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Many on the left seem to be adapting to the media pressure on the 2016 Presidential Election campaign to adapting to the ‘Sanders Movement’, and the fact that he calls himself a Democratic Socialist who belong to the 1%’s Democratic Party In trying to adapt to the ‘Sanders Phenomenon’ some socialist organizations, Socialist Alternative have come out in direct support of the Bernie Sanders campaign and others see the need to support the ‘movement’ and give backhanded support to Sanders by supporting this ‘mythical ‘movement’. They don’t understand or ignore that Bernie Sanders is, as Bruce Dixon states Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016.
In my opinion, the ‘Sanders Movement’ is a myth, as was the ‘Obama Movement’ and the ‘Jessie Jackson Movement’ as a lessor evil candidate within the Democratic party. These ‘movements’ all die after the elections take place. And these petty bourgeoisie social organizations always adapt to the perpetual Democratic Party ‘lessor evil’ candidate,
Bernie Sanders, who has attracted numerous young, white, college-educated supporters in his bid for the presidency, says he is creating a movement and promises a political revolution. This rhetoric is an updated version of the “change” promised by the 2008 campaign of Barack Obama and by Jesse Jackson’s earlier National Rainbow Coalition. Such Democratic electoral campaigns, at best, raise political consciousness. But they do not become movements or engender revolutions. They exist as long as election campaigns endure and then they vanish. Sanders’ campaign will be no different. No movement or political revolution will ever be built within the confines of the Democratic Party. And the repeated failure of the American left to grasp the duplicitous game being played by the political elites has effectively neutered it as a political force. History, after all, should count for something.
In my opinion, the following Facebook succinct post by Mike Alewitz is an accurate description of the hypocritical ‘Sanders Phenomenon’:
Let me see if I get this correctly:
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Bernie Sanders went on demonstrations in the early 1960s, but then took a 50-year break until 2014. So he skipped the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women’s movement and the other critical social movements of his generation.
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Now he supports working people, but thinks its ok to bomb them in other countries.
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And he’s for democracy, but he supports monarchies and Israeli apartheid.
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He’s for government transparency, but wants Snowden to stand trial.
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He’s independent, but has always supported the corporate Democratic Party candidates.
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He’s against police violence, but thinks the police are a socialist institution.
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He voted against the Iraq War, but then voted to fund it.
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He’s battling the Washington establishment, but he’s a lifelong professional politician.
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He’s against Hillary Clinton, but has pledged to support her after she wins the primary.
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He’s a democratic socialist, but assures us he will not threaten capitalism.
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And he has proclaimed that his vote in Iowa was the beginning of a Political Revolution…
So — he’s getting movement activists off the streets and signing them up to strengthen the Democratic Party, a party that destroys progressive movements, so he can lead the revolution that will end Democratic Party politics, in order to move to a kind of socialism that preserves capitalism? Makes total sense.
