I know, none of us care about Bernie but I wanted to say this anyways.

Bernie losing exposed the failures of bourgeois electoralism to a huge group of people who otherwise would have just taken Bernie’s win as an excuse to continue apathetically upholding the Capitalist system. If he won, he would’ve faced constant opposition from both parties preventing him from actually accomplishing anything. The only reason Trump is allowed free reign is because his destruction is relatively beneficial to the bourgeoisie. Bernie would not get the same treatment. That is, if he didn’t immediately capitulate on everything he campaigned for. We have a lot more people who are at least more likely to side against US Capitalism in the future now that they’ve experienced this failure, domestic and foreign.

  • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Bernie losing exposed the failures of bourgeois electoralism to a huge group of people who otherwise would have just taken Bernie’s win as an excuse to continue apathetically upholding the Capitalist system.

    This doesn't strike me as correct. Most people who supported Bernie are going to begrudgingly vote for Biden, like they begrudgingly voted for Clinton in 2016. They knew the odds were stacked against him going in, so him losing wasn't some revelation. At best those folks are more aware of Democrats' potential to ratfuck leftist candidates, but even that's a far cry from anything like losing faith in electoralism.

    The people who view Bernie losing as proof that electoralism is bunk are to the left of Bernie, and that isn't "a huge group." What Bernie was good for was helping de-stigmatize real leftist politics (compare how taboo the word "socialism" was a few years ago to how taboo it is now) and getting people to ask "wait, here's a policy that's cool and good and tons of people love, why aren't Democrats supporting this?"

    • RedStarLesbian [she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      I wasn’t very clear but I don’t mean that every Bernie stan turned communist overnight. Of course most are just going to vote for Biden but there is a pretty sizable chunk of Bernie stans who have engaged with leftist politics since Bernie lost. I mean, there was a pretty big exodus from Bernie subs to leftist subs like Chapo before the ban and I know several people irl who were radicalized left because of it.