Bernie Sanders, the new actiivism and the fight to raise the minimum wage

Bernie Sanders is running for president. And you can look at that a few different ways. The cynical take is that this is theatrical, a pretense to grant the appearance of a primary campaign without challenging the expected outcome of a Hillary Clinton nomination. But Sanders certainly doesn’t think of it that way, having raised over $2 million in the first 48 hours since his announcement.

The way I look at the Sanders campaign is through the lens of another campaign: the fight to raise the minimum wage. When that battle was left to Washington, it floundered. But outside agitation unified the Democratic Party over the past week around a true living wage, forcing politicians beyond where they felt comfortable. The story reveals the power of activism based on principle, and a Sanders campaign can serve as a conduit for this kind of work.

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Finally, last week, Democrats in Washington upped their offer to a $12-an-hour minimum wage, and actually got more support for it than the $10.10 proposal just a couple years earlier. When the Obama administration endorsed, it completed a shift from $9 to $12, a 33 percent increase, in just two years.

That’s how activism works. You make a stand on principle, build a coalition, and force politicians to get out in front of the parade. You create a constituency where one didn’t previously exist. And that’s precisely the promise of a Sanders presidential campaign. If his issues are popular – and every indication in the polling is that things like a higher minimum wage and more equality of income are – and he can build the same kind of grass-roots movement that ignited the fight for $15, then it challenges not just Hillary Clinton but everyone who wants to lead within the party to recalibrate and come closer to his ideals.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/how_bernie_sanders_could_make_2016_very_very_interesting/