It's a reasonable question, given the tendency of the Democratic Party to
absorb radical and progressive movements. The Situationist International, a
politics-and-arts movement that reached its peak during the May 1968 uprising
in France, had a word for this process, when the establishment political and
media culture annexes radical ideas and neutralizes them: recuperation. (Mr.
Sanders' platform is hardly radical, except in the context of today's narrow
political spectrum.)
We've seen the effects of recuperation over and over in recent years: the Working Families Party, posing as an alternative but serving as a front for Dems in fusion-state New York; Occupy Democrats and 99% Spring emerging after Occupy Wall Street campers folded up their tents; the near-demise of the peace movement of the last decade, after faux-antiwar President Obama's victory in 2008. To their credit, some movements have resisted recuperation, including Black Lives Matter and local remnants of Occupy.
If the post-nomination Sanders movement is unable to declare independence from the Democratic Party, recuperation will turn it into a warmed-over version of MoveOn.
We know that the Democratic Party leadership is bent on defusing the Sanders insurgency. The Democratic National Committee has already rigged the Philadelphia convention to curb his influence. It wasn't enough just to rig the nomination against him, through the party's superdelegate system.
Here is Robert Reich, writing on his Facebook page: "The Sanders campaign
had been hoping for a significant role at the Democratic convention, but
[Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the DNC] has picked 75 members of the convention's
key committees -- rules, credentials and platform -- and accepted only 3 of
Bernie's choices, failing to acknowledge the proportion of the vote Bernie has
won in the primaries and caucuses. Negotiations with the DNC have failed to add
any additional Bernie picks to any of the standing committees. Worse yet, she's
named as chairs Hillary backers known for their harsh criticism of Bernie
(among them Barnie Frank, as co-chair of the influential Rules Committee)...
How [can] Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC be so obtuse?" (Posted by
Mr. Reich and retrieved May 15, 2016; see also this)
In other words, "Forget about political revolution, shut up and vote for Hillary."
Ms. Wasserman Schultz and the DNC aren't obtuse. They're assuming what they assume every election year, that the Democratic Party can always take progressive support for granted -- that working people, those concerned about the health of the planet or enraged by gross racial disparities in the justice system, and others hoping for a better world have nowhere else to go. Will Sanders supporters like Robert Reich prove them correct again in 2016?
I hope the Sanders movement comes to a different conclusion and recognizes that we can no longer afford a paradigm limited to the two establishment parties. The D and R parties are incapable of handling the emergencies of the 21st century: an impending climate catastrophe, encroaching corporate oligarchy, the shredding of economic rights and security for working people and the safety net for the poor, mass incarceration, endless war. Both parties, despite their differences, are on the wrong side of these crises.
Pivot Time
It's not enough to declare "We'll put pressure on the Democrats from within." The Democratic Party's aggressive marginalization of progressives, evident in the defeat of the Sanders campaign in a fixed nomination process, tells us that it's beyond rehabilitation.
Democratic leaders and their defenders in the media will continue to insist that the only real choice is between D and R, repeating what they say every election year: "This isn't the year for alternative parties and ideas. We must defeat the GOP menace."
To the extent that progressives have acquiesced, they've made themselves complicit in the country's bipartisan slide to the right. There's nothing revolutionary about a movement that retreats into an endorsement of the lesser of two evils.
Regardless of her modestly populist primary-season rhetoric, Hillary Clinton will snap back to the center-right after her nomination and even further to the right after Inauguration Day. She has already scolded those who hope for enactment of "Medicare for All" (despite majority support) and restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act. Like President Obama, Ms. Clinton will stack her administration with Wall Street operatives and revolving-door experts.
Prominent Dems are pressing Bernie Sanders to exit the race, warning that his presence has delayed Ms. Clinton's ability to " pivot " (i.e., to the right) for the general election. They expect Mr. Sanders' supporters to pivot too.
The biggest legacy of the Sanders campaign should be that its defeat killed illusions that we can ever expect a political revolution, or any substantial change, to come out of the Democratic Party.
The U.S. is heading in a dangerous direction whether we elect Democrats or Republicans. Changing that direction requires altering a political landscape that's effectively limited to the Post-Hope Party and the Post-Sanity Party. The political revolution inspired by Bernie Sanders must continue outside of the two parties of war and Wall Street or it won't continue at all.
We've seen the effects of recuperation over and over in recent years: the Working Families Party, posing as an alternative but serving as a front for Dems in fusion-state New York; Occupy Democrats and 99% Spring emerging after Occupy Wall Street campers folded up their tents; the near-demise of the peace movement of the last decade, after faux-antiwar President Obama's victory in 2008. To their credit, some movements have resisted recuperation, including Black Lives Matter and local remnants of Occupy.
If the post-nomination Sanders movement is unable to declare independence from the Democratic Party, recuperation will turn it into a warmed-over version of MoveOn.
We know that the Democratic Party leadership is bent on defusing the Sanders insurgency. The Democratic National Committee has already rigged the Philadelphia convention to curb his influence. It wasn't enough just to rig the nomination against him, through the party's superdelegate system.
In other words, "Forget about political revolution, shut up and vote for Hillary."
Ms. Wasserman Schultz and the DNC aren't obtuse. They're assuming what they assume every election year, that the Democratic Party can always take progressive support for granted -- that working people, those concerned about the health of the planet or enraged by gross racial disparities in the justice system, and others hoping for a better world have nowhere else to go. Will Sanders supporters like Robert Reich prove them correct again in 2016?
I hope the Sanders movement comes to a different conclusion and recognizes that we can no longer afford a paradigm limited to the two establishment parties. The D and R parties are incapable of handling the emergencies of the 21st century: an impending climate catastrophe, encroaching corporate oligarchy, the shredding of economic rights and security for working people and the safety net for the poor, mass incarceration, endless war. Both parties, despite their differences, are on the wrong side of these crises.
Pivot Time
It's not enough to declare "We'll put pressure on the Democrats from within." The Democratic Party's aggressive marginalization of progressives, evident in the defeat of the Sanders campaign in a fixed nomination process, tells us that it's beyond rehabilitation.
Democratic leaders and their defenders in the media will continue to insist that the only real choice is between D and R, repeating what they say every election year: "This isn't the year for alternative parties and ideas. We must defeat the GOP menace."
To the extent that progressives have acquiesced, they've made themselves complicit in the country's bipartisan slide to the right. There's nothing revolutionary about a movement that retreats into an endorsement of the lesser of two evils.
Regardless of her modestly populist primary-season rhetoric, Hillary Clinton will snap back to the center-right after her nomination and even further to the right after Inauguration Day. She has already scolded those who hope for enactment of "Medicare for All" (despite majority support) and restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act. Like President Obama, Ms. Clinton will stack her administration with Wall Street operatives and revolving-door experts.
Prominent Dems are pressing Bernie Sanders to exit the race, warning that his presence has delayed Ms. Clinton's ability to " pivot " (i.e., to the right) for the general election. They expect Mr. Sanders' supporters to pivot too.
The biggest legacy of the Sanders campaign should be that its defeat killed illusions that we can ever expect a political revolution, or any substantial change, to come out of the Democratic Party.
The U.S. is heading in a dangerous direction whether we elect Democrats or Republicans. Changing that direction requires altering a political landscape that's effectively limited to the Post-Hope Party and the Post-Sanity Party. The political revolution inspired by Bernie Sanders must continue outside of the two parties of war and Wall Street or it won't continue at all.
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