“How Democrats Dodged a Bullet;
but for Just How Long?”
by Yosvani Oliva Iglesias
For a revolutionary leader, Bernie Sanders has proven to be very docile. The Junior Senator from Vermont is a fiery orator that talks a big game when proposing bold ideas that, he often claims, would transform American society. Yet, for all his bravado and confrontational rhetoric, amid a background of foul play and outright dismissal of his ideas and those of his followers, Senator Sanders continues to be a well-behaved team player, a far cry from the disruptive agitator that he has been portrayed to be. The Sanders’ revolution is more akin to Newt Gingrich’s conservative revolution than to a transformative historical event, say like the French or Cuban revolutions, if Gingrich’s conservative revolution were on Prozac.
Let’s be honest here, the DNC has botched this primary process in every way imaginable, and I’m not talking about technical issues and delays in releasing results. They talk about the existential importance of defeating President Trump in November but behave as if nothing were fundamentally different.
They refer to President Trump as the greatest threat ever to the American experiment in democracy, yet they roll out insipid, bland, uninspiring Joe Biden and lie, push and shove the electorate into coalescing around the former Vice President. Coming out of the arduous 2016 primaries, DNC leaders often spoke of the need for unity. After the defeat of Hillary Clinton, talk of party unity and the need to defeat Trump as the Democrat’s main goal were the cornerstone of the party’s narrative. But the Democrats have shown time and again that they are better at singing Kumbaya than they are at gathering as brothers and sisters and living out the old spiritual.
Somehow, in a betrayal hereto unseen, ideas that had been at the core of Democratic values, some of which date back to the century before last, were laughed at, ridiculed and caricatured by Democratic presidential nominee after nominee. In the most important election of everyone’s lifetime, coming off a heart-wrenching defeat in 2016 that many attributed to divisions within the party, the DNC has chosen to dismiss Senator Sanders and his supporters as something less than legit, as if they weren’t needed. Perhaps, emboldened by record-breaking turnouts during primaries and the blue wave of the 2018 midterm elections, the DNC feels that it can turn the tide in November without having to seduce Senator Sanders’s young and loyal base of progressive supporters. They are wrong, but they are right.
If Senator Sanders’s movement were a real revolution they would be wrong because if Senator Sanders’s movement were a real revolution, in this most critical election ever, he would launch a third-party candidacy that would force Democrats to choose between him or having Trump in the White House four more years; because a real revolution would challenge every centrist Democrat running for office; because real revolutions are hostile, confrontational, chaotic, transformative. A septuagenarian career public servant is many things but revolutionary, and the DNC knows it. The Democrats may have dodged a bullet, but for how long.
The rally of “vote blue no matter who” might just be enough to put the Democratic nominee over the top in November. But, make no mistake, a vote in November for Joe Biden is really a vote against President Trump. The boogeyman on the other side might be scary enough for the line to hold, which begs the question: What then? What will happen once there is no Trump to rally against? Can we trust a man who has sleepwalked through the nomination process to lead the party into the future? Is there a future for a party that refuses to make room for younger voters?
One doesn’t need a crystal ball to know that Senator Sanders’s agenda is popular. Poll after poll has shown that ideas such as Medicare for All, Student debt forgiveness and a $15.00 an hour minimum wage are popular. Experience has shown us that compromises and lukewarm measures are not enough to accomplish the changes that are needed and wanted by a majority of Americans; one needs to look no further than the ACA for proof.
History has shown us that successful revolutions are carried out not by a majority of the people, but by a determined and unrelenting minority. Senator Sanders’ base has proven to have the passion to be that minority. They are not going anywhere and they are growing frustrated. Most importantly, Bernie Sanders won’t always be there and the next guy may not want to play by the same rules. The Democrats dodged a bullet because the revolution they so fear isn’t so, yet.
Senator Sanders had a strong base, he decided not to take risks and he betrayed the movement by supporting the old fogey and not putting a third option on the race. The Democratic party is a joke and Sanders knows it, but his seniority in the senate is more important to him. The system gives you two choices: a hypocritical right wing money party or
an ideologically convinced extreme right wing money party and neither of them care about people; they just care about their donors.