By Nitya Chakraborty
The US Presidential elections are scheduled on November 9 this year but the socialist Democratic Party leader Bernie Sanders has not waited till the elections are over and the new President is elected between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. He has announced as promised his immediate agenda through his organization” Our Revolution” which is the continuation of the electoral battle run by the Vermont Congressman against the establishment candidate Hillary Clinton for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Bernie has endorsed Clinton for Presidential nomination on the basis of the results in the primaries but he agreed only after Hillary and the Democratic Party establishment agreed to incorporate the majority of his demands in the programme of the future Democratic Party President.
That was one part of the victory of Bernie to radicalize the agenda of the Democratic Party but he believes that the grassroots movement in America in favour of his agenda focusing on the removal of equality, has to be expanded and this needs a forum which will continue to fight for the implementation of the agenda which he has been articulating to improve the quality of lives of the underprivileged in America. This movement will continue irrespective of who wins, since even under the Democratic Party presidentship, the agenda already agreed to by the Party leadership and the Presidential candidate, will not be implemented in practice unless there is a big pressure from the people concerned.
Sanders this time, is not just confining his movement to propaganda in favour of his economic agenda, he wants to progressivise the character of the Democratic Party and that’s why his movement will field candidates who are true fighters for the underprivileged and who will work for the 99 per cent Americans. He says that his strategy is turning the power balance in the Democratic Party in favour of the Left and fielding his pro-people candidates to local school boards, city councils, state legislatures and in key positions in Washington. As Sanders sees it, these members of Our Revolution, will be involved in major ballot initiatives dealing with campaign finance issues, environmental programmes, labour issues, gender issues and the efforts will be to create a new America based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice.
Many hardcore left intellectuals of USA campaigned for the setting up of a new political party on the left lines taking advantage of the massive support gained by Sanders in his campaign for nomination and the participation of millions of young people in the campaign for Sanders. They said that the Democratic Party can never be radicalized and Sanders agenda will reach nowhere. But Sanders stuck to his gut instinct and he decided to fight by being within the Democratic Party using ‘Our Revolution’ as a platform for putting pressure on the Democratic Party establishment. He got full support from the US Communist Party and its journal Peoples World which have been backing Sanders the whole hog and is of the view that the fight against the Republican Party candidate Donald Trump and defeating him, is the primary task of the democratic movement now and Sanders has to carry the battle by mobilizing forces within the Democratic Party.
Sanders has now given a new dimension to the grassroots movement. He says that the change never takes place from top to down, It always takes place from bottom on up when millions of people come together and demand fundamental change in the country. Sanders supporters see their movement as a magnificent opportunity to expand the progressive coalition beyond labour and to reach out to important sectors of the younger generation. As a part of his bid to expand the power base in the Democratic Party, Sanders has a programme of supporting 64 candidates spread across the US and Puerto Rico. Forty are running for seats in state legislatures, 11 for city or country offices,12 for seats for US House of Representatives and one for a seat in the US senate. This number will be increased to one hundred and the objective is to help develop the next generation of progressive political leaders, empower millions to fight for progressive change and elevate the American nations overall political consciousness.
Notably the US labour movement which has been basically dominated by the conservatives, has undergone a radical change in the course of the latest Presidential election campaign. The Labour for Bernie movement has imparted a left orientation to the thinking in the US trade union movement and many veteran centrist and left leaning trade union leaders have got themselves mobilized in favour of Bernie feeling that a progressive change is still possible. Bernie’s campaign has been able to unite the Labour left and many of them have become part of the Our Revolution platform.
What is significant about the American polity today is that the talk of inequality and socialism as also crony capitalism has become the talking points in the middle America drawing rooms which was not the situation before Bernie started the campaign. From Jessie Jackson to Dennis Kuci-nich to Howard Dean, many peoples’ leaders made a splash in the Democratic Presidential elections but none could make anti-capitalist agenda so popular as Sanders has. His no nonsense class based politics is a measure of how there is big disillusionment in America with the ideology of free market. Bernie has been successful in channelizing the anger of the younger Americans who are fed up with neo liberal policies at home.
In US, the Left as a political force has always been miniscule though in the area of ideas, the Left leaning intellectuals commanded wide respect. Until now, the critical moments of left advance in America, the Seattle WTO protests, the anti-war movement, Occupy Wall Street as also the campaigns for gay rights and Black Lives Matter- have taken place outside electoral politics. Whatever might be the level of participation, its impact on electoral politics has been insignificant. For the first time, that is going to change and this is not a one shot affair because there is a big urge among the younger followers of Sanders to take it forward to its logical conclusion.
But the path may not be easy. As one close confidante of Sanders says as the movement advances and the Democratic Party establishment gets worried, there might be odds as Wall Street will be equally active and look for ways to stop this surge. One leading academic close to Sanders says,” the more successful we are, the more perilous the political situation is likely to become”. He explained, “the difference between Marxists today and those before us is that except for the glassy eyed sectarian religionists, we no longer have the solace of teleological confidence. There is no millenarian moment, no objective moment of the crash. We don’t know which way history will go, we can only try to influence history”. That is what Bernie is trying to do now.(IPA)