Commentary: In 2015, Desert Sage paid a visit to a meeting of the "Silver City, NM for Bernie" group and spoke with several of its members. At the time, feeling dubious about the likelihood of a takeover of the Democratic Party by the independent Senator from Vermont, I asked the members about the possibility that the promised "political revolution" would fail. What might they do next? The optimism in the room brooked little concern for failure. When pressed, the sentiment expressed by one member was, "Keep working."
As it happened, that woman was elected to be a delegate and went to the Democratic National Convention last week in Philadelphia to cheer Sanders even as his revolution fell and the nomination was finally grasped by Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be nominated for President of the United States by one of our dominant political parties.
Unlike the Republican Party, which allowed itself to be taken over by a clown car loaded with white nationalists and con men, with a man at the wheel who would flunk eighth grade civics if we still taught it, the Democratic Party is exceedingly competent at protecting itself from insurgency. It is expert at co-opting, deflecting, or absorbing challenges to its central ideology. Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and other left-leaning liberals have been lamenting the party's center-right position for decades, especially in the Clinton-led "New Democrat" era where the party postured as socially liberal yet fiscally conservative to win back "Reagan Democrats." The slogan was "opportunity, responsibility, and community." As this played out in policy, the contradictions and the human damage became horribly evident: the stripping of social assistance alongside the deregulation of Wall Street and the advent of NAFTA; the "compromise" demonstrated by the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"; the rise of a private prison industry alongside the mass incarceration of African-Americans; deteriorating employment and wages; and war, glorious war. Clintonism celebrated the upward distribution of prosperity and shrinking of opportunity, and urged those left behind to be responsible for themselves, at whatever cost to community.
The Sanders project was nothing less than to take the steering wheel of the dominant center-right party, and move it back towards working class politics, toward a humane regulation of capitalism, and away from the brink of ecological destruction. (For an excellent overview of the difficulties in such a project, I recommend an essay by Douglas Williams entitled "So You Think You Can Take Over the Democratic Party," available at www.thesouthlawn.org.) What the nomination of Hillary Clinton indicates, amid the numerous controversies of process and the favoritism of the party leadership, is that this is still the Clintons' party. It does not view the Sanders movement as its future or as an opportunity to expand its coalition. No, the left - just like the Americans left behind by Democratic politics - is simply a problem to be managed and disciplined.
So, again: what next?
When Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet in support of American independence, he made the audacious declaration that "we have it in our power to begin the world over again." He advocated independence from a single monarch. What we have now is a republic ruled in effect by two kings. One of them, bearing the crest of the elephant, has succumbed to dementia and cannot govern responsibly. The other is highly rational, holds power in a ruthless grasp, and is entirely ambivalent about the welfare of the common folk.
To receive their portion of freedom, the people may need to depose these kings.
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Algernon D'Ammassa writes the Desert Sage column for the Deming Headlight on Sun News papers. Write to him at DesertSageMail@gmail.com