by
Dan Arel
The wave of revolutionary politics
that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are riding can be traced back
to George W. Bush. When Bush decided to Invade Iraq in 2003 he
ignited a counter protest movement of young activists that the
country had not seen since the Vietnam War. The activism continued
through the second Bush election when many felt inspired by Senator
John Kerry’s run for president as a well-known anti-war advocate. A
presidential run that failed for many reasons, one of which being
Kerry positioned himself as anti-war, yet voted in favor of the Iraq
invasion.
The movement continued to grow as
then Senator Barak Obama gained momentum and his “Yes We Can”
campaign slogan brought in young, energized voters that the country
desperately needed. However, it was Obama’s failure to be the
revolutionary politician he campaigned as they led to the biggest
revolutionary shift in the country as he decided not to give the boot
the oligarchy and instead bailed out the banks on Wall Street and big
business all over the country.
It was this failure that led to
the Occupy Wall Street movement as men and women, young and old had
had enough. The occupy movement forever changed the language
activists used when discussing wealth inequality. Suddenly everyone
was talking about the 99 percent, the one percent, and demanding that
student debt and rising healthcare costs be tackled once and for all.
The movement believed if we had trillions of dollars to invade
foreign countries, had billions of dollars to bail out fraudulent
bankers than we must have the money to take care of those suffering
and living in poverty.
It was the occupy movement that
opened the door for a Bernie Sanders campaign. A government that
still pandered to the capitalist class, that allowed the insurance
giants to mold the Affordable Care Act and leaving millions of
Americans with subpar insurance plans with premiums they cannot
afford to pay. It is not by accident that Sanders is using occupy
language at every campaign stop and in every debate. He genuinely
seems to care about wealth inequality and found the ability to turn
that into a presidential run that continued occupy’s work of
keeping these topics in the minds of every voter, every day.
The economic conditions created by
Obama’s administration and the inactive Republican-led congress
created the perfect storm that allowed Sanders to rally millions of
voters to a cause that would usher in a significant change in the
country. Unfortunately, Sanders, a lifelong independent decided to
run for president as a Democrat, a party that worked overtime to
crush his chances of winning the party’s nomination and silencing
his revolutionary ideas. In a sense, when and if Sanders stands on
the podium at the Democratic National Convention and asks supporters
to rally behind Secretary Clinton he will be betraying his revolution
but that does not mean the revolution must come to an end.
Like the movements before, Sanders
movement will live well beyond his campaign and should live well
beyond what is likely his coming betrayal of the movement when he
endorses Hillary Clinton and remains a member of the
counter-revolutionary Democratic Party.
For the next stages of the
revolution to continue it will need to push beyond the limits the
Sanders campaign set. The revolution must be willing to look beyond
constraints of capitalism and stop looking for ways to put bandaids
on it and find ways to replace it instead.
Sanders made it clear he was not
interesting in making sure that workers owned the means of
production, but a movement beyond his should make that goal
paramount. Without empowering workers to own their own labor, the
revolution quickly loses steam as capitalists find new ways to
exploit that labor and beat the working class back into submission.
Further conditions created by the
ruling class have further prepared activists to ignite social change
as well. As the fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage grows, the
Republican and Libertarian Party’s have questioned the need for not
only an increase but for a minimum wage at all and the belief that
the market can do a better job of controlling income. The same
market-based argument is being made from the right for healthcare,
retirement, and social safety nets. The war on the working class is
growing though attacks on workers rights and unions though
right-to-work bills. These are the conditions predicted by Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels, and the far left has noticed. Activists need to
be inside factories, talking to workers, and working to build a real
and vocal coalition of supporters who are no longer willing to be
trampled on by the capitalist elite.
How the left responds to this and
its success in organizing a mass movement beyond Sanders will become
paramount to its success in the coming years. Its success cannot be
realized by listening to Sanders forthcoming Clinton endorsement and
joining the Democratic Party regardless of who they nominate. A
strategy of just not being Donald Trump or the Republican Party is
not going to excite change, it will only serve to usher in more of
the same, or under a Clinton administration, continue to steer the
country more to the right.
It is finally time for workers of
the world to unite and realize they don’t actually have anything to
lose and do, in fact, have the world to gain. It’s time to think
beyond Sanders and time to think beyond capitalism.
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