The overall dimensions of the political landscape and the challenges we face

Bernie spoke to his legion of followers last week, telling them he is committed to the ambitious goal of reforming the Democratic Party. It was a clear signal that he is not at this time entertaining any thoughts of simply walking away from it in disgust.

This, of course, is not likely to cheer a good many of his supporters who have come to view the Democratic Party's centrist-dominated establishment with revulsion. And who can blame them?

But there are a number of reasons why I believe Bernie is right to focus The Revolution's efforts on an attempt to reform the Democratic Party and "drive the money-changers from the temple" (if you'll forgive the analogy).

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Crucial Political Reality #1: getting our agenda discussed on the national level and significantly expanding the number of people who are defending it is the absolute key to turning Bernie's ambitious economic agenda into the law of the land.

It is quite true that the Democratic Party is currently corrupted by corporate donor money and by the Centrists' cynical political philosophy of Professional Disingenuousness.

But as corrupted as the party currently is, it is nevertheless filled with people who have largely identified with a basic expressed sympathy for the interests of average Americans as opposed to the blatant shilling for The Corporate Cause that we see in the Republican Party.

Because even Corporate Dems have embraced this public identity, they are forced by their own words to listen to us and to try to defend their rationalizations from our pointed criticisms.

They want to continue to mislead millions of low-information Dems about what can and can't be done for average Americans? Then they'll have to go through us to pull off such schemes and when they do we're going to rip their arguments apart.

Compare that challenge to an effort to debate both parties on the national stage from an independent Third Party perspective, knowing full well that the MSM would ignore us and that the Republicans would simply ridicule our efforts and try to define us as bomb throwers on the fringe who can be casually dismissed.

Surely it would far better for us to fight out a Civil War within the Democratic Party with the MSM paying attention to it than it would be for us to set out on the path of setting up a new political party, which would be ignored/marginalized from day one.

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In order for us to arrive at the place where we want to end up (our political movement embraced by the majority of voters) I think it's important that we achieve some clarity re: where we are within the political universe.

Crucial Political Reality #2: The ultimate truth about our Movement is that Economic Progressives only comprise a rather small minority of the total electorate. There are a lot of people we need to persuade to see things our way if we want to achieve any of our lofty goals.

It has always been easier for us to find ears willing to listen to us within the Democratic Party, mostly because our economic vision is 100% consistent with traditional values that the party once used to identify with.

It is also a place where we have wielded quite a bit of influence over the years: comprising as much as 30%-40% of those who have identified with Dem Party politics over the years. (Other reasons: we are willing to spend our $$ on political causes we believe in and many of us are willing to invest our time on them as well.)

Bernie Sanders' campaign was able to take off last summer only because our narrow slice of the electorate responded to his message with enthusiasm. We were indeed the low-hanging fruit that was available; we were 'born' receptive to his message of hope.

This core of Bernie Sanders' support is a group that is much more informed re: economic issues and re: political news in general compared to the majority of voters. We are, by and large, 'high-information' voters, many of whom have advanced levels of education (see college students for Bernie).

Once the movement began to achieve some momentum, it became easier to win over many of the 'lower-information' Dems out there who aren't very well informed about economic policy discussions. They began to hop on his bandwagon because they could see that they would clearly benefit from his proposals but also because the campaign's growing momentum allowed their 'herding instincts' to kick in.

But that was when desperation within the Clinton campaign convinced her strategic team that they had to 'go negative' on Bernie and his followers in a more direct fashion in order to stop the bleeding of Hillary's support to Bernie's enthusiastic following.

The goal of these artful smears was quite simple: they needed to create a negative image of the Bernie Sanders campaign within the minds of low-information Dems that they would not want to identify with. Modeling disgust for Sanders's supporters did a lot of damage to our cause for it convinced many of the uninformed that there was something 'bad' about Bernie and his people.

The method they employed was simple: use expressions of negative emotion---harsh criticism, outrage, scornful assessments of Sanders' proposals/supporters---to create a negative image of Bernie Sanders and us that 'loyal [low-info] Dems' would feel hesitant to identify with.

It ultimately did work in that it did stop the bleeding enough to keep her campaign in the running vis-a-vis Sanders, close enough for her minions within the institutional party apparatus to swing several primaries into her official win column. But unfortunately for her, it did also at the same time guarantee that she will be losing the general election in November.

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Crucial Political Reality #3: Ours is primarily an educational campaign that needs to 'grow the numbers' in the coming months and years in order to achieve the success we desire.

We may be a thin slice of the electorate but we need to become a much bigger slice. That is to say, we need to increase the number of people who are 'high-information' representatives of the movement. People who can go toe-to-toe with the Corporate Dems (minions of The Oligarchy) and defend our economic vision from their specious arguments.

The simple truth is that we are not going to find any people more 'qualified' and receptive to our fundamental message than in the Democratic Party. Indeed, I expect most of the people we need on our side are currently bashing us and our inspirational leader in a fevered state of partisanship, having dedicated themselves to the extremely dubious goal of making Hillary Clinton the next POTUS.

So yeah, at the current time, my proposition may seem like an exercise in futility, given the level of vitriol they are still pumping out at the Bernie Sanders Movement. But I predict that in nine months time, we will find ourselves in a completely different political environment, one that will give us fresh opportunities to expand our influence within the Democratic Party.

Right now, many so-called progressives with a strong Dem Party identity have echo-chambered themselves into a highly partisan state of Him-Bad. Much of that will melt away in the weeks and months following Hillary's defeat in November.

Defeat/failure will lead them to extended periods of navel-gazing. Only then will they be able to allow themselves to entertain the possibility that Hillary just wasn't that good of a candidate and that her decision to split the Democratic Party into partisan factions was a really, really stupid idea.

This will be our window of opportunity to expand our influence within the Dem Party. The Centrists within the party will be properly tagged as LOSERS, and it will ultimately discredit them in the eyes of the low-information Dems who trusted their [perfidious] leadership.

We need to be ready at that time to provide clarity to those who want to understand what happened. Sure, the Centrists and the Corporate Dems will continue with the finger-pointing, but they will no longer enjoy the benefit of the doubt that so many are giving them at this time.

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Crucial Political Reality #4: We must do the very thing Hillary and her operatives have been trying so hard to get us to do for several months: abandon any and all efforts to help her become POTUS.

Their fundamental political calculation since January has been that they can insult us and misrepresent us and defame us for weeks and months and then after she has secured the nomination, we will all feel such terror at the thought of a Trump Presidency, we will still end up giving her the votes she needs to win the GE.

But what they failed to account for was the fact that most of us are not able to see anything in the prospect of a Trump Presidency that is more frightening to us than what we can see in the prospect of a Clinton Presidency. I quote one of my comments from the other day:

She is so far to the right (war & peace & corporate power), and he is sufficiently 'leftish' (supported abortion before he was against it, less hawkish) that it really doesn't matter so much this time. We're screwed no matter which of them wins.

For that reason, because she has made it such a toss up for us, we are actually free this election season to show our resentment at how we were treated by fully depriving them of any of our support, no matter what Bernie has to say to us.

Why 'go nuclear?' Because this time, if Hillary loses, the Clinton 'empire' within the Democratic Party will be severely discredited. The Centrists would be forever damaged by the stupidity/foolishness of their tactics, their desperate willingness to assassinate the character of a true friend of the party.

It could very well give us the opening we need to begin radically transforming the Dem Party into The People's party. If she loses, those institutional Democrats who liked what Bernie was saying would be given the political cover they need to break away from The Losers.

That is really what is at stake for us this Fall. Yes, those stakes are very high indeed.

So high that, if Hillary is competitive in late October due to the support she is getting from warhawk Republicans, I will in all likelihood go from writing in Bernie's name on the ballot to voting for Trump outright.

Trump may still say something that truly terrifies me between now and then, but there is at least one scenario in which I would do the unthinkable---vote for a Republican---simply because of the good it would do for the future of the Democratic Party and the prospects of defeating the Oligarchy in the long run.

Given the reprehensible behavior of the Clinton operatives who have gone out of their way to defame the good name and character of Bernie Sanders within the Democratic Party, we should accordingly do everything in our power to make sure that these individuals pay the ultimate price for their political sins.

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I have a history of being open to the idea of a third party (anyone remember Labor Party Advocates?) and was actually entertaining some hopes earlier in the year that Bernie might go ahead and run as an independent if he failed to get the Dem nomination.

After all, it seems a highly likely possibility that he would win a three-way race against Trump and Clinton, given his strength with Independents.

But then one day someone reminded me that with our Electoral College crap system of choosing the President, if no candidate is able to win a majority of the Electoral College votes (270), the Republican-held House of Representative would name the new President.

There were other concerns to take into consideration, as well, but that particular fact pretty much killed my enthusiasm for an independent run by Sanders this year...

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James Kroeger

"It ultimately did work in that it did stop the bleeding enough to assure her the nomination (given the additional efforts that were made to rig the elections in her favor). But unfortunately for her, it did also at the same time guarantee that she will be losing the general election in November."
You lost me here, James Kroeger.
It simply isn't true. You were in my diary yesterday. Please, she is far from assured the nomination. I have been fighting this so hard. You can't convince me otherwise. You lost my faith in that what you are saying here is valid.
Unless you have proof that she is going to be handed this primary, please stop perpetuating this. It does nothing but hurt our chances at change.

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'Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it." Elwood P. Dowd "

It simply isn't true. You were in my diary yesterday. Please, she is far from assured the nomination. I have been fighting this so hard. You can't convince me otherwise.

You lost my faith in that what you are saying here is valid. Unless you have proof that she is going to be handed this primary, please stop perpetuating this. It does nothing but hurt our chances at change.

I must say I'm surprised at your response, but I can see that I could have done a better job of making my essential point re: the effectiveness of negative campaigning without giving the impression that I believe there is a zero percent chance of Bernie ending up the Dem Party nominee (which I actually do believe is possible).

How's this?

It ultimately did work in that it did stop the bleeding enough to keep her campaign in the running vis-a-vis Sanders, close enough for her minions within the institutional party apparatus to swing several primaries into her official win column.

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James Kroeger

I think that Bernie would have a good chance of winning enough states as a third party candidate. Remember, he's competing against all the candidates in each state. If he were to be allowed to join the presidential debates, I believe he would have a landslide, in fact.

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Could he pull off enough state wins to achieve 270? There seems to be a lot of uncertainty there.

You'd have to hope that in each of the key states (typically blue states) that he'd need to win, you'd hope that the three of them would be about evenly split in the polls right up to the end, just to avoid Clinton and Trump ganging up on Bernie in October.

Let him stay just behind the leaders like the cross country runner that he was and then depend on a strong kick at the end after T and C have trashed each other thoroughly.

The mind reels at the possibilities...

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James Kroeger

I agree with many of the issues you present, but the main premise, that we should work within the Democratic party to implement change is trhre first I disagree with. We have our proverbial backs to the wall, and acquiescing would simply be accepting the corruption, collusion, and establishment flaws that are inherent in, and are all controlling of the "party". I feel equally that Hillary is a deeply flawed, corrupt, and dangerous possibility as POTUS. Her military attitudes alone scare the hell out of me, and her policies toward fracking, and fossil fuels are just as dangerous to our long term welfare as is her tendency to military voyeurism. That said, "She" is very adept at controlling the message that voters get...as you alluded to, and we already see the MSM pig piling on Trump. Her earns his lumps, but again, I agree with your assessment that he is no more a danger to our country, than enabling another 8 years of the Clinton Dynasty.

I will never vote for him, but I will never vote for Hillary to prevent him winning the White House.

As far as the party loyalists??? I don't believe they exist in any substantive way, other than in the ilk of DWS and thge fore-sworn supers that want o maintain the establishment control of the airwaves, the Wall St. donors etc.. It is time to abandon, wholesale, the two party system, and that can only happen if we work our fingers to the bone to create a viable third party. That is why I will write in, or vote green in November.

One final note of contention with your well considered essay... We are not a small slice of the electorate. Indies are on their way to doubling the numbers of either D, or R voters. Bernie has more supporters than either HRC, or Trump... they were just shut out of the primaries to assure establishment priorities. We have the numbers. We need leadership, and motivation to kick our defeatist asses into a new age of representative governance.

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Believe me, I understand the appeal of turning to a third party, of trying to start all over again at creating a viable political alternative to the other two parties.

I am, in fact, still open to the theoretical possibility that an independent run by Sanders could produce greater gains for the anti-oligarchy cause than would a stand off with the Centrists for control of the Dem Party, if I could come across some encouraging arguments.

But I am cautioned by my decades-long experience in having witnessed the relative ease with which clever Republican (and Centrist) strategists are able to manipulate perceptions and persuade working folks to vote against their own best interests.

It takes a lot more than simply being right on the issues and advocating for policies that would benefit the vast majority of average Americans. Even if Bernie had (or does) win the nomination, his emphasis on the issues would ultimately end up being a secondary object of focus, compared to the ultimate priority of winning the image campaign, which as the Republicans well know, is the key to winning national elections.

Having two corporatist parties around will simply mean that both will combine their resources to demonize the Progressives' movement, if the Progressives were ever to really threaten to become the dominate political power in the land.

Both Bernie Sanders and I have had a long history of not identifying with the Democratic Party, but we both see the prosecution of a civil war with the Centrists as offering us the best chance there is of a progressive economic agenda ever becoming law.

Seriously, if we can't defeat them in a party whre our positions are actually more Democratic than theirs, where we enjoy certain advantages, then how can we seriously hope to prevail against the Oligarchy when it is us against the entire minion-dominated world?

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James Kroeger

Hawkfish's picture

As part of the waiting game, there is no reason we can't build up a viable third party threat and await developments later. I'm moving to the Greens for the rest of the election. If they can mount a credible challenge, then maybe the next time around the Dems will be more pliable. And if not, I now have a voice.

Personally, I think this year is going to be very interesting for 3rd parties. The Libertarians are already polling well enough to make the debates and they will pull the saner elements of the GOP (nasty, but sane). We need to do the same on the left with the Greens. They are now at 5% and with a bit more push, they could be on that stage as well. And then the fur will really fly.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Diomedes77's picture

Of course, there is a further difference between a lot of Sanders voters and those of us to his left. Personally, I don't think Bernie, whom I like, goes nearly far enough. As in, he still remains convinced of the viability of reformed capitalism, and I think that's nonsense. I see him as head and shoulders better than Hillary, but I also see options vastly superior to his policies to his left.

So, to me, the best case scenario is that we form coalitions on the left, have honest debates amongst ourselves, and join forces at least long enough to defeat both the Dems and the GOP. To me, the Dems are the real "conservative" party, and the GOP the far right. Ideally, the GOP would go the way of the Whigs; the Dems would take up the mantle of the Establishment (which they have in effect for decades); and a true coalition of leftist parties would do battle against that Establish.

Can we also try to move the Dems to the left? Yes. But we shouldn't kid ourselves about that. The Dems have long been the party where great left-wing ideas go to die. The Dems are very clever at coopting these ideas, watering them down, selling them off, or just outright mocking them into oblivion.

It's not the effective path to real change.

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There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

-- Albert Camus

"So high that, if Hillary is competitive in late October due to the support she is getting from warhawk Republicans, I will in all likelihood go from writing in Bernie's name on the ballot to voting for Trump outright."

thank you, James.

I still think there is a possibility neither Trump nor Clinton will be the nominees. FBI, which would leak if Lynch doesn't indict. Eager to see what Julian Assange has. Bernie standing strong and giving his delegates opportunity to speak and VOTE at convention. Protests? Not sure how much of a difference they'd make, but MSM can't ignore.

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Lookout's picture

and thoughtful essay. I guess I'm the perpetual broken record, but we are in limbo and need to see how things shake out. It may be neither T-rump nor $hillarity will be the nominees. It is a volatile election cycle. People want to know what we should do. My thought is wait and see.

Like playing chess, you need to consider options, but you can't make firm decisions until you see what move your opponent makes. "Let's wait" is terribly unfulfilling, but for now it is what we must do. Or at least what I will do.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

the effect corporate media has in all of this. The media, along with the dem party, "defeated" Bernie. The vast majority of voters don't know how to recognize and disregard the propaganda, and they don't recognize and reject the false narratives. The narrative is carefully crafted and designed to preserve the status quo and marginalize any threats. Too many just accept it all at face value. And they're (corp media) not about to give equal time to anybody trying to throw a wrench in the works. It will be a major hurdle for the foreseeable future.

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Lookout's picture

Our big hurdle this year has been how to get the word out. It is nice to have the proof from the DNC hack that media was complicit in $hillarity's promotion, but it doesn't change the situation.

However the MSM doesn't cover the info in the hack because they are involved. Today T-rump is going to address the Clinton foundation and other scandals. I'm curious if the major outlets will cover the content.

I find it so interesting how the MSM is throwing T-rump under the bus when 2-3 months ago he could do no harm. My guess is TPP support. For anyone who looks, the MSM is doing their utmost to elect the $hill. If by some miracle Bernie got the nomination, all we would hear is socialist, socialist, socialist with no substance. It's hard to fight the corporations and banksters when they are the only ones with a megaphone. I see this as one of the major challenges to the movement.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”