labor [and] establish a bureaucracy in the field of insurance in competition with private business."

Yeah, about that...

So that brings us to the current issues of health insurance and gun control. On both, we are once again trailing every significant country in the world. We are much further along on the former than the latter, but it will take some time yet before we get to the single-payer system that is all but inevitable.

The concept of President Sanders will move the boulder a few meters up the hill. But there's still too many right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers out there to make it a viable option in the foreseeable future. 

Those folks will again mask their fear of change in references to the Founding Fathers and "limited government." 

In reality, those Fathers (minus Jefferson) recognized fairly quickly that there are things a strong central government can do better than the private sector. Adams, Washington, Madison and others endorsed hasty changes to give the government power to make treaties, levy taxes and build roads.

Washington sought to crush a rebellion similar to the nonsense in Oregon.

So no, Bernie isn't going to be president. But get used to his ideas. He's giving you a glimpse into the future.