Bernie Sanders’ demise: What are the lessons?
2016Jeff Mackler 2016-06Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 1
VOL. 34, NO. 6, JUNE 2016 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. $1 / CANADA $2 U.S. primary election math pundits, as well as virtu ally the entire corporate media, insist, and with good reason, that Bernie Sanders has lost the Democratic Party presidential primary election contest. Indeed, following his nearly 13-point California primary loss to Hillary Clinton on June 7—and his losses the same day in four of the six states on this second “Super Tuesday”—few believe that Sanders’ insistence that carrying his fight to the July 25-28 Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia will serve any end other than to “negotiate” some token “concessions” from corporate America that will be sufficient to placate Sanders’ supporters and reorient them to voting for Clinton.
A June 6 Associated Press report, no doubt discon certing to Sanders’ supporters, consciously jumped the gun in declaring that Clinton was already “the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for presi dent.” AP based its report on its own polling of the 619 “superdelegates,” appointed by the Democratic Party hierarchy, 571 of whom presumably told AP pollsters that they were committed to Clinton.
Even before the June 7 California primary results became known late the next morning, Clinton pro claimed her victory as being the first time in the na tion’s history when a major party had chosen a wom an as its presidential nominee.
No corporate media outlet in the country both ered to advance the Sanders-promoted leap of faith that he might yet sway Clinton’s “superdelegates” to change their minds on the grounds that most polls indicate that he would do far better against Trump than would Clinton in the November general election.
Indeed, these lifelong hardened Democratic Party machine politicians were Clinton’s and corporate America’s pre-election insurance policy that she would prevail.
Sanders indicated his allegiance to Clinton and the Democratic Party during his parting June 7 Santa Monica, Calif., speech, stating, “We will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our country. We will not allow Donald Trump to be president of the United States.”
Sanders’ Democratic Party candidacy has sparked a wide-ranging discussion and debate in the U.S. so cialist movement, and in broader circles, that reveals an extraordinary level of confusion and disarray. Most of the U.S. socialist left believes that the Sand ers campaign represents some sort of “political revo lution” that merits support—in one form or another. We shall review this almost bewildering situation shortly.
To be sure, the Sanders phenomenon is simultane ously a bold recognition on the part of the U.S. ruling class at its highest levels that the Sanders campaign amounted to a plus rather than a minus with regard to maintaining the credibility of the rigged U.S. elec toral system.
Nearly half of all qualified voters in the United States are not registered to vote. The vast majority of non-voters are Black, Latino, youth, and the poor more generally, many of whom are consciously ex cluded due to reactionary legislation or are disillu sioned with the entire electoral charade. Of the regis tered voters, only half actually cast their votes. Thus, no more than 12-13 percent of the electorate actually “determine” who will be president—that is, which of the two multi-billionaire-backed corporate candi dates will occupy the nation’s top post and do their bidding. The working class, the 99 percent, have no horse in the race!
It is not the math with regard to the fact that Clin ton still needs most of her “superdelegates” to win an outright majority at the July convention that moti vates Sanders to “fight on.” Rather, it is Sanders’ con scious effort to lend credence to the Democrats as a viable instrument for social change at a time when this credibility is at an all-time low that keeps him in the game. “I think we are perpetuating the politi cal revolution by significantly increasing the level of political activity that we’re seeing in this country. I think it is good for the United States of America and good for the Democratic Party to have a vigorous de bate, to engage people in the political process” (em phasis added), Sanders told a National Public Radio interview last month.
Sanders insists that even if he loses the convention nomination (or perhaps declares for Clinton before hand) he will fight for his delegates to have substan (continued on page 8, in “The working class was wealthy were profiting”)
Scan page 2
Fight for 15
----- pull-quotes -----
INSIDE SOCIALIST Verizon strike — 3
Fight for $15 — 2 Trial of Somalis — 5 Coup in Brazil — 6 Nabisco / Teachers — 4 Palestine / United Air — 9 Coup in BRAZIL
Jasmine / Miles — 10 Canada News — 11 Climate — 12