Sanders Campaign at a
Crossroads
Bernie’s political revolution will be strangled if it
remains imprisoned within the corporate-controlled Democratic Party. Sanders
needs to run all the way through November and lay the groundwork for a new party
of the 99%.
In the aftermath of
Clinton’s decisive victories in South Carolina and most Super Tuesday states,
Bernie Sanders’ campaign stands at a crossroads. Even as he reaches new heights
of popular support in national polls - topping Clinton in several - it’s
becoming increasingly clear that Sanders’ hopes for victory within the
corporate-dominated Democratic Party primaries is extremely unlikely to
succeed.
Pointing to Clinton’s 200+ earned delegate lead after Super
Tuesday, the respected polling analysts at FiveThirtyEight.com quipped that
“something truly crazy would have to happen for Sanders to win the
nomination.”
Millions are naturally asking: How can they be coronating
Clinton already, when national polls have Bernie neck-and-neck with Hillary, and
when the vast majority of the country hasn’t even voted yet?
In answer,
the talking heads in the corporate media are again rolling out their tired
arguments about how Bernie Sanders and his democratic socialism are just too far
left for American voters. In fact, Sanders campaign has received enormous
support and far more grassroots enthusiasm than Clinton. The problem is not
Bernie’s left-wing, working-class policies, it is that the big business
Democratic Party is profoundly hostile terrain for such a campaign.
The
Democratic Party primary elections are, by design, skewed to favor the
pro-capitalist establishment that dominates the party. Especially since the
redesign of the process after the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, the
entire primary process - from the super delegates to frontloading the more
conservative southern states - is designed as an undemocratic firewall against
left insurgent campaigns.
An Historic
Campaign
Despite challenging
Clinton in an electoral terrain stacked against left and working-class forces,
Bernie Sanders’ campaign has achieved stunning, historic successes. Overcoming a
near blackout in the corporate media throughout 2015, using mass rallies and
social media, Sanders went from single-digit support in national polls to a
dead-heat with Clinton by early February.
Bernie’s campaign has captured
the imagination and raised the expectations of millions. It has demonstrated
that it is possible to build a viable grassroots political revolution,
completely independent of corporate cash, and capable of challenging the
corporate stranglehold over politics.
Among young people - including
young women who were “supposed” to flock to Clinton - Sanders’ call for a
political revolution and socialist policies - like free higher education - has
won overwhelming support. Sanders raised $42 million in February alone from a
record-setting 1.4 million individual donors, outperforming Clinton for the
second month in a row (not including the her unlimited Super PAC donations).
This is utterly unprecedented for a candidate who refuses corporate
contributions.
The grassroots movement behind Bernie wants to fight on,
fueled by a healthy determination to overcome all obstacles. This is the spirit
driving Socialist Alternative members across the country who have mobilized
thousands through #MarchForBernie actions, “Labor for Bernie” activities, public
debates, and mass community outreach.
Despite these dramatic successes,
the Sanders campaign has failed to win over any significant section of the
Democratic Party establishment to challenge Wall Street’s domination of their
party. Especially revealing is the failure of Senator Elizabeth Warren to
endorse Sanders. In this negative sense, the Sanders campaign is re-affirming
what Socialist Alternative has long argued: Building a new mass party for
working people is a far more viable project than transforming the Democrats from
a party of big business into a vehicle to fight for working class
interests.
How is Clinton
Winning?
We argued in our previous articles
that for Sanders to win it would require an historic and unprecedented upsurge
in voter turnout in the primaries, especially from young voters. This could only
happen as part of a massive social upheaval and politicization of U.S. society.
So far the voter
turnout has not in any way reached such proportions. The biggest factor favoring
Clinton in this regard remains the deep alienation and disgust most workers and
young people feel toward “politics,” a mood created by the repeated failures of
the Democratic and Republican parties themselves. Most workers and young people
won’t even start paying attention until the last months of general election. The
minority who do vote in the primary skew heavily toward an older, wealthier, and
loyally Democratic electorate.
It would be a fundamental mistake to allow
this unrepresentative minority of voters to block the Sanders campaign from
reaching a majority of working people in the general election with his
far-reaching message.
On the terrain of the electorate participating in
the primaries, the weight of the Democratic Party machine has a major impact.
The establishment of elected officials, party insiders, and wealthy donors use
their power and links to influence unions, civil rights and community groups,
and church leaders to turn out their base.
This influence was shown
graphically by the role the vast majority of union leaders played in mobilizing
the power of labor behind the candidate of the Democratic Party machine without
any serious opportunity for their members to debate or decide. While tens of
thousands of the most active and fighting union members resisted this top-down
effort, and Sanders eventually won several important union endorsements, it was
not enough. In the end the power of the labor movement was a key factor in
Clinton’s early wins in Iowa, and especially Nevada, which served to reverse
Sanders momentum.
The power of the mass media is deployed to undermine
anti-corporate campaigns and prop up establishment candidates like Clinton. From
the media’s sensationalized coverage of Trump to their policy of ignoring or
negatively covering Sanders, their election coverage is a textbook example of
the power of the corporate media to shape public opinion.
Only through
building up organized class conscious forces - independent working class
movements, political parties, and media - can the power of the corporate media
be systematically undermined on a mass scale.
On top of all this is the
colossal mountain of Wall Street and corporate donations amassed by Clinton and
her Super PACs. Despite the historic success of Sanders amassing over four
million individual donations, Clinton’s virtually unlimited supply of corporate
cash remains a major institutional advantage.
Time to Draw
Conclusions
When Sanders launched his
presidential bid last year, Socialist Alternative welcomed his campaign's bold
pro-worker message. At the same time we argued that Bernie was “making a fundamental
mistake by running in the Democratic Party
primary. Instead... he should run as an independent to help build a political
alternative to the corporate-owned political parties. There is a glaring
contradiction between Sanders’ call for a political revolution against the
billionaire class and attempting to carry that out within a party controlled by
that same billionaire class.”Despite our clear disagreement with Sanders decision to
run in the Democratic Party, we did not stand aside from his campaign or
denounce it from the sidelines, as unfortunately many on the socialist left did.
Instead, we worked in a non-sectarian fashion to support Bernie’s left-wing
campaign while openly raising our political disagreements along the way.
Meanwhile Sanders and his supporters tested out their strategy of trying to take
over the Democratic Party.
While it
is true that Sanders was able to reach a mass audience by running in the
Democratic primaries and participating in the televised debates with Clinton, it
is now increasingly clear that this experiment will fail. Despite the historic
scale of Sanders’ challenge, the corporate establishment retained firm control
of their party and are proving capable of denying Sanders the
nomination.
Sanders strategy of trying to carry out a political
revolution through the Democratic Party has now been tested. We must face up to
the reality that it will not work. It’s time for Bernie, and more importantly,
for his supporters, to draw all the necessary conclusions from this experience.
If the movement does not break free from the straightjacket of the
corporate-controlled Democratic Party it will be used as a left-wing prop for
the Walmart, Wall Street, pro-war Clinton campaign.
As we wrote when Bernie launched his campaign: “Sanders
has said he will endorse the Democratic nominee, which is very likely to be Hillary Clinton ... This will
mean that those mobilized by Sanders will be told to support a pro-corporate
Democrat, the exact opposite of a ‘revolution’ against the ‘billionaires and
oligarchs.’ This could result in the demoralization of those mobilized by the
idea of fighting corporate power and the loss of a historic
opportunity.”
The impact of the
millions mobilized for a political revolution in Sanders’ campaign against the
billionaire class being pushed to embrace a candidate of the billionaire class
will mean the demoralization, demobilization, and shipwreck of the movement.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign has opened up the best potential in decades to build an
ongoing political movement to challenge the corporate establishment of both
major parties. But this will be tragically undermined unless we get organized -
independent of the Democratic Party - to continue and deepen the political
revolution, through November and beyond.
That’s why Socialist Alternative has consistently called
on Sanders to run all the way through November, regardless of the outcome of the
Democratic Party’s rigged primaries. If Sanders is checked within the Democratic
primaries, as is increasingly likely, he will need to continue the fight by
running as an independent or by appealing to Jill Stein and the Green Party to
join their ballot line, rather than allowing the movement behind him to be
imprisoned within the corporate-controlled Democratic Party.
Of course,
even if Sanders is heading toward defeat in the primaries, we still want to see
the maximum vote for his campaign and as many primary victories as possible to
bring further pressure on the establishment and to maintain the mobilization for
Sanders’ program. Within this ongoing mobilization, the discussion about the
direction of the campaign can and must develop.
Stopping Trump and the
Right
The central objection raised
against Sanders running as an independent — Bernie himself has rejected this —
is the threat of acting as a “spoiler,” of dividing the vote and allowing a
Republican to win. And with Trump seen as the likely Republican nominee, the
determination of millions of workers, people of color, women, and young people
to do everything possible to push back the far-right threat is completely
understandable.
The problem is, Hillary Clinton is just about the worst
possible candidate imaginable to cut across the right-wing, anti-establishment
populism of Donald Trump. Alongside the Bush family, the Clinton political
dynasty is the living symbol of establishment politics in America. There is a
reason most polls show Clinton losing, or neck-and-neck in matchups with the
leading Republican candidates! It’s the same reason that, after Obama bailed out
Wall Street, the Tea Party Republicans made sweeping gains as the dominant
voice, however distorted, appearing to express popular anger with the special
interests that corrupt politics.
So far, Sanders “democratic socialism”
has captured broader anti-establishment support than Trump’s hateful
right-populism. If Sanders attempts to funnel his supporters behind Clinton’s
Wall Street campaign it will allow Trump to appear as the only
anti-establishment voice in the general election, when tens of millions more
will begin tuning in.
Sanders has a political responsibility to run in
the general election, both to provide a pro-worker alternative to the corporate
candidates, and to cut across Trump’s anti-establishment appeal. As we have
already seen, alongside the traditional Democratic Party base, Sanders would
draw support from independents and even some Republicans who are repelled by
Clinton’s establishment ties. If Sanders refuses to run in the general election,
intentions aside, it would be a fundamental failure of leadership on his part,
and would, in practice, serve to strengthen Trump’s appeal.
Sanders has
said he will not run independently because he does not want to be a “spoiler.”
But why not at least explore a run in all the “safe” states (the vast majority
of uncontested states that will clearly be won by the Democratic or Republican
candidate)? Socialist Alternative would welcome a debate on the left on the pros
and cons of such a challenge. A Sanders campaign through November, even if just
running all out on the ballot in 40 states or more, could lay the foundations
for a new mass party of working people, an historic step forward that would
leave behind an organized force to continue the struggle after
2016.
We have an historic opportunity
to launch a new party, that runs left candidates who reject corporate cash and
pledge to use their positions to mobilize grassroots power to win a
working-class agenda like $15 an hour, an end to mass incarceration, free
education, and single-payer health care. Bernie’s campaign has already proven
the potential exists for a new mass left party that could dramatically change of
the face of American politics, especially if linked to a discussion on socialist
change, helping to open a new era of social
struggle.
Both the threat from the right, and the potential to
rebuild a powerful independent left, demands that the movement behind Bernie
refuses to be imprisoned within the Democratic Party. We must stay organized and
continue the fight for a political revolution through November and beyond,
laying the basis for a new party for working
people.
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