2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders Has Already Won His Revolution - Sally Kohn for Time
http://time.com/4280924/bernie-sanders-revolution/?xid=tcoshareHe has convinced more Americans to proudly claim radical left positions
Im not sure if Im a democratic socialist or not. Admittedly, I havent thought about it much because it didnt seem practical. There was no way I could be a serious person in American political thought and the media if I declared myself or even flirted with being a democratic socialist.
Whatever the outcome of his presidential nomination bid, I suspect one of the lasting impacts the Sanders campaign will have on American politics and activism is the increasing willingness of political leaders and ordinary Americans to more proudly claim bold left positions. Think of it as freeing your own Bern.
Once upon a time, progressive activists and political leaders were very much steeped in radical left politics. Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs founded several of the earliest American labor unions and ran for president five times, though he never got more than 5% of the popular vote. In 1930, then Governor of New York state Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: There is no question in my mind that it is time for the country to become fairly radical for a generation. He went on, as president, to institute radical safety net policies in the New Deal. Social movement leaders from W.E.B. Du Bois to Dorothy Day to A. Philip Randolph openly proclaimed their allegiance with radical socialism. And arguably that context shifted American political discourse in general toward the left. Remember it was Republican President Richard Nixon who, in 1969, called for the federal government to establish a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)how many are willing to do.
flamingdem
(39,319 posts)So that's been the limitation of the Obama presidency, but when it's clear that the electorate is changing a response will have to follow, though it might take a while.
I think the Bernie candidacy shows that Americans aren't so easily intimidated.
Obama laid the groundwork for that but he couldn't push further. I don't think Clinton can push much either due to her history and the spaces she's carved out though she could surprise us.
Martin Eden
(12,875 posts)... it shows how far right the center has moved, in terms of the public perception crafted by the corporate media.
flamingdem
(39,319 posts)and that young people, and many others are not screaming Commie! and are insisting on getting past the hate of who we are as a people, we are radical, as in lively, as in can do, except for those mired in religion or authoritarian conservatism. In general, but the media shapes us to conform and be apathetic.
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)In the Clinton Bubble here, Hillary claims if Bernie loses NY it's over.
Forget about the Panama Papers. That's a right wing smear.
sadoldgirl
(3,431 posts)of the role money plays in government,
Most resent that big Pharma charges US
citizens more than those of other countries,
Most, including the early Teabaggers, hated
the bank bail out,
Most detest the fact that education has become
almost unaffordable,
etc., etc, etc.
People are upset when they see a Congress
not doing its job, but happily taking the money.
The time is ripe for a real change, unless the
voters have become so cynical that they won't
bother to vote for same old, same old.
flamingdem
(39,319 posts)Which is why it's catching on
tabasco
(22,974 posts)The battle and the war have just begun.