Yanis Varoufakis wades in:

"Last year, the Greeks elected people like me not because they suddenly became leftwing! Similarly with Bernie Sanders.
The New Hampshire voters did not suddenly discover they were democratic socialists. They just had enough of phoney politics and decided to back someone who has been saying the same common sense stuff for decades. They would not vote for a ‘transition to socialism’ (like my voters would not have voted me in last year if I was proposing such a ‘transition’ to them)."

"But they understand that Bernie and us are modest in our aims. We understand that socialism is far, far away—and that it will probably only become pertinent when technology develops further … For now, all we propose is the return to basic liberal democratic principles that the establishment has confined to the dustbin of history—at the cost of everyone"

http://qz.com/617049/yanis-varoufakis-bernie-sanders-backers-arent-voting-for-socialism/
1

Here's the link


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016144469

The chronicle of these basic democratic principles being relegated to the "dustbin of history" is the story of the current split in the Democratic Party.

The Bernie Sanders revolution will win--and is winning--whether or not we are able to put Sanders in the White House. We've radically changed the conversation from false promises and lies, to WHO is paying for these false promises and lies, and what that means to we, the people.

Every 'centrist' (i.e., corporate) Democratic office holder or candidate in the country must be having sleepless nights--if not nightmares--about this revolution. Well, some few may welcome it. But most are likely trying to figure out how to defeat it, and how to keep the corporate gravy-train running without seeming to do so. We will begin sussing out these 'centrists' in local, state and congressional elections as we go along. But it cannot be denied that the people are haunting the 'centrists.'

However, I think that, even if Sanders only intended to radically change our national political conversation toward real issues and truly substantive change, this revolution has gone far, far beyond that intention. It's probably a surprise to Sanders himself. It certainly has surprised me and millions others like me, who never thought we would ever see a candidate like this--an honest man stating the realities of our lives and of our country with startling truthfulness, and what needs to be done to remedy our broken country, so that our lives and our society start improving. It has bowled me over, and I've been a Democrat for 56 years.

Sanders' successes in Iowa and New Hampshire were phenomenal! Coming from nowhere and nearly beating the establishment candidate in Iowa, and blowing her out of the water in New Hampshire. He has clearly been following a strategy based on "when people get to know Bernie, they vote for Bernie." He hasn't been known, because the corporate media was black-holing him, and, three times now, he has gone up and up and up in the polls, as soon as people got to know him. This is now happening in Nevada, where he has tied Clinton in pre-caucus polls.

His candidacy is also drawing a phenomenal number of donors, and an amazing amount of money in tiny donations ($7 million in the 18 hours after the NH polls closed!). ("$27" has even become a mantra from the audiences where he's speaking, $27 being the average donation.) And as these resources have become available, he and his staff have poured them into the next "get to know Bernie" campaign.

One of the reasons his vote count exceeds the pre-caucus or pre-election polls is that opinion polls are generally based on 'likely voters,' which leaves out numerous young people voting for the first time--among whom he has overwhelming support. They also leave out Democrats and other kinds of voters who have given up voting, but who are registering to vote for Sanders.

Another reason the polls underestimate Sanders is that a lot of voters are finding out about him for the first time, sometimes just days before the vote. He really is being black-holed by the media. So it takes time and personal contact or internet searches to overcome that. And I think the reaction of many such voters is glee: "You mean there's somebody to vote for besides Clinton?! Damn right I'm going to go vote for him!" And when they get the full Sanders policy picture, they become even more enthusiastic and start drawing their non-voting family and friends to the polls.

Once the NV caucuses are over, they will go full-bore into South Carolina. They already have a large presence in SC. The millions of small donations are enabling them to anticipate the next venue, but the early strategy, anyway, is one state at a time--overcome the blackhole of the Corporate Media with the voters in each venue as the springboard to the next. They're already moving up in the polls in SC, and NV hasn't caucused yet.

This appears to me to be a brilliant strategy, especially as an early strategy. At some point, the Corporate media will be unable to contain it--by ignoring him or by misrepresenting--and in some cases outright lying--about his positions. The misrepresentation and lies have already begun, which may be a measure of how successful this campaign has been, and how successful it could be. If he loses in SC--which everyone seems to think is likely, even with the Sanders last-minute surge--the Corporate Media will attempt to bury him once again, in a deep dark hole. If we are a revolution, as I think we are, that won't matter. We will flood the Sanders campaign with more donations--at $27 a pop, we can do this for a long time (limit: $2,500? something like that). And he will continue to turn on voters under the surface of things--call it a gravitational wave!--because his message is so profound. and because he really means it. His honesty and integrity ratings are very high (and Clinton's are shockingly low).

This has gone way beyond "change the conversation" or "make the conversation real," to the heretofore unbelievable possibility that the American people can put someone WE have chosen, and WE have funded and WE have worked our tails off, as never before, to elect, into OUR White House.

One other thought on this OP: It points out a major reason why we are rebelling against Goldman Sachs' candidate: "Sanders is also challenging the Democratic Party to clearly distinguish itself from a Republican Party in principle and in practice...". That has been the problem with the DLCers, and the "Third Wayers" and most of our candidates for about 35 years. They are indistinguishable from Reaganites in most respects. It took Bush-Cheney and Rumsfeld to make them look even slightly liberal, but it was an illusion--an illusion that was ripped away by TPP, by frakking and by no public option in Obamacare, among other things. Actually, it was first ripped away for me by our Democratic leaders' support of 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting (using private code, owned by a handful of rightwing-connected corporations, all over this land, a coup d'etat that occurred in the 2002 to 2004 period). As for supporting the party's New Deal roots, we can't even trust them on Social Security.

Really great analysis!

I've been frustrated about how the Democrats purposefully inhabit the right wing economic framing and do their best from that vantage point. We've essentially ceded the debate to them. It's madness.

Occupy Wall Street, Thomas Picketty and the Sanders campaign has shifted the focus from the failed Milton Friedman policies of the last 40 years to something very hopeful.

We can do better- yes we can!

With the Sanders campaign, all I was hoping for was for these ideas to be put forth into the mainstream, but to see how people are hungering for this message has really activated and inspired me.

The more the establishment Dems freak out about it, the more I know we're on the right track. Deleuze and Guattari have great ideas about his very thing with their theory of the Rhizome - a true grass roots movement. To those that ridiculed Occupy as a bunch of hippies wandering around a park, here we are. We're. Still. Here.

K&R

Its easy to just believe the just-say-no defeatists that his view for the country is just some fairy tale, but its all already being done in other advanced nations. And in response to the talk of not affording it, he points out that you'd think that the richest nation in the world could at least afford the bare basics that other countries seem wealthy enough to provide their citizens, like universal healthcare for instance. Forget labels like "socialism". It is simply pooling resources of the larger community to pay for necessities like health and education. So there is at least a level playing field on that level. It doesn't curb any dreams of free market entrepreneurism for anyone to pursue on top of that.

...not leading a revolution to create a "new" brand of a Democratic party. Rather he is leading a revolution to return our party to its original roots.

I sort of wish that Bernie would not refer to himself as a Democratic Socialist. I would rather be refer to himself as a "New Deal Democrat."

I've also thought of "a real Democrat."

He can't drop "Democratic Socialist" since that's what he's been for many decades. It would be too much like shedding a skin for electoral purposes. And I actually admire him for sticking with it. He has opened a whole lot of peoples' eyes to the fundamental fact that we have many kinds of socialism already--from Social Security to fire departments. He has taken some of the McCarthyite sting out of the word "socialism" (which is not even close to being "communism"--Norway is a socialist state, for heaven's sake, and many other modern democracies are socialist or more socialist than we are).

That is very good, from an educational point of view. And maybe the likelihood that it will cause apoplexy among Trump's or Cruz's pinhead supporters will benefit Sanders (and all of us) rather than hurt him. Remember the child's fairy tale, "Rumpelstiltskin"? The greedy little troll ripped himself in two, so enraged did he become that the heroine couldn't be blackmailed any longer. But whether it hurts or helps Sanders, it will be fun watching the rage that a few power players and ordinary people will work themselves up to, as they shake and quake and shudder and spit drool over "that communist Sanders." I think it will help him.

And if not by the ballot box, then by guillotine. Plutocratic oligarchies never seem to last long before people start getting pissed off.

Obama's role in pushing the country left

No one has seen any evidence of the so-called Sanders revolution https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/10/sorry-bernie-sanders-there-is-zero-evidence-of-your-political-revolution-yet/

Bernie Sanders recorded a resounding victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary Tuesday. He crushed his rival, Hillary Clinton, with no less than 60 percent of the vote. If Sanders hopes not only to win the election but to achieve his ambitious progressive agenda, though, that might not be enough.

To succeed, Sanders might have to drive Americans who don't normally participate to the polls. Unfortunately for him, groups who usually do not vote did not turn out in unusually large numbers in New Hampshire, according to exit polling data.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

...As for Sanders, he credited his victory to turnout. "Because of a huge voter turnout -- and I say huge -- we won," he said in his speech declaring victory, dropping the "h" in "huge." "We harnessed the energy, and the excitement that the Democratic party will need to succeed in November."

In fact, Sanders won by persuading many habitual Democratic primary voters to support him. With 95 percent of precincts reporting their results as of Wednesday morning, just 241,000 ballots had been cast in the Democratic primary, fewer than the 268,000 projected by New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner last week. Nearly 289,000 voters cast ballots in the state's Democratic primary in 2008.

To be sure, the general election is still seven months away. Ordinary Americans might be paying little attention to the campaign at this point, and if Sanders wins the nomination, he'll have the help of the Democratic Party apparatus in registering new voters. The political revolution hasn't started, though, at least not yet.

vote for Hillary 'cause no one cares?

we as nation have been driven to the right since Nixon and then Reagan. Bill and Hillary (getting two for the price of one) IMO was the beginning of the Democratic party lurch to the right. Let me add I'm not saying Bill led Hillary as I believe that Hillary had a lot of input on policies during the 90s. Bernie with the help of liberals and progressives is trying to bring us back to where we belong.