Reaction to Bernie Sanders' "Our Revolution"

 So, I also read Bernie Sanders' "Our Revolution" and wanted to comment on it. I liked it far better than the Clinton book, but that should go without saying. Clinton's book I struggled to relate to a lot more because after recording my account of events, I just felt like she ignored how much of a stinker of a campaign she ran and how it was quite frankly alienating.

Bernie's account is a lot more in line with mine. He started considering running in 2014 and threw up some trial balloons to see if people are interested. He figured there would be a market for someone who wasn't HRC, and that people would want something different, and he was right. As he kept running trial balloons around the country, he found a lot of support, often times from demographics that don't normally vote democratic. The democrats are very formulaic, as you guys who follow me know. They tend to run things by demographics, trying to appeal to certain people on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, or location, and if you dont fit the kind of voter they're looking for, they're actually quite alienating and it's almost as if they write you off and expect you to vote republican. This is actually my big issue with the dems, as a straight white male progressive from a rust belt state. I am actually demographically closer to your typical republican, and democrats' appeal to me is more or less a middle finger and trying to bully me into supporting them. I mean, I left the GOP, but in retrospect I never truly meshed with the democrats, I just became an independent who aligned with them, and later developed into my own ideology parallel to but different than the democrats. This is why candidates like Clinton and Biden are such underwhelming bores to me, but I like people like Bernie and Yang. 

Bernie isn't your typical politician. He was originally an independent and spent his whole life running as an independent. He took on the establishment a lot in his early days. He won as mayor of burlington by a handful of votes and had to deal with a democratic city council that worked to sabotage him, and wanna know what he did? He called them out and got tons of candidates to run against them. And you know what? He beat them. 

And then he joined the house, and the senate, and then he ran for president. He knew people weren't happy with the status quo and called for a political revolution, inspiring a generation of young people into politics. Essentially, he called for party realignment, to put it in my political terms. 

But, Bernie essentially took on the whole political establishment, and the establishment more or less won. As I stated in the articles related to Clinton's book, Hillary started out with 60%, Bernie had 1%. And all the establishment had to do was to undermine Bernie's growth to ensure Clinton remained the frontrunner. Which they did in many ways, and even though Bernie is more generous than I would be toward the democrats and the media, he did seem to acknowledge the problem, pointing out the problems with media bias, the debate schedule, and how the establishment loved to tell people what was and what wasn't possible. He knew what was up, even if he wouldn't condemn it as strongly as I would for fear of being a sore loser. 

Anyway, around 200 pages of the book was about Bernie's background and presidential campaign. Most of it was actually him regugitating his 2016 platform. Anyone who follows this blog should know what I think of Bernie and his platform, but to summarize my opinions, I probably agree with Bernie a good 80% of the time or so. And in 2016, his platform was worth following for me. Despite me having clear differences with Bernie on for example, the idea of jobs and a job guarantee vs a universal basic income and doing away with work, Bernie's platform was compelling back then because it seemed more important than anything to me to shift the overton window before we could BEGIN to discuss UBI. In other words, to make UBI happen, Bernie would need to win his revolution in my mind. SO bernie's platform was a good start, and I still agree with much of it. And I don't know how any centrist can say his platform didn't work. He quoted so many statistics and facts and figures to make his points it made my head spin. He clearly knew what he was talking about, no matter what the haters and media gatekeepers wanted you to think. 

As far as my opinion on the final result of his efforts? I think he did move a generation, even if he didn't see it yet. He might not have been our Reagan, but I could see him being our goldwater. There is a clear schism between younger and older voters and while the older voters still dominate primaries, millennials and zoomers clearly prefer Bernie and his policies. 

But...the democratic party is trying their best to sabotage and coopt it. In the 2020 rematch, bernie did worse, which I'll discuss somewhat in a minute, but ultimately, the democrats went with a strategy of trying to coopt Bernie's policies into their party to win the voters and neutralize the ideas. They went all hello fellow kids on "medicare for all" for example, often pushing bait and switch policies to try to woo voters in but watered them down. In some cases I approve of this, for example, I prefer build back better to the green new deal, since I'm not a jobist, but on other policies, it was alienating. 

In 2020, I feel like the movement started to fracture somewhat. Arguably it started in 2016 as a result of the lost primary. Most Sanders supporters ended up being sucked back into the democratic party, buying into the whole "blue no matter who" rhetoric they tried to push. But some of us...got angry. I know I was part of the 11% or so (if clinton's statistics are to be believed) that refused to support the democrats in the general. Some of us voted green, some voted Trump, some stayed home. Among this 11%, a lot of radicalization happened between 2016 and 2020, with many becoming literal socialists. When Bernie talked socialism, his ideas were mostly social democracy + worker cooperatives. He wasn't a die hard communist or anything. It's clear from this book what he was for. But...a lot of his supporters started reading socialist theory and many became dogmatic. Some went toward Trump, having a "never dem" attitude of owning the libs so hard they become a conservative in the process. Jimmy Dore is a good example of this attitude, as he now promotes anti vax rhetoric and conspiracy theories, while also promoting a weird form of leftist purism that excludes even the most left progressives in congress. And of course, as Andrew Yang entered the scene in 2020, I found my loyalties to Bernie's movement being divided, as my views are ultimately closer to Yang's vision. And of course, going back to the primary, a lot of Bernie supporters ended up simply supporting different candidates in 2020, like Yang or Warren, whereas in 2016 the movement was more united behind a single candidate. I ultimately did support Bernie in part because Yang dropped out before my state voted and partially because Yang seems to have a tendency of backing away from his ideas out of political convenience (I have to say in comparison I respect Bernie for his convictions and consistency over the years, even if I do find his views a bit dated and jobist for my tastes), but I do feel like the movement has become significantly less united since 2016. 

Speaking of Bernie's jobism, if I have a complaint with the book or Bernie's platform is that. He really laid on the jobism thick in it, even having a segment where he was like JOBS JOBS JOBS (emphasis NOT mine, which is the scary part) and laying on thick that "a job is more than just a paycheck" BS (yeah, see how many stick around when work ISN'T tied to a paycheck). Heck one thing I couldn't help but notice is how Bernie's jobist stance seems to contradict most of his platform. I mean, if jobs are so great and the solution is we all need to be paid better and have unions and workplace democracy, how come single payer is the answer to our healthcare needs? After all, shouldnt healthcare be tied to a job? Why talk oh so much about seniors retiring on social security needing a dignified living, shouldnt we just give them jobs? Jobs are so great and give them dignity don't they? I mean, that's kind of the contradictions of Bernie's platform, and social democratic jobism to me. It seems to repeat the same old protestant work ethic BS about how work is so great, but then it's like "wait healthcare shouldnt be tied to employment, that doesnt work, and seniors shouldnt work"...why cant you guys just go a step further and realize that work sucks, living shouldnt be tied to work if it's not necessary, and the direction of the future should be less work, and not more? It baffles me. For me, work ethic and obsession with tying everything to work and jobs is based in right wing capitalist thinking. I dont know why "leftists" end up glorifying this stuff too. And in bernie's ideology it seemed to be due to ideological dogmatism, and lack of imagination that he's stuck in the past. Dude even mentioned being a luddite on technology, he's also a luddite on jobs IMO. I'm not saying Bernie doesn't have a wonderful platform on improving jobs, mind you, his policies on the minimum wage, unions, and even market socialism are based in my opinion. I just think he leans too hard into the jobism and can't seem to imagine a society in which we actually do away with jobs as a way of life. 

But yeah, I digress. All in all I really like this book overall. Bernie really did seem to be operating on a similar wavelength as me in 2016, and he really was what the country needed at the time. And you know what? I'm gonna say it again, had Bernie made it to the general, he would've won. But thats the problem. The primary demographics and the general election demographics are much different. Thinking about this makes me think about Yang and the Forward Party and his calls for open primries. Perhaps if we had them, the democratic primary wouldnt be so stacked with die hard "democrats" and independents would have more of a say too, ensuring that candidates end up being more representative of what the country wants rather than small slivers of the electorate out of touch with the people. Regardless, I do think his revolution (or "ours") has been moderately successful and even if it doesnt have political power yet, I do think he has, for better or worse, influenced the next generation. Roughly 1/3 o the democrats now support his ideas, and age is one of the biggest factors in that, so as time goes on, I would expect progressives to eventually replace centrist electorates, allowing for more progressive ideas to finally get representation. At least I hope it happens. The democrats are trying their darndest to ensure we have no alternative to their BS, but as we can see from the Biden administration, I dont think centrist democratic politics have much of a future, as they just dont offer anything and dont make anyone happy long term. Triangulation might have been key in the 90s but in the 2020s it just ensures you get dogpiled on by everyone. Political inertia is the only reason democrats are still popular, and I sill support breaking the duopoly, whether through Bernie's political revolution, Yang's forward party, or the greens. Whatever works. The current alignment needs to go, and we need a new one more representative of our politics. I might have wanted what Bernie was selling from before he ran, but he really did inspire me for a time as well, and he has influenced my politics significantly for better or for worse.