Sanders is one of the most popular politicians in the US, and his political analysis and messaging remain as relevant and compelling as ever. But while his Tour to Fight Oligarchy is inspiring and important, the broad left badly needs a political vision that goes beyond Sanders.
Centrists need to stop telling leftists what to do and what is good for them or they’re going to keep on losing elections.
It’s not coming from a centrist in this case: the article is written by someone who argues Bernie is insufficiently left.
I agree the left should build a cybernetic android and place Bernie’s brain within. He will need to be reprogram to destroy those who oppose the will of the people and the good of all humanity. Hail BernBot666
Bernie should be running “here’s how to run for office in your area” drives on his oligarchy tour. The only way progressives will kick out corporate democrats is by the common person running more. Bernie should be pushing more people to run instead of just getting up on a stage in front of people and being a politician. He’s not a good organizer. Great talker. Horrible at getting people out to vote. Dude couldn’t even get enough people out to vote in the Democrat primary in 2016 to defeat Clinton. She beat him by a larger voting margin than Trump won by last year.
Oh no, every fuckin person In line to vote with me just said they were voting for Clinton because they were told he couldn’t win. Everyone agreed with him yet I couldn’t convince the 20 people in line that if we all voted for him it could all work. The dnc did him wrong, the media coverage wasn’t great (never is take that as it is), and people thought Clinton was a shoe-in. I dont disagree with your statement for teaching people how to run, but don’t disregard how the dnc didn’t want him there at all.
The DNC definitely didn’t want him there. But the RNC didn’t want trump. Trump was able to convince voters to vote for him despite him being a long shot candidate. Bernie wasn’t. Bernie, if he was a better organizer, would have been able to convince more people to vote in the primary either to outnumber the people who voted for Clinton or convinced the Clinton voters to change to his side. Obama was someone who was able to convince voters to come out and vote for him in the primary and was able to convince Clinton voters to switch sides. Again, Bernie couldn’t.
I also think a core part of this is just him running for the nomination for the Democrat party despite not in fact being a Democrat. I had many people around me who also agreed with him but voted for Clinton because he wasn’t a Democrat and obviously only wanted to be able to be a part of the party when he needed them as opposed to always being there.
I personally think if Bernie had always been a part of the Democrat party he would have had an easier time convincing enough people to switch to his side. It’s not like he needed a blowout to win the nomination. This is also why I think someone like AOC would have an easier time running for the nomination since she is and always has been a Democrat.
Very well put.
The party also used the screwy rules to keep him down, rules put there for just the purpose
Like fucking milk.
The left needs to stop with the purity tests and start doing the do the work. Bernie is flawed, as are we all, but he is out there knocking doors .
This article states pretty much everything I believe about American politics far more articulately than I ever could. I’ve decided; if I ever open an American branch of the NoneOfUrBusiness party I’m making this my manifesto.
The left needs to be rid of centrists like Bernie/AOC and bring in actual leftists. Not just progressives but communists, socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, revolutionary trade unionists, the class conscious workers who will lead the revolution. Compromise with the Capitalists is useless as they have no morals, they will always claw back everything they have compromised (Trump is proof of this). Furthermore working in the Capitalists liberal democracy is the best way to get absolutely nothing done and to fall to fascism.
WORKING PEOPLES OF THE WORLD UNITE
Your politicans will not save you nor will running one more electoral campaign, we need to build class consciousness and strengthen unions to prepare for revolution (it is not a if question but a when question)
Bernie is the left’s most effective advocate in the US and we need more of him.
We need more like him
Yeah, but also I think a Godzilla sized Bernie Sanders could do a lot of good.
Would you rather fight 1 Godzilla-sized Bernie? Or 100 Bernie-sized Godzillas?
I agree with a lot of this article, but it doesn’t really acknowledge the reality of the Democratic leadership’s obstruction. The party is, generously, a slightly left-of-center organization that prioritizes stifling their own left wing over defeating their far-right opponents. They’ve successfully held off two of Bernie’s presidential runs, redistricted Bowman out of his seat, and Pelosi has spent so much time and effort undermining the squad (and AOC personally) that it borders on pathological.
I agree with a lot of the criticisms of Bernie in this article, and beyond that, he’s just too old to be in the Senate, much less the standard bearer for the entire left, but the Democrats have spent decades making sure there’s no viable alternative. We need to move past Bernie, but we need to build an actual progressive movement that can get past Democratic obstruction to do that, and for now, Bernie is still the de facto leader of that movement.
They’re center right at best, they dont advocate for workers solidarity and actively distract workers from unity. They demand compromise with capitalists yet give the workers nothing. They are only left wing in social policy, on economics and governance they are fascism lite.
Well, there’s a reason I said, “generously,” slightly left-of-center. It also depends on the Democrat. There’s enough of them that care about labor to get the PRO Act through the house, but not the Senate. I don’t think it would be unfair to call someone like Gary Peters center-left, given his strong pro-union track record, but someone like Schumer or Pelosi, who are squarely on the side of Wall Street and big tech respectively, are just conservatives masquerading as left-leaning centrists.
Imo being left wing should at the absolute bare minimum require supporting the abolition of private property and ownership. Unions are fundamentally a compromise between labor and capital, therefore supporting unions is more centrist. An example of a left wing position would be supporting revolutionary workers syndicates.
I mean, fair enough, but there’s no point in America history where abolishing private ownership wouldn’t be considered far-left. I understand that compared to international standards or across the broader spectrum of political theory, the American left has never been particularly left-wing. When I say the Democrats are slightly center-left or center-right, I’m comparing them to themselves 30 to 40 years ago. Since 1980, they’ve slowly compromised their principles to the point where they can’t be considered, “left,” by any modern political metric.
If you asked a Appalachian coal miner in 1921 they would say that the abolition of private property is the absolute basic nessesity for any leftist movement
…OK, that still would have a far-left opinion in American politics. It’s not like the country was divided between socialists and communists back then. Hell, it took the Great Depression just to get the moderate socialist reforms of the New Deal passed, and even then, its opponents thought it was communism.
Like, I don’t know what to tell you. I understand your point; you think anything that doesn’t involve the abolition of private property isn’t left-wing. But even pre-Cold War, even pre-McCarthyism, even during the Coal Wars, that position would be the far-left of American politics. I’m not trying to be a dick here, but when I, or the author of the article, or most Americans, are talking about, “the left,” we’re definitely not working from your definition.
Even on social policy they have to be coaxed into it by a large activist movement and they’ll ditch it if the Republicans make too big a stink
A new party is needed. Be done with the garbage that we currently have
Like this? www.huevosparty.com
No, like a Mario Party.
Mar10
there wont be anyone like sanders or aoc, and all other imitation dems turn out to be shills for the gop.
there isn’t, but there can be
i.e. Fetterman.
When the party supported him instead of pulling funding, it should have been clear that he was lying about being a progressive.
The left is way beyond Bernie Sanders, Democrats need to move beyond Bernie Sanders
this is basically saying, we are currently at -10, Sanders is at +3 and we need to jump to +10 right away. Not gonna happen unless through civil war.
Republicans were at -3 pre 2016 and they’ve ratcheting up to -10 pretty quickly. If you have a good charismatic leader that the base falls for you can drag the rest of the party along to the edges of the Overton window pretty quickly.
So what are you waiting for? Take a rifle and don’t come back until “it’s over over there”
We need more like sanders. Fuck the democrats. I want independents and I want all those who aren’t on board with the Democrat party to recognize it’s time for a change. Especially now in this time of rebuilding while conservatives are in power.
The sit out centrists need to vote
Bernie is the only leftist in the Senate. So until that changes it will be impossible to move beyond him.
Reading the article, the argument is that Bernie isn’t left enough, and more radical candidates need to be run in primaries.
