To be effective, we must overcome our fragmentation and build a national, multi-issue organization with muscle that can quickly mobilize supporters in a timely manner.
Fortunately, Bernie has built a network that can help form that powerful, bottom-up, grassroots coalition focused on national policy. He’s already won. What’s most important is building that organization. After California, Bernie should declare victory and help us build that organization.
Recently, here, here, here, and here, I’ve presented some ideas about how we could proceed to advance political revolution. Most respondents have said those ideas are sensible.
But Bernie may stick with his top-down, ideology-driven approach.
When Tavis Smiley asked him if has learned from mistakes made during the campaign, the only specific he shared was that he should have “reached out” more, as he was doing by appearing on that show. He needs to go deeper.
To become more effective, we need to learn from the weaknesses in Bernie’s campaign. Those weaknesses are reflected in much of our activism.
Bernie’s single-issue focus on economic justice is limiting. Even now, after months of criticism, for example, he and his supporters rarely use the words “racism” and “sexism,” much less talk about the need to examine our own conditioning and monitor our own behavior.
Economic populism is not enough. We also, as Hillary has, need to affirm intersectional politics and the importance of becoming more compassionate in our personal lives.
Bernie has exposed the myth that Big Money controls the system. He will not fail to get the nomination because the system is rigged or because “the Establishment” undercut him. He has come up short because there were problems with both the message and the messenger.
Big Money is a big problem. But Big Money is not in control. We the people have the power. But rather than uniting, individuals and individual organizations focus on their own self-interest. We thereby relinquish power to those who administer our social system.
Another problem with Bernie and many other progressives is the heavy reliance on ideas. The goal is to persuade others to do what we want them to do.
Instead, we need to build organizations that inspire collaboration and enable people to work together as co-equals to create new ideas.
In my taxi, when I ask, “Are you following the Presidential campaigns,” I am repeatedly impressed with how informed, concerned, and astute my passengers are. We need to develop new inspiring opportunities for those people to collaborate.
How to structure our organizations needs attention. Instead, activists focus on policies.
My passengers, most of whom support Bernie, have told me that neither they nor anyone they know will fail to vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination. That’s a relief. It seems the “Bernie or Bust” caucus, though loud on social media, is small.
A number of people I respect who’ve voted for Bernie or have been planning to vote for him in California have told me their enthusiasm is declining. Their reasons merit attention. The problem is not Bernie's politics. They still support his principles. The issue is Bernie’s style.
They complain about his “rant,” find him too “self-righteous,” don’t care for his ad hominem attacks on Hillary, and/or worry that he will fight too hard too long, thereby hurting the Democratic Party and Hillary’s chances in November.
One of my passengers, Judy Reuter, later emailed me:
I think Sanders has become less focused on his ideas and more focused on simply trying to win the Democratic nomination via character assassination. I'm not sure why he has taken this turn, but I believe this makes it less likely that he will change any moderate minds. Instead of persuading people to recognize the value of his progressive ideas, his tactics have a polarizing effect, with the result that now he is preaching only to the choir. Anyone who doesn't agree with his negative view of Clinton will simply stop taking Sanders seriously on any subject, and will have less interest in supporting any progressive ideas that might make their way into the party platform.
Sanders was doing a good thing for the country and for the Democratic party when he was getting people to listen and take his ideas seriously. I believe his turn to negative campaigning has caused him to lose a lot of ground with people whose minds might have been changed but who will react badly to what will be seen as the progressives' attempt to hijack the party machinery with strong-arm tactics. Democratic voters needed persuasion to become more progressive. An attempted hostile takeover of the Democratic convention is going to have the opposite effect.
I keep thinking about the anti-LBJ, anti-Humphrey movement in the sixties, in which we all expressed our disdain for "the establishment" and ended up with Richard Nixon for our troubles; or the Ralph Nader supporters whose rejection of the Democratic Party and its nominee helped give us Bush the Second. This time the possible consequence of Sanders' supporters trashing Clinton's reputation is the unthinkable election of Donald Trump. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Hillary Clinton is not transparent. She’s guarded, chooses her words carefully, wants to be loved by everyone, including the 1%, and shifts with the wind. It’s impossible to know what she really believes.
That lack of transparency means it’s impossible to declare she’s corrupt. We can’t read her mind. We can’t know if and when she acts dishonestly.
And her flexibility is a strength. With elected officials, the ability to compromise is valuable. If she’s elected and we the people pressure her, she will listen. Non-ideological pragmatism rooted in humanistic values holds more potential than does economic populism.
I no longer fear a Trump victory. He’s proving to be incompetent and the media is beginning to challenge him.
But I am still worried that Bernie and his supporters, rather than merely pushing their positions respectfully, will go into the Democratic convention with an uncompromising fury that will hurt the Party and undermine prospects for transforming it.
If he wins California, that scenario is more likely. So, though I still believe economic justice should be a major plank in a transformative platform, I voted for Hillary in the California primary.
Some old friends will therefore dismiss me as an “enemy,” which is at the heart of our problem.
