That’s the only potential in stumping for Ole Bernard. Admit it. With Biden’s victory they can hold out hope that Bernie would’ve been able to do something different. There’s no alternative to an independent and international party of the working class.
If Bernie won, the first drone strike would have shattered the online and rl left into a million pieces....instead of like the half dozen pieces it's currently in
I wish to live in a world where I am condemned for being too cool with remote controlled child murder
I kind of disagree. While I don't think that Bernie would have been able to do a huge amount policy-wise, having a president with a mobilised mass movement behind them and willing to come out and actively support union organising could have been a big thing rn. Imo Bernie in the US represented cracking the door open in people's imaginations and making them even consider that a better world could be possible. The debates that structure our politics are important and have an effect. Why do you think that the media constantly throws up meaningless bullshit for people to obsess over? If Bernie had been the candidate, the first 9 months of the pandemic would have been spent with one of the two candidates in the election arguing that the US needs universal public healthcare and questions over the ways in which the bailout involved a public subsidising of the entire economy could have been more than a fringe debate. If he'd won, he'd also probably have already cancelled student debt, which means he could actually have done something for the people that voted for him.
Treating our Bernie as though he's the same politician as a Bernie who'd won is idealist. It imagines that his actions are determined by his essential core beliefs rather than being the product of his position within the political structures that he occupies. I honestly think that some of the desire to imagine a Bernie win as totally meaningless is people making it easier to deal with the fact he didn't
Treating our Bernie as though he’s the same politician as a Bernie who’d won is idealist. It imagines that his actions are determined by his essential core beliefs rather than being the product of his position within the political structures that he occupies. I honestly think that some of the desire to imagine a Bernie win as totally meaningless is people making it easier to deal with the fact he didn’t
:this:
We'd still be in hell world, and he'd still be stymied at every turn. But it'd be better than this.
Hard disagree. Its not idealist to say that two politicians (both who are not materially independent of one faction or another of the bourgeois class) will lead to largely a similar outcomes. Bernie didn't win because he didn't have a mass political movement behind him. Full stop. If he had somehow won, it would be because he made fundamental compromises with the system that would hamper his ability to actually deliver.
But let's say for the sake of argument that Bernie won in 2020 with more senate seats than Biden. Heck lets say he even hit 60 senate seats. Bernie's ability to bully senators and reps into submission assumes that mass media would go along with it in the way that they went along with Trump. He would get shit on every day on every major news network. His team would get mysteriously banned off one social network after another for suspiciously vague charges. There would be FBI investigations into him and his team. And finally, more importantly than all of that -- he would still be sitting on top of a party that will not do what he wants. A party that fundamentally disagrees with him. A party that has taken hundreds of millions to not do the Bernie agenda.
A 'Bernie' type will only get into the presidency once labour is so organized and powerful that it cannot be ignored anymore. And at that point, why is a Bernie even needed?
I'm not saying that he'd deliver policy, although doing something like cancelling student debt wouldn't be nothing. I'm saying we'd live in a world where more people believed that things could fundamentally change. I think that him and Corbyn both losing made that feel impossible again for a lot of people and that's going to demobilise them. There were a lot of people whose first engagement with organised politics came from Bernie and Corbyn stuff. I think that them losing ultimately that makes it harder for us because it leaves a lot of people feeling helpless and so they don't engage at all. Like, I don't see how it wouldn't be better than what we have.
I agree with you that the US will need a stronger labour movement for left political movements to be successful though
Hmm. I'll need to think about it more.
Either way, the path Bernie tried was a dead end. He didn't get elected and even if he did w/o making compromises, I agree he would've been torn down much as you describe. I think we only disagree about whether there could be significant people mobilized to fight for "demsoc" changes in that situation.
Maybe that could have been better for radicalization of more people, but I could tell a plausible story of the opposite effect too
Nah he would have ordered Gen Z to wage culture revolution over ticktock and they would have implemented communism and I would have beaten to death by highschoolers for being too right wing. Which ultimately is the ideal way to die
He'd at least be able to wreck up the place for a little bit with executive orders. Or at least I'd like to think of the timeline where I don't have student loan debt.
I get it man, but then that should make you think about how many people will be quieted or bought off by a future Bernie who will keep the fundamentals of capitalism intact but will kick some relief to specific segments of the population in the way thats needed to put out the fires. The only working class champion that will ever get far in the US political system is one who is for one segment or another of the working class, not the class as a whole. Thats why we need an independent party -- not to run elections, but to organize outside them.
how many people will be quieted or bought off by a future Bernie who will keep the fundamentals of capitalism intact but will kick some relief to specific segments of the population in the way thats needed to put out the fires
The trolley problem, but if you flip the switch not enough people will be hit by the trolley in order to start a Revolution.
Historically speaking, the movement for socialism grew during periods of boom in Germany, Russia, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. If all that was needed for a revolution was suffering then idk Pakistan would have a really militant working class.
Exactly, it's actually easier to get people to think about things once the pressure is off a little bit.
I mean suffering was enough for revolution in much of south Asia; Naxalites, NPA, etc
Naxalites and NPA were not powerful enough to carry out a revolution in India or the Phillipines tho -- but maybe an independent American working class party could coordinate with them and make it harder for reactionaries in those countries to go after them.
They are actively carrying out revolutions though. A protracted people's war is a revolutionary struggle, and an ongoing one
That's an amazing point. Putting a bandaid on one problem would only lead back to the same bullshit somewhere else. We've gotta have a united front. Thanks for the perspective, comrade!
Someone posted this earlier and I've been finding tons of choice cuts all day
A revolution was necessary for the Chinese working class to gain power, and demonstrate the fearsome seriousness with which they would exercise it. After tragic failures, however, they corrected course. In the 1980s, they demonstrated flexibility in learning from the enemy. Then, throughout the 2010s, they corrected course again, reaping victories earlier sown. The Communist Party never ceded the power that they sacrificed so much to obtain. Conversely, the Western working classes never even tasted power, just concessions.
The New Deal was a concession, anything Bernie managed to do would be a concession until the ghouls went in with the heart attack gun (or just the propaganda gun) and undid him and all his work.
He would have done some good things, but it would have been good to force the dems to rebel against him. Like how Corbyn basically forced the PLP to kill Labour to stop any movement to the centre left. A huge rift in the dems where Pelosi as majority leader was siding with republicans to stop Bernie from increasing entitlements would be crushing for Dems. Now Dems basically recuperated the dem soc enthusiasm from Bernie and there's only movement in the neoliberal direction in current institutions
This, I was actually really looking forward to seeing how the pelosi gang turned against him in the election. You would have a democratic candidate where the Democratic speaker of the house would be saying things like "oh you know he's very radical...." Really interesting to think how what would've played out
A Bernie presidency would be both better than this and not good enough. Campaigning for Bernie was worth it and I'm glad I did so, because it's not often a socialist has a serious shot at capturing the US fucking Presidency.
That being said, a Bernie presidency is not a substitute for doing the work both inside and outside of electoral politics that's necessary for liberation, and our mission would be unchanged regardless of whether he won.
a socialist
I'm sorry, but I have to say it. Based on everything said in both campaigns, in no way is Bernie Sanders a socialist.
I'd say you have a point but it's sort of a distinction without a difference. He has a mix of socialist and social democratic ideas, describes himself as a socialist, and fights for socialist goals such as workplace democracy and the nationalization of major industries. He's not a communist, Marxist-Leninist, or a revolutionary like most folks here but it's accurate to describe him as a reformist socialist or a market socialist.
"Reform!" is only a meaningful statement if the alternative is revolution. There is absolutely zero danger of revolution, so Americans have absolutely zero chance of getting reforms instead. The minute that you will get serious reforms in the US is exactly when you will know that a revolution was possible and was killed. It's not going to happen otherwise. The New Deal came after the independent left was crushed in the US, and what was left was beaten and its dregs were co-opted and absorbed in the Dem party. If there are reforms then you've lost and thats your consolation prize in exchange for keeping the empire running.
I would probably not get over electoralism because I would be seeing real benefits in my life.
I meant the struggle sessions over imperialism and since Bernie is also on China Bad train, it would have been something else on this website. Unless you mean you don't care about what happens outside the US?
what I mean is that the biggest change stemmed from me personally giving up on electoralism. That allowed me to fully give up on america and turn against imperialism. I would've not fully become the communist I always should have been had bernie won, because I was only looking at my surroundings.
:punished-bernie:
EO 14003: Indefinite Detainment and Enhanced Interrogation of Persons of Excessive Wealth
EO 14367: Establishment of the People’s Tribunal Within Central Park, in Cooperation With New York Governor Punished Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
EO 14587: Pushing the Communism Button to Better Establish a Worker’s Republic
But after a month of those MacArthur would come in and force Bernie to flee to Vermont, sparking the 2ACW event.
You idiot! Didn't you hear about the Misogyny-Putsch (replace all senators with approved dirt-bag left brocialists, ala nick mullen) and the Central Park executions he would have implemented!
I thought this then. Now, I think it would have just engendered an even worse sense of defeatism on the left.
its only defeatism if people think electoral politics is the only game in town.
There’s no alternative to an independent and international party of the working class.
yeah but that isn't an available alternative bucko
Yeah that doesnt mean that its not the only one that CAN be and should be strived for. Especially when dicsussing it opposite to "alternatives" that may "seem closer" (entryism to the democratic part) but foundementaly cant and will never produce the outcomes we want or even be a stepping stone for them
