The Nation: Bernie Sanders Is Actually Quite Serious About This ‘Political Revolution’ Thing

http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-is-actually-quite-serious-about-this-political-revolution-thing/

After Bernie Sanders delivered a fiery address to the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner Saturday night, in which the independent senator contrasted his record with that of more cautious politicians, the official Twitter account of the Democratic presidential contender featured the last line from Garrison’s declaration. At a pivotal point in the long competition for the Democratic nomination, when many pundits are writing a next narrative for the 2016 presidential race, in which front-runner Hillary Clinton is again recognized by political and media elites as the prohibitive favorite, Sanders is signaling that he intends not just to fight on but to wage an edgier, more aggressive campaign that will not equivocate.

With musicians singing truth-to-power songs, a raucous march, and a fiery speech, Sanders told the first-caucus state of Iowa that the insurgent intends to remain an insurgent.

The simple shorthand of most pundits saw evidence that Sanders is finally engaging in some compare-and-contrast campaigning with Clinton—and there was some of that. But the fight in Iowa (and the rest of the country) is not so much against other candidates, says Sanders, as it is for “a political revolution” that engages citizens who would not otherwise participate in caucuses, primaries or even the 2016 general election.

When Sanders speaks of that political revolution, he is asking Americans—especially younger Americans like the crowds of Iowans in their teens and twenties who packed the Sanders bleachers in Des Moines’ Hy-Vee Hall for the Jefferson-Jackson dinner—to believe that electoral politics might actually change something. Sanders knows that won’t happen unless people who are frustrated and disengaged and disenchanted see him as a candidate who is distinctly different from the rest.

 “What this campaign is about is not just electing a president, it is transforming America,” the candidate told the crowd of young people, labor and community activists that assembled to march him into the hall where the dinner was to be held. “To do that we need millions of people—people who have given up on the political process, people who are demoralized, people who don’t believe that government listens to them. We need to bring those people together to stand up loudly and clearly and to say ‘Enough is enough.’ This country belongs to all of us, not just wealthy campaign donors.”

“In a few minutes we will be marching. This march will not only get us to the event tonight, it is a symbolic march,” Sanders continued. “It makes me think about the great marches for civil rights, immigration reform, social justice, addressing our environmental crises. This is a march which will end up in a year when you will join me in the White House.”

That was the takeaway message from a weekend of high-stakes politics in which Sanders positioned himself as a candidate whose long-term commitment to progressive ideals, and whose willingness to act on those ideals even in the most challenging of moments, suggested not just “authenticity”—to borrow the buzzword of the moment—but a context in which Democrats might assess his promise to “govern based on principle not poll numbers.”