Bernie Sanders has done more than any modern political figure to advance the cause of economic justice. In less than four years, he managed to move issues like single payer health insurance, free college tuition and the sanctity of a living wage from the fringes of the political left into the mainstream of American thought. He is arguably one of the most important and effective change agents in our time. But I so hope he isn’t the Democratic nominee for president.
In another time and context, I could have been a screaming, stomping, shouting Bernie Bro. But not now, not this year. Our democracy is hanging by the thinnest of threads. We have a deranged, narcissistic authoritarian in the White House; a cruel, mean, vindictive man who defies every norm of decency, every rule of law; a man firmly committed to lying, cheating and stealing his way to a second term. We have one shot to stop him. Please tell me we aren’t going to bank it all on an almost-80-year-old socialist who is recovering from a heart attack and hellbent on revolution.
On an aspirational level, I’m totally good with the dictatorship of the proletariat. But right now, in this moment of despair, revolutionary change has to mean ending the Trump revolution before starting a new one. Our immediate focus needs to be less on toppling the moneyed elites and redistributing the wealth, and more on capturing electoral college votes in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Arizona.
A number of pundits (here and here) have insisted that Sanders can’t win. I disagree. They said the same thing about Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Nobody thought Donald Trump could win, not even Donald Trump. Sanders could, indeed, win. The likelihood of such an outcome, however, seems far riskier than it would be with others in the Democratic gaggle of presidential candidates.
Numerous studies (here and here) have shown that candidates with hardened ideologies – on both the left and right – suffer electorally, substantially raising the risk of loss. (Think Goldwater and McGovern.) If ever there were a time to be risk adverse, it is now.
While some of Sanders’ positions have popular support, many are apt to pose a serious problem in a general election. He is unabashedly in favor of raising taxes to pay for a Medicare for All program that would eliminate private health insurance, a move polls show is opposed in most swing states. There is a long list of other Bernie proposals that certify his leftist credentials but are likely to be an albatross for him: banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, eliminating ICE and giving free health care to undocumented immigrants.
Then there’s the socialist thing. Trump, of course, will redbait any Democrat who runs against him. He calls anyone who opposes him a “socialist,” among other labels picked from his limited vocabulary: “scum,” “horrible,” “dirty,” “crazy,” and “lowlife.” Bernie is a Democratic Socialist, a political philosophy not that far removed from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. In the distant past, however, he supported the Socialist Workers Party, a Marxist-Trotskyite group that now criticizes Sanders for being too conservative.
To be sure, such nuance will do little damage control in an election campaign. Bernie is on tape supporting Fidel Castro’s communist revolution in Cuba in the 1960s. Twenty years later, he backed the Sandinistas’ Marxist regime in Nicaragua while the U.S. was financing a rightwing overthrow there. He attended a Nicaraguan rally where the crowd chanted “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.” Such ancient history is hardly disqualifying in this post-cold-war era. Still, it might well be enough to give Trump a lock on electoral-vote-rich Florida where there is a large contingent of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.
Beyond his radical past and out-of-the-mainstream positions, there is a far deeper problem with Sanders’ candidacy. He is, in many ways, the leftwing version of Donald Trump, albeit a kinder and more intelligent one. They share many characteristics. They are both populists. They are both angry and yell a lot. They both see the government as a swamp needing to be drained. They both play not to a diverse spectrum of Americans, but to a much smaller, passionate and very fired-up base.
A Sanders versus Trump contest is an easy call for liberals. It’s Bernie in a heartbeat. But what about independents, or Republicans feeling the same Trump stress disorder that keeps us up at night? An angry old white guy trying to bring Wall Street to its knees by braying at the moon could have been refreshing after four years of a Jeb Bush administration. But not now. If you believe the psychotherapists, Trump has so stressed out millions of Americans with his constant bellicose bellowing that they long for a merely competent president, a quieter, more serene leader. Although competent, Bernie Sanders does not do quiet or serenity.
The Vermont senator’s 2016 presidential run was not about winning. It was, as Politico noted, about organizing a movement to shift power from corporate billionaires to the working class, Bernie’s life-long goal. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Issues of his that were seen as extremist four years ago are now on center stage of the 2020 campaign. The very fact that Sanders is now a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination has moved the party to the left. If he becomes the nominee, the leftward tilt will be that much stronger. Even if he loses.
Yes, even if he loses, Bernie Sanders will have won, simply by advancing his agenda and moving a major political party that much further to the left. For well over a century, leaders of the class struggle have counseled patience in building the revolution. It’s one small step, followed by another, and another, for as long as it takes. Famed Marxist theorist Leon Trotsky, taught that “strife is the father of all things,” and that “revolution is impossible until it is inevitable.” From that perspective, Bernie’s revolution would be well positioned if he gets the nomination and loses in November. Four more years of Trump will certainly produce sufficient strife to father that inevitable revolution.
Either that or we slip deeper and deeper into the autocracy of the Trumpian abyss. With all due respect to Brothers Sanders and Trotsky, let’s go with a Democratic candidate who appeals to a broader swath of the electorate. The revolution will wait.