Some Suggestions for the Sanders Campaign

Want a lesson in how to be a populist while not alienating potential supporters? Look no further than FDR.

Liz Warren was my favorite of the Democratic presidential candidates by far. Bernie was number two (and the only other one I feel genuine excitement for), so I have decided to back him against Biden. I live in New Jersey, so my vote might not even matter come June, but in the meantime I would like to do my bit to support him.

If I can't vote yet, I would like to offer some advice. The first would be to learn from the results on Super Tuesday. I was honestly shocked at how well Biden did, considering how tepid his campaign had been to this point, and how little he campaigned in places where he won. As the saying goes, "the party decides," and folks from Klobuchar to Clyburne decided to back the only established moderate candidate capable of uniting most of the party. (Warren was too progressive for them, but at least it wasn't Bloomberg.) With the nationalization of politics, retail politics (where Sanders has an advantage) are less important these days as well.

Something I learned from doing competitive debate in high school and college was that the worst thing you could do after a loss was to blame it on the judges or your opponents not playing fair. That might make you feel better, but it would not help you win the next time out. Unfortunately, the Bernie movement has a tendency to only find fault in others, and lacks the self-reflection needed to win this fight. That's why I think it's crucial that those of us coming to Bernie now offer our perspective, since we have a better understanding of how to preach to the unconverted.

In the first place, Super Tuesday was proof that trying to get new voters to the polls simply won't work. It could be that Sanders fails to inspire new voters, or that primary voting is such a specialized and rare thing that it's hard to get ANYONE to do it. In any case, to win he needs to get the votes of regular Democrats. This is going to be a problem, because a lot of Sanders supporters spend their time attacking Democratic politicians. Most voters, however, are not ideologically rigid. They tend to vote for who they like or who appeals to them for a variety of reasons. I know people who vote enthusiastically for candidates of wildly varying political ideologies because of this. If you tell someone that voting for Bernie means disdaining Obama, for example, you will lose. Obama is by far the most popular politician of my lifetime, especially in the Democratic Party. If Bernie wants the votes of African Americans in particular, he needs to claim the Obama legacy, not run against it as he often has done.

Another issue is in terms of branding. Sanders called himself a "democratic socialist," but his policies are really in line with the New Deal social democracy that the Democrats embraced before Jimmy Carter and the "Watergate babies." He could get a lot of mileage by showing himself to be in the party lineage, and not by using a label that's not only alienating to people in the middle, but also not even accurate to who he actually is.

Sanders also needs to use his anti-establishment rhetoric more selectively. It often takes on an "it's us against the world" mentality that understandably alienates the people on the outside looking in. It makes them feel as if they are not wanted in the "us." Compare this to how Barack Obama was able to bring people in. What seems to be getting lost these days is that Obama managed to win an insurgent campaign and go on to be the most popular president of my lifetime. Despite this, no one seems to be learning any lessons from him. (I am not saying he was flawless, only that he was good at getting elected president!) When the "establishment" stuff is aimed at other Democrats that a lot of progressive Democrats like, they are not going to warm to you.

There's also a problem that when every setback in the campaign is blamed on the media or party establishment, it makes Bernie sound like a loser. If you spend all your time complaining about process, guess what, you just lost. (Just look at Democrats in Congress failing to make Trump accountable for his crimes!)  In public it's better to project confidence about the next battle ahead, not complaining about how you were robbed in the last one. That plays well to the base, but as we've seen, that base is simply not enough to get him over the top.

Related to that, Sanders has to stop denying that the culture around his campaign is a liability, especially in attracting women. A minority of his online supporters seem more interested in proclaiming their moral superiority than in actually winning, and are huge assholes about it. The same people will then deny there's a problem. While every candidate has dickish supporters, the Sanders campaign seems to have a culture that cultivates behavior alienating to others. Part of the reason I am even writing this is to add an alternative voice to the mix. I am going for Bernie, but I personally know multiple Warren supporters (all women) who have basically said that the behavior of Sanders supporters has made it so that they simply don't want to be on the same team as them. Even if some folks feel this is merely a matter of perception, that perception has to be fixed.

Above all, I would urge the Sanders campaign to lean on positivity and on the promise of his program. The attraction of social democracy is that it promises a better world where all people can have dignity and protection. Isn't that a great thing? Don't we want a world where we are getting quality health care and able to go to college or have children without going bankrupt? (On a related note, he needs to stress child care as much or more than he is stressing college tuition.) Calling out "the banks" might help a little, but most people are less eaten up by anger than we have been led to believe.

Biden's biggest weakness is that he is trying to maintain a failed status quo. Bernie's greatest attraction is that he is offering something better. That message alone won't bring in voters unless they feel like they are welcome in the tent in tangible, not rhetorical ways. There's still time for Sanders to turn his campaign around, but when I see the dead-end nature of his supporters' resentment, I doubt it can happen. I hope I'm wrong.

We Need Social Democracy, not Sanders Worship

I'll take Bayard Rustin over Bernie Sanders any day of the week

There's been a lot of discussion this week about Bernie Sanders campaigning for a Democratic candidate for mayor of Omaha who's sponsored mandatory ultrasound bills and other anti-choice measures associated with the most repressive conservatives. (This is different than maintaining a moral opposition to abortion a la Tim Kaine. If you think otherwise you are blinded by your adulation.)

I find this to be the most recent iteration of a deep problem I have with a lot of people on the left side of the spectrum who support Sanders. They are willing to compromise on or ignore the issues that matter very specifically to women and people of color. (Sanders is also soft on gun control, which is another issue.)  It is the same problem many self-described socialists I know have, whereby they think that if social class is addressed all other inequalities will somehow melt away. It is a narrow and dangerous way of thinking, and it is in fact quite insulting to the people whose grievances are going unheard.

I keep hearing people talk about the Democratic primaries last year as if the party apparatus itself stopped Sanders.

No.

He lost primary votes because he failed to appeal to the specific concerns of many voters due to the narrowness of his message. Most obviously, he failed to get the support of African Americans, who are one of the absolute pillars of the Democratic Party and its most loyal constituents. Those voters clearly perceived Sanders' inability to see their specific concerns as separate from his general bromides about the 1%. While he made efforts to correct this, it was too little too late. His recent support for Mello in Omaha and his assertion that Trump voters "aren't racist" pretty much shows that he is still trapped in a vision of social democracy that is race and gender blind.

We deserve better than this. As loyal readers may note, I have written for both Jacobin and Liberal Currents. I do not see a contradiction, because I define myself as a social democrat, and that is an identity in this country that straddles the line between liberalism and the Left. It's also one that leaves me feeling like a man without a political country. Sanders' message is inherently social democratic, but the cult of personality around him has sucked the life out of any true social democratic movement. Instead, so many people are hung up on supporting Sanders, rather than leading a movement of their own.

That must change, because Sanders' vision of social democracy is wrong and outdated. I want a social democracy rooted in an uncompromising commitment to the rights and dignity of all people. That means treating issues around race, gender, and sexuality with as much seriousness as economic ones, or, for that matter, not treating them as if they are separate, rather than intertwined. (I am not going to say "intersectional" because I want a mass movement on the left that does not resort to grad student jargon.) I appreciate that Sanders has helped popularize a more social democratic politics, but it is time for others to step up and for him to take a step back. If not the current flowering of social democracy in this country will wither and die.

Sanders' Missed Opportunity And Its Consequences

Bernie Sanders. That's a name that probably hasn't been on your mind in about a month, reflecting his growing irrelevancy. It recently occurred to me that by refusing to concede, Sanders and his supporters are accomplishing the opposite of their goal. Bernie has refused to drop out despite losing the popular vote by millions and the delegates by a healthy margin, ostensibly to push the Democratic party to the left.

That strategy, to put it bluntly, is failing. While Sanders supporters have been refusing to get behind Clinton, her lead in the polls has only grown stronger and stronger in the last month. Trump's manifest unfitness for the office of president is getting more and more apparent each day even with voters skeptical of Hillary. The Republican Party has failed to maintain unity. Because of this, Clinton has little incentive to bargain with Sanders and his hardcore supporters because she does not seem to need them.

That was not the case right after the primaries ended, when Trump got a polling surge typical for a new nominee. At that moment, if Sanders had pulled out of the race and endorsed Clinton, he might have actually had some real leverage. He could have easily said (candidly, of course) "Now that I've dropped my campaign and given you a big boost, here are some things that we need to do." Right now events have turned in a way that have closed that window.

While I eventually tired of Sanders, I think that his strategic failure is bad news generally for the Democratic party. With no leverage to her left, Hillary can easily go into the triangulation strategy that Bill used to effectively in the 1990s. Already she has been advocating 1990s-Clinton type proposals, like easing the student loan debt of entrepreneurs and small business owners. It's the type of 90s Clinton proposal that hits the right political targets but doesn't really do much of anything, and undercuts more egalitarian approaches. Feeling freed from the need to placate the left, expect a lot more of this from Clinton this election.

Of course, not all of this can be laid at the door of Bernie Sanders, but his missed opportunity is indicative of larger political problems that the left has. The left seems hell-bent on moral victories, and not so much on actual political victory. Sanders' talk of "revolution" has just been fuzzy-headed, well-meaning bullshit. Said "revolution," which would be necessary to accomplish his political agenda, just isn't possible in the current political landscape, meaning that if he were president he would have no way of getting anything accomplished. This is why I am much more hopeful about the Sanders supporters trying to get like minded candidates into Congress, rather than those aiming to pitch a fit at the Philly convention this summer. I have been distressed to see so many people put so much trust and faith in a man who appears to be completely incompetent when it comes to exercising political power. It's time that the left stopped letting their opponents have the monopoly on hard-headedness and pragmatism. If not, expect more "beautiful losers" who excite people and accomplish little in the years to come.

I Didn't Lose The Bern, The Bern Lost Me

This year has been a first in my life as a voter. I am going to be withdrawing support from a candidate I was once very excited about due to the actions of his supporters. Since my one little vote will never sway an election, I always vote with my conscience, since that's how I'm able to sleep at night.  For a long time, despite my doubts about his capability of wielding the power of the presidency, my conscience was with Bernie Sanders. I consider myself to be a social democrat and his program to temper the excesses of capitalism and use the state to improve the lives of its citizens by effectively redistributing wealth was exactly what I'd been waiting to hear from the Democratic Party.

Now my conscience doesn't feel so clear, and it has little to do with Hillary Clinton, whom I mostly liked then and now (while still maintaining a healthy skepticism.) The behavior of Sanders and his supporters is exposing some major problems with certain sectors of the left. Early on I dismissed the "Bernie Bro" as an invention, but my time online has shown me that Sanders supporters tend to be excessive in their unwillingness to hear criticism of their candidate and aggressive in their treatment of others.  Whenever he fails at the polls, or fails to capture the votes of crucial parts of the Democratic coalition (African Americans in particular), there's always an excuse or a conspiracy theory. 

This week, with the violent displays at the Nevada Democratic state convention, things have gotten much uglier. I am also hearing talk of major disruptions at the party convention in Philly this summer by Bernie supporters.  This is happening despite the fact that he has no real way to win the nomination, and Donald Trump has emerged as the Republican nominee. The stakes of this kind of stuff are thus very high. 

I think I have discovered the conceit that lies at the base of all of this. Many Sanders supporters see him as the living and breathing embodiment of the popular will. This means that all who oppose or disagree with him are the forces of corporate evil or dupes. This explains the friend on Facebook who compared HRC to Reagan, as if the architect of the first real go at a national health insurance program was the equivalent of the man who railed against "socialized medicine."   

Furthermore, if Sanders is indeed the embodiment of the popular will, the only explanation for his defeat must be corruption and treachery. Hence the media gets blamed, or super delegates, or Democratic Party chicanery.

OK, Sandroids, you finally wore me down. I actually have detected a conspiracy! On random Tuesdays, Democratic Party voters are congregating scattered locations and going into covered booths where no one can see what they're doing. I've discovered that they are marking ballots that are kept secret, and that they are conspiracy to mark those ballots for Hillary Clinton. What's more, a majority of the Democrats actually appear to be in on it! How treacherous!

In all seriousness, it is hard for me to make common cause with people who treat politics like a religious cult. My days of dogma are long gone. When the primaries finally come here to New Jersey in June, I will not be so sure who to pull the lever for. Sanders supporters have themselves to thank for that.

On Not Feeling The Bern

As the primaries approach, I have a sinful admission to make: I’m not feeling the Bern.

Don’t get me wrong, I will gladly vote for him in the primaries, barring some crazy occurrence between now and then.  I am glad to have the chance to pull the lever for an actual social democrat whose platform probably comes closest to my point of view of an candidate for president has in my lifetime. 

That being said, it is difficult for me to muster enthusiasm or to identify myself strongly with Sanders.  I don't plan on buying any bumper stickers or signs.  I have almost been completely bled of political idealism.  Perhaps it’s due to some disillusioning life experiences I’ve had in the last ten years, or maybe it’s just the inevitable hardening of outlook that comes in middle age.  There is a naivete to Sanders’ campaign and in his supporters that puts me off.  It’s the same naivete on the Left that has been irritating and frustrating me for most of my adult life. 

If Sanders beats the odds and is elected president, he will be dealing with a Republican House dominated by conservative ideologues, and maybe also a Senate containing the likes of Ted Cruz, who can use his (ridiculous) Senatorial privileges to block legislation all by himself.  None of Sanders’ sweeping proposals have much of a chance of succeeding in an environment where Obamacare repeal resolutions are submitted and voted up on a monthly basis.  To get things done will require Democratic supermajorities or a canny ability to use what power and leverage he has, which Obama has managed to do.  Sanders' style doesn't show much capacity for the nitty gritty work of politics.

Beyond that, does anyone seriously envision him as a world leader?  Whether we like it or not, that's actually the most important aspect of the modern presidency.  Foreign policy is the place where presidents have a lot of authority and control.  At the debates he keeps with his message reducing inequality and the power of money in politics, but he seems to display a lack of thought or reflection about his potential role as a world leader.  (This issue doesn't make me support, Hillary, by the way. She is most definitely a liberal interventionist and as such too hawkish for me by half.)  Just because a lot of his supporters don't care about foreign policy doesn't change the fact that it is absolutely essential.  

Deep down I think the big issue behind all of this is that when Sanders decided to run he did so without any actual desire to be president.  I think he conceived of his candidacy as a way to get certain issues of inequality front and center, and to energize the left wing of the Democratic Party, and in that he has been very successful.  He has done that job so well that he is able to seriously challenge Clinton, at least in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Now with changing fortunes maybe he is actually running as if he seriously wants to be president, as a friend theorized to me recently.  He may be right.  That still doesn't inspire confidence in me.

Now of course I am still voting for him because I am of the mind that I ought to vote for the candidate who best represents my interests and viewpoints.  This reflects, to my mind, my own version of political pragmatism.  What bothers me is that so many Sanders supporters seem to act as if politics is an exercise in pure idealism.  When people like Paul Krugman say things very similar to what I have said, they get upset.  When Ta-Nehisi Coates criticized Sanders' unwillingness to acknowledge the intersection of race and class, they were even more upset.  When Clinton's campaign started Red-baiting Sanders, they grew apoplectic.  Now there are legitimate critiques of what Krugman and Coates had to say, and Clinton's Red-baiting is just wretched, but responding to critiques of your candidate with a "how dare you" tone shows a remarkable lack of political intelligence.

Politics is a blood sport.  It always has been, it always will be.  If you are upset Clinton's allies are Red-baiting Sanders, you HIT THEM BACK, not whine about how the game isn't being played fairly.  Politics is about getting shit done for you constituents, period.  I can't eat ideals.  Ideals don't pay the rent or put my kids though college.  This is why New York's old Tammany Hall, as corrupt as it was, stayed in power.  It brought home the bacon to its poor constituents, and they rewarded it with their votes.  Anyone in their position who wouldn't do so would've been an idiot.  Sanders proposes all kinds of things that I think would be great for me and for most of the people in this country, but if he doesn't propose these things in the context of current political realities, what's the point?  

The Left needs to end its juvenile cult of the beautiful loser.  The point of the political game is to WIN dammit.  It's not to be a better person than your opponent.  I don't like writing that, but that's the damn truth.  I love Sanders' ideas and his passion, but what would a Sanders presidency actually accomplish?  As of now, I would have to say not much.  That, ultimately, is why even though Sanders has my vote, I am not feeling the Bern.  That doesn't make me a reactionary, it makes me realistic, and the Left could use a hefty dose of realism.