In the 2016 primary, I voted for Bernie Sanders. His calls for transformative change and revolution appealed to me.
It is a decision I… somewhat regret.
Consider that a confession right up front: I’ve got buyer’s remorse.
A few things happened to sway me. The first? Discovering this video was a thing:
It’s a press conference, in full, from when the Sanders family returned from the USSR after their honeymoon.
Whether Bernie intended it to be or not — I certainly don’t think anyone should jump to any conclusions — it’s sheer Soviet propaganda.
Hearing Jane Sanders say, as Bernie watches on, that she wishes her kids could grow up in the USSR — as the whole Soviet system was falling apart — makes me cringe, body and soul.
The idea people have that all Bernie Sanders calls for is ‘Sweden in America’ isn’t really true. At least, it wasn’t true then — and, to my knowledge, he’s never disavowed any of this.
Seriously, watch the video, or at least some of it — I’m not posting any clips of it because I think people deserve the whole context.
And remember the time period in which this happened: this unabashed praise for the Soviet system, over the American system, came in the midst of the USSR’s imminent collapse — and when things were a lot better in America for impoverished communities (case in point: welfare was a thing that still existed), to say nothing of the working class (which also was a thing that still existed).
***
The second strike? Can we call it grift? Oh, gosh, do I want to go there… but I’ll hold back.
Sanders raised millions of dollars to establish a Vermont-based ‘Thank Tank’ that produced almost no work.
The organization did, however, pay Bernie’s son-in-law a six-figure salary for a job in which he had no qualifications. This was a significant portion of all the funds raised.
As these details started to emerge, the organization was very quickly shut down. No attempts were made to improve it instead — and if anyone knows where its money exactly went, I’d certainly like to know.
I’ll never quite understand how major media outlets determine which stories they’re going pay special attention to, but how this story was so easily ignored by the MSM is something I’ll never understand. For a Sanders family that railed against the Clinton Foundation, maybe this should have been a bigger deal?
More importantly, millions were raised from Bernie’s fervent supporters and labor organizations — all money from people who don’t have a lot — and the only tangible results I can see from it is Bernie Sanders’s son-in-law got a very sweet gig that he did almost nothing with.
Maybe that’s not grift — grift requires a certain intentionality behind it that I don’t know was there — but, gosh, does it come right up to the line, and at the very least we know Bernie’s not against some good, old-fashioned nepotism.
***
Both of these stories gave me the kind of distance I needed to take a clearer, more neutral look at Bernie’s career as a whole.
I was able to contextualize how Bernie’s calls for revolution — huge structural changes — don’t jive with his legislative career, which embodies the very spirit of institutionalism and small, incremental changes he often complains about on the stump.
At rallies, he screams we need a revolution. Legislatively, it’s small amendments here or there. Yes, there were a lot of amendments. I used to defend him as “the Amendment King,” which came from a Matt Taibbi column, without thinking more broadly about what that really meant: it’s nibbling at the edges, sometimes giving away his vote cheaply, often to help bills pass that should have gone down. The 1994 crime bill is the most infamous example.
More importantly, in the context of today’s campaign, what does he think about the big, structural change that could transform the Senate into a body that could pass popular legislation? AKA, nuking the filibuster.
He doesn’t support it. He’s cool with the filibuster, which means virtually any legislation a President Sanders could propose would go down in flames. (And before anyone cries Reconciliation!, it ain’t the panacea many think it is.)
And politically? He’s built a nice career niche for himself in Vermont and DC, enjoying the elite privileges of a life he often rails against, but went decades without building any kind of infrastructure to move legislation or elect legislators in Vermont or across the country. There’s no revolution without people, and for most of his career that’s not something he’s ever bothered with.
***
After all that, I came to realize it: It’s BS. All of it.
Critically, I’m not calling him a liar. I’m sure he believes the things he says, just like I bought a keyboard and believed I’d teach myself how to play the piano.
But he’s certainly not doing the things one does to lead a revolution that could create the changes he calls for.
Even running for President alone can’t create those revolutionary changes, particularly when that person is old and just recovering from a heart attack.
Real change is a lot of hard work, and requires someone who can build institutions that outlast them, and who have a keen understanding for strategy.
It requires the ability to work with all kinds of people – being able to forge new consensus on ideas that before didn’t have a chance.
Perhaps the guy who talks a big game, but eschews parties and coalition building on big, legislative ideas isn’t a revolutionary, never mind a leader?
He can give a good speech, sell a lot of books, has achieved some incremental progress, and is living his American Dream. It’s a familiar story, but not a socialist revolutionary one.
@he’s certainly not doing the things one does to lead a revolution that could create the changes he calls for.:
Amen, and thank you for expressing this.
It is my experience in my 67 years on this planet, and in my study of those who have come before me, that men and women who start transformative social movements DO NOT talk about themselves. The common theme among all of them is something along the lines of “This movement is bigger than me and bigger than any other single man or woman.” True leaders accept the accolades of their supporters — they do not solicit or demand them.
I support Elizabeth Warren. I hope Ms. Warren can win the nomination and I hope she can win the general election. That’s not why I support her. I support her because she combines charisma and substance. She IS revolutionary, and she frequently reminds us that Elizabeth Warren’s revolution is not about Elizabeth Warren, it’s about all of us.
Elizabeth Warren is building our party and our grassroots for the sake of the vision and priorities that we share. I think she is motivated by an inborn sense of duty rather than ambition.
I feel that Elizabeth Warren will be the best president of all the contenders — whether or not she wins.
I agree. Please show me any evidence that Sanders represents someone in it for himself and demanding fealty. From the 40+ years of solidarity with labor, and solidarity with social movements around the world – like Occupy, Standing Rock, and even this week being the only candidate to denounce the current coup in Bolivia – and how he talks about every issue.
Sanders’s slogan is literally “Not me. Us.” The use of the first person is almost nonexistent in his core rhetoric. It’s honestly a failing of the campaign because when asked about how he will get X passed, he always says that “WE will have a grassroots movement to demand it.” It’s totally outsider focused and that’s probably not enough.
Dislike Sanders for a whole host of reasons (there are more than enough!) but this particular view is one of the most ridiculous. Talk about how he won’t be able to get it done – I’m very skeptical of it too, but I’ve never been more hopeful of achieving true progressive goals today than I have ever been, and that hopefulness can be tied directly to a campaign started in 2015 and how it helped drastically shift the whole framing of Democratic priorities to the left (where was the discussion on Medicare 4 All before 2015?) and resulted in clear progress in the types of people elected across the country, like Ihlan Omar and AOC, and even a true democratic socialist in the Virginia House.
Calling him a fraud in it for himself is some serious projecting.
I seem to see a lot of “I have a plan for that.” And that’s good! It’s really tough to say she is THE movement candidate in the race, though – and to the extent she is, it’s largely a movement of wealthier college-educated folks, not diverse working class folks.
I suppose we are seeing confirmation bias in action — the two of us see the same clips and hear the same speeches and come away with radically different perceptions of what we saw.
Every successful campaign is about persuading an electorate that the given candidate is the best. Every successful candidate therefore uses the first person very frequently. Bernie Sanders does it. Elizabeth Warren does it. Barack Obama did it. EVERY candidate does it.
That’s not my concern. My concern is that in every stump speech, every debate, and every news clip I saw, the only context in which I heard Bernie Sanders talk about political revolution or a “movement” was in response to something along the lines of “how will you win” or “how will you put these programs in place”. He frequently spoke of “My revolution” or “My movement. I don’t hear Elizabeth Warren doing that.
MLK did not speak of “My civil rights movement”.
We are in a primary campaign. We will learn how all the candidates do among the various constituencies when we start counting primary votes. Hillary Clinton absolutely smashed Bernie Sanders in the primary voting of the 2016 campaign. Elizabeth Warren is MUCH more aligned with working class voters than Ms. Clinton ever was.
Scott Brown based his entire 2012 campaign on his self-proclaimed “working class” ties, complete with obligatory pickup truck. He got nowhere. He attempted to mine the same vein by trying to turn “Professor” Warren into an epithet, assuming that working class men and women dislike professors and especially professors from Harvard. That attempt failed miserably.
I think working class men and women are just as eager to see real and pragmatic proposals reflecting actual hard work and study as college-educated voters. I think working class voters welcome substance over hyperbole just as much as college-educated voters. I think Elizabeth Warren demonstrates respect for those men and women by engaging them at that level, and I think working class men and women recognize and value that respect.
I pay much more attention to working class voters than working class folks. I think that men and women who vote are more likely to care about substance than men and women who do not. I think the key to the 2020 election is motivating men and women of all demographic groups to become voters. I think the strategy of Mr. Sanders for accomplishing that is very different from the strategy of Ms. Warren.
I think the upcoming primary elections are the best way to see which of those strategies proves to be most effective.
He never uses My in that context. Not ever. He started a political action org called “Our Revolution.” You are claiming he is using the first person, but he does not. Please show some examples that confirm your bias, otherwise you’re just hearing something he isn’t saying.
I agree, but the numbers clearly show she does not have nearly as much working class support as Sanders at this point.
@Please show some examples that confirm your bias:
Here is an excerpt from the second Democratic Primary debate (emphasis mine):
Mr. Sanders is clearly talking about himself and his own campaign, including the use of the royal “we”. When he says “That’s what the political revolution is about”, he explicitly refers to his own campaign.
It’s larger than individual words, though. Mr. Sanders was in public life for decades before launching his 2016 campaign. I see his emphasis on a “movement” and a “political revolution” as a direct product of his presidential ambition. His short-lived family foundation reflects this bias. My distinct impression is that Mr. Sanders views “the movement” and the “political revolution” that he promotes as just another part of his campaign organization. While there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, I think it’s incorrect to characterize it as anything more noble.
In my view, Elizabeth Warren does a far more effective job at both leading and exemplifying the movement that Mr. Sanders talks of so incessantly.
That is a remarkable stretch. You claimed he is claiming a movement as his own. In this instance, yes, he is talking about his campaign and how it is committed to building that movement. Nothing in there is him claiming “my revolution.”
I think a more reasonable reading is that that sentence is referencing this part “giving young people and working people hope that real change can take place in America” more than claiming a political revolution for himself.
40+ years of taking consistent justice-oriented positions that were often very unpopular and being damaged by taking those stances seems like a lot more evidence that this ain’t about personal ambition.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree about Mr. Sanders.
That is, after all, why we have primaries.
“Not me, us,” is a very good slogan. And, yes, he’s always been good at the kind of retail ‘showing up’ politics/good constituent services that are small (but important!) gestures in, say, a labor dispute – and that helps one get elected.
It’s another, meaningful example of incrementalism – helping here or there with a labor dispute or similar issue makes a real difference in people’s lives, but isn’t dramatically moving the needle beyond that. Barnie Frank was good at this stuff, too. 🤷♂️
But Bernie hasn’t forged any legislative coalition to seriously reform how union organizing works in fundamental ways to make it easier, for example. This was something initially on the table when Obama was first elected, but fizzled – Bernie supported it, but couldn’t bring the kind of leadership to the issue to pass it, even when Democrats held a supermajority that at one brief point was filibuster proof. Bernie’s made a legislative career out of avoiding these big fights, and not delivering on big, structural changes – he didn’t have the kind of legislative coalition assembled that was poised to deliver on it when he had the chance, even though he’d been in federal office for decades.
Outside of the legislature, he hasn’t built any lasting Vermont or national institution that can wage major policy fights in the public space on issues like health care and unions – his one attempt was his think tank and, well, that was equal parts disappointment and scandal. (Democrats could badly use more organizations like this – Republicans heavily invest in think thanks, etc., because they’re great at steering conversations. Bernie’s failure here stings. It was a good idea in concept, but with zero serious execution.)
He’s not a bad politician when he’s stuck to what he’s good at. But the socialist revolutionary at rallies or on TV doesn’t have a lot in common with the incrementalist he’s been in his legislative career, and I don’t actually think he gets or understands the discrepancy.
As I said in the blog, I don’t think he’s intentionally lying. I just don’t think he knows how to be the revolutionary agent of big, structural change that he may think he is, at least outside of his fiery speeches and language.
A danger of electing someone as a revolutionary who isn’t revolutionary, but wins a presidential election by committing his voters to a revolution: when that person fails to deliver, his fervent believers will likely be so angry that they’ll be willing to burn it all down when they don’t get what they want. Inept leadership makes for the French kind of revolutions, not the kind we’re used to in America.
The problem I have with your post is that it is about Sanders not being who he says he is rather than being about how he has not (and likely will not be) been effective at meeting his goals. The latter argument is important, the former I think is bad faith.
You mean, like he didn’t do things like start the Progressive Congressional Caucus and serve as its first chair?
You’re adding expectations to him that I don’t think you’d put on others. It’s like “Why hasn’t he single-handedly built a left governing majority?” Can you point to a single person who has done more?
Also keep in mind that he is an independent and therefore didn’t get the major chairmanships while in the House, and he’s a more junior member in the Senate. The expectations that he should have been masterful at the inside game and the outside game otherwise he’s a fraud is ridiculous. Again, whether he could have been more effective or questioning his ability to be effective in the future is good, but you’re questioning his commitments or even his understanding of things.
There’s also issues of luck and timing. Late capitalism and climate change have made the issues more critical. In the same way that if the financial crisis did not happen, no one here would know the name Elizabeth Warren, despite decades of important work in the same field. The growth of the left in policy thinking success and electoral victories since 2015 has been pretty close to staggering. Feels like the early stages of a successful non-violent “revolution” more than anything in my lifetime (except for the bad Reagan revolution).
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a very good example.
A bold policy vision that created an entirely new institution that has greatly changed (in more ways than many realize) how credit is issued in this country, for the benefit of average people.
That was not an easy lift to create this. Progressives were key allies, but couldn’t get the job done alone. Warren had to forge a broad coalition within the party to build it, while dealing with the complications of the fact that a number of important party figures were dead set against it – not only passing it, but trying to undermine it after it was created.
She didn’t appoint son-in-laws to run it, or leave it to fend for itself once it was created. She stepped in to lead it, filled it with people who were both competent and committed to the vision, and only when it was clear she couldn’t get Senate confirmation did she leave leadership – to run for the Senate. And she’s kept a watchful eye since.
That’s party coalition building, huge transformation, and building entire new institutions that will protect regular people.
So, yes, we have people running who are doing the things Bernie hasn’t.
Yeah, that is a good example of Warren’s effectiveness. It was great, although the lasting impacts are unclear since it has been hit hard in the past two years. She did have the support of a very popular and skilled President. There are other big differences. The CFPB, an agency with a $600M budget, was the sole goal. You’re putting on Sanders the goal of building a broad, winning leftist coalition. Slightly different scale. What if the goal was just getting $11B for community health centers in the ACA?
But again, discussing his effectiveness is good. That’s not what your post questioned.
@She did have the support of a very popular and skilled President:
No, she did not. The CFPB happened in spite of, not because of, support from Barack Obama. Ms. Warren gave him no choice.
That’s not how I remember it at all.
My understanding is that Obama himself supported it but his economic team (Geithner and Summers) did not.
@Obama himself supported it but his economic team did not:
That’s not my understanding. Since none of us were close enough to know for sure, we must rely on third-party accounts.
The point remains that the birth of the CFPB shows how effective Elizabeth Warren is at accomplishing things even in the face of political opposition.
I agree on your last point, and she is very effective.
I think the effectiveness argument is probably the best one for choosing Warren over Sanders. I think arguments about Sanders not actually being committed to the big project are bunk. I don’t think he will actually be able to get it done – building a grand winning leftist coalition – but I think he’s the best positioned to do it. A problem I have with Warren is that she’s working on a different project altogether.
Then you remember it incorrectly. As recently as September 2019 there was a fine piece in Politico explain how much Obama was trying to weasel his way out of involving her at CFPB “Why Are You Pissing In Our Face?’: Inside Warren’s War With the Obama Team” https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/12/warren-obama-2020-228068
Senator Sanders SAYS he is a Vermont Socialist, but he continues–at 78 years of age– to speak in the Brooklyn accent of his youth… despite calling Vermont home since 1968
Such intransigence suggests either a mind concretized in its formative years or a complete mask. I don’t know which option is the less appealing.
It’s not unheard of… Bill Clinton’s southern drawl gets drawlier with proximity to Arkansas and George Dubya Bushes Texas twang gets twangier with proximity to Texas. But, they modulate their accents… You can’t convince me, however, that either one does so with motives that can be considered honest. So it may be with Senator Sanders.
Are you really going to use accents as an honesty test? I’m pretty sure my own local accent becomes more pronounced being around here than it is when I’ve been someplace else for a while.
I think this Soviet stuff is totally irrelevant to a general election campaign. Hillary’s valiant attempts* to get the GOP Russia hawks to endorse her, campaign for her, and denounce Trump ended up winning her zero midwestern electoral votes without flipping a sufficient number of Sunbelt suburbs. Apparently the party of Reagan is perfectly happy with a Russian apparatchik at the top of its ballot. Does it matter in the fall if Sanders drank some KGB kool aid in the 80’s while Trump got elected with it today? I think that’s a wash. It absolutely should not be, but it is.
*i mean this sincerely and agree with and endorsed this strategy at the time for what it’s worth. Turns out she and I (and a lot of people) were wrong about how far up Putin’s butt the GOP and the voter base was willing to go.
Oh Christ put the Chomsky down and get real. It was not a coup. Morales violated international election law and every outside observer said it was a fraudulent election. That’s honestly my biggest concern with Sanders is the foreign policy stuff over 40+ years. The Castros, Chavez, and Morales are just left wing versions of Trump. No respect for individual rights or the rule of law. Self enriching narcissistic rulers who stole from their people. Siding with Morales gives fuel to the lie that Sanders wants to turn the US into another Venezuela. I part ways with you and him here.
Morales ran a rigged plebiscite to overturn term limits that he still manages to lose. He then went to his Supreme Court stacked with loyalists who overturned the will of the voters and gave him unlimited terms. Now he finally lost an election and resigned when his own party and the military sided with the people in the streets protesting for his removal. Supporting Morales is shows Tulsi level ignorance.
Restoring American global moral leadership should be a paramount priority. It’s bad enough Warren is a foreign policy lightweight and the only heavyweight in the race has been wrong on everything in his career. We don’t need Bernie deconstructing manufactured consent instead of governing.
It is absolutely a coup. And now the right-wing, racist Christian government is planning to arrest elected members of Morales’s party.
Unprecedented reduction in poverty in Bolivia during his administration.
This is false. The election was showing a clear win and also showing an increasing lead as rural area votes came in, which would be expected from the heavily indigenous regions. The OAS reviewing the results claimed an “inexplicable change in trend” that has been shown, by a number of independent analysts, to be consistent with later reporting of indigenous regions. The OAS did an audit that pointed to irregularities but did not provide clear evidence. Morales agreed to abide by a recommendation from the OAS for a second vote, a second vote that the opposition party opposed. A second vote wasn’t allowed, as the military took over, forcing Morales to resign. Then there was the ransacking of Morales’s and his family and allies’ homes.
And one of her first orders of business was to absolve the military of any potential criminal responsibility for actions involving the widespread protests by indigenous people. They’ve already killed dozens of protestors.
If it is not a coup, the term has no meaning.
What we’re seeing across South America now is a repeat of the 70s.
I bet you think Bolsanaro’s victory was also a triumph for democracy, too, right?!
You know, typical non-coup stuff.
The Guardian, hardly a right wing rag, wholeheartedly disagrees.
One can also oppose a once respected left wing leaders autocratic tendencies without supporting the autocratic tendencies in his right wing opponents.
Morales was the first indigenous and working class person elected in Bolivia, finally overturning a century old creole elite that was dominated by mining interests. I studied the water wars from the previous administration, and am glad that Morales nationalized rather than privatized public goods like water, education, and health care. I do not doubt the working people of Bolivia’s indigenous heartland still supported him and for justified reasons considering his opponents.
They still voted against democracy and the rule of law. No different from my hungry and crime fearing in laws in the Philippines voting for Duterte or Carrier workers getting duped to vote for Trump. Hungry people support autocrats when the autocrats deliver food. Whether from the right or the left, autocrats are always wrong.
Like too many leftist leaders in developing countries, he developed a personality cult and an addiction to power. Refusing checks and balances, refusing to give up office, and refusing to yield to younger members of his own party. Like Mugabe, Chavez, Ortega, and Castro a welcome change in leadership from a right wing colonial style elite turned into a left wing autocracy. Hopefully unlike Venezuela, it will not result in famine and civil strife.
I think he should not have stood for re-election. It does not change the fact that what is happening now is a coup. And now we have the US, Canada, and other countries supporting a right-wing takeover, which I’m sure will help with some large companies get better prices on lithium.
Clearly they need a new round of elections with Morales off the ballot. Upon further research, I share your concerns that this interim government is attempting a power grab of its own. I agree that the US should act as a neutral arbiter for a genuinely democratic government and not play favorites.