This morning, Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign. (Here’s his full speech.) There’s no two ways about it, it’s a saddening loss, twice as painful because a lot of us thought he had a real shot after Iowa and New Hampshire. A truly disappointing moment in recent American politics and a monument to hubris of the DNC that they can shove a sexual predator down our throat and expect us to say thank you, tastes great.
In fact, the Democratic Party in promoting Joe Biden has shown it has few principles to betray in the first place. They find you puny and insignificant, so you owe them nothing. Vote how you want. Biden has a history of racist, anti-women, imperialist, pro-police state votes and policies on top of a credible sexual assault allegation, like a cherry on top of a shit sundae.
And then there’s Obama’s secret campaigning behind the scenes, the push for in-person voting during a pandemic, a Sanders media blackout, all compounding a center-right party’s institutional allergy to simply doing the right thing for ordinary people.
The appeal of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy had little to do with him. A gruff, Brooklyn schlub who gestured wildly with his hands while speaking in a half shout, didn’t check very many idpol boxes, and had it out for the sacred cows of American capital (the billionaire class). He never played nice with the Democratic Party, who saw him as an annoying houseguest they couldn’t get rid of fast enough.
He embarrassed them. He showed us who they really were: crooked liars who stan for capital every chance they get, a glib and smug group of elitist media pricks who sold the store while claiming they were guarding it. He treated the DNC with kid gloves, never fully going negative against any one candidate, trying to stay above the fray. (He should have gone for Biden’s blood, honestly.)
He’s everything Democrats claim to be on MSNBC; an actual fighter for social, economic, and racial justice. An actual working class success story. A fundraising machine. A winner with 30+ years of experience with the legislative chops to prove it. Most crucially, Sanders has a refreshing take on political life in America: that boot does not belong on your neck. You are not required to suffer while others sip mimosas on pleasure yachts. Your life has value because you are alive, not because you were awarded a Pell Grant or own a patent for shoes that light up. That was the appeal: you are not a faulty appliance to be discarded.
Of the moment we are in, he was uniquely qualified with a clear moral vision and sensible policies. He saw the urgency of these crises all falling like dominos and showed us with exasperated outrage that no one was doing anything to stop them. He wasn’t a Marxist in any specific sense, but still a decent human being with decent ideas who had a historic opportunity to ascend to the highest office in America.
Despite his usage of the words “political revolution”, his campaigns were more of a social activist factory that firmly shoved the Overton window way over the left. His platform is now mainstream. He’s no revolutionary leader, but he was one of the best possible electoral options. Honestly, nothing but a net positive in my opinion.
You’re under no requirement to vote for anyone, and don’t let anyone guilt you into betraying your principles. You can make a tactical choice to dethrone Trump or a moral choice to stay at home. Vote for the guy with a boot on his head. Whatever. I’m not your Dad. Half of America doesn’t vote anyway, which is strange because the scolds seem to laser focus on people who actively abstain rather than the throngs who have checked out entirely out of apathy, defeat, or disenfranchisement.
Anyone paying attention to history knows that you never elect social changes, especially the radical kinds that we need. Electoralism is damage control, not progress. Capitalism has a very strong self-defense grid and knows how to defend itself: with rightwing centrists who call themselves progressives, with corporations pretending to care about LGBTQ+ people, with woke imperialism. They co-opt your energy and market it, that’s what they do. Elections have a unique way of crystallizing attention, which is what both of Sanders’ campaigns have done. How many people have become genuine leftists from mere exposure to something other than cruel neoliberalism?
Well, we don’t have to fuck around with the DNC anymore this year. With the economy in freefall, a raging pandemic in a country with paperthin healthcare, there’s 10 million people out of work. Capitalism is fragile when stress-tested like this. Biden has supporters but little enthusiasm. Trump has a cult whom most people find disgusting. An entire country is waiting for a different story. One that we tell.
The questions are always the same: why is my life so brutal? Why is the grocery store packed with food, but communities have to organize emergency food delivery? Why do I have so little political power? When that question becomes “we” instead of “I”, you got something much more promising.
Bernie Sanders is not single handedly responsible for the resurrection of the American Left, but to be fair, he gets to take a share of the credit. The financial crash in 2009, the Iraq War, and the disappointment of the Obama administration may have more to do with it, yet it’s undeniable that his campaigns focused and amplified a desire to think bigger, do more, and stop settling for the bare minimum. That we are not alone and there are class-based interests out there opposing us, a line dividing wealth and poverty becoming more clear by the day. This is the first inklings of mass class consciousness.
Today, Bernie Sanders is no longer running for President. Tomorrow, the connections and networks his candidacy helped build will still be there. We will still have the same fire and energy from yesterday. The gap left by his candidacy will be filled with more radically necessary steps. Socialism does not get elected, it is enacted by the working class when they finally say enough is enough. The issues we face are far larger than a single candidate in a single election. The genie is out of the bottle: we don’t have to settle for scraps and we never did.
Because this was never just about Bernie Sanders. It was about everything else.
Carl Wilhoyte is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His work has appeared in Street Fight Radio, District Sentinel, Abomination Magazine, Bourbon Penn, and Farmhouse Magazine.