An audience member raises their hand at a presidential campaign event for Bernie Sanders on September 27, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. The Sanders campaign implicitly calls upon us to begin talking about how we might move beyond the Bernie Sanders political battle. (Photo: Phil Roeder; Edited: LW / TO)
Following Hillary Clinton’s primary victories this Tuesday in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri, some new questions are emerging among progressives: Can the enthusiasm that Bernie Sanders has inspired weather electoral disappointments like this one? And — perhaps most important — has Sanders’ candidacy engendered new forms of progressive mobilization that will last beyond this primary season, no matter who wins the nomination? In both cases, I would say the answer is “yes.” However, this affirmation is entirely contingent upon what we do next.
From the start, the thrust of Sanders’ political campaign has resided in the idea that a truly representative candidate funded by ordinary people is possible. To the surprise of many and the consternation of a few, he has proved that fact again and again.
No matter which candidate receives the Democratic nomination, an important shift has occurred: Sanders has brought back the power of a democratic “we” — something that the Black Lives Matter movement, young people, pensioners, students, environmental activists, progressive unions and indeed the majority of Americans innately understand. Sanders’ campaign has uncovered how opportunists and wealthy elites have gradually taken our democracy from us and turned it into an elite oligarchy that benefits the few instead of the many.
It has become abundantly clear that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party see this kind of anti-establishment, grassroots, “we” political movement as a very profound threat. The evidence for this lies in the loyalties of the…