When Bernie Sanders talks about revolution it is about you
I have a question to Bernie Sander supporters. Do you really want to win? Do you think you can bring Bernie Sanders over the top? If your answer is no, then get on the best next bandwagon now.
However, if you really want Bernie Sanders to win, it is going to take much more than what I am seeing Bernie Sanders supporters doing right now. Yesterday, Markos Moulitsas, the publisher of DailyKOS, the largest Liberal website in the country and one for which I am a contributing editor wrote an interesting piece. He ran a Hillary Clinton / Bernie Sanders straw poll. Bernie Sanders has consistently won that poll by a large margin. A couple of days ago Sanders beat Clinton by a large margin, 63/35. The national polls among Democrats is quite different. It is virtually a reversal of the numbers, 56/30 in favor of Clinton.
Markos has an interesting few paragraphs in the piece that says much, not only to his readers but to Democrats at large.
Sanders has made major gains around these parts. What that means is that he’s more strongly consolidating the activist left (predominantly white, male, and highly educated), while at the same time making little inroads outside it (still stuck at his 30 percent national demographic ceiling, or 29.9 percent today, to be exact).
Sanders’ problem is our problem at Daily Kos as well—how do we all bust out of that box so that we can better represent the entire Democratic coalition? So yeah, yelling about how everyone should support Sanders in these comment threads will be as useful, helpful and productive as me claiming that Daily Kos speaks for the entire base. We’re working on it, but as of now, this site doesn’t reach that broader 70 percent of that base. So if you want Bernie Sanders to be genuinely viable, he has to bust through his demographic ceiling, and that ain’t gonna happen around here.
Or put another way, the number of Sanders supporters who know about Daily Kos is disproportionately higher than the number of Clinton supporters who do. Long term, that’s a problem for all of us, particularly if we want someone with Sanders’ politics in the White House someday. And I’d venture a guess that the bulk of Clinton supporters on the site wouldn’t have a problem with that goal, either.
And that is the problem. Markos does not believe Democrats are going to make that change in this cycle. Personally, I do not know. One thing I know is that in a year when Donald Trump is given plausibility, anything can happen and Bernie Sanders supporters must monopolize on the sentiment that is hitting every American, Left, Right, and in between.
Right now Sanders’ supporters are in a bubble that most supporters of every candidate are currently in. That status quo bubble means that Hillary Clinton wins. On DailyKOS anyone who speaks negatively about Bernie Sanders or too positive about Hillary Clinton is slaughtered. On other platforms the opposite is true. The problem again is, that dynamic ensures a Hillary Clinton win.
Bernie Sanders supporters must expand their reach. The Bernie Sanders message is an organic and universal message that should speak to everyone irrespective of ideology because it is really middle-class centric. Yet, I do not see the Bernie Sanders armies in Appalachia, the barrios, and the ghettos. The armies are adulating each of the already enlightened. That is not a revolution.
The revolution that Bernie Sanders speaks about is twofold. One gives him enough votes to win the Democratic Primary and the general election. Most important is the other. A real revolution cleans the House and Senate of the filth by electing people on his coattails who will really look out for the middle-class. The middle-class needs a complete political culture change in America.
That revolution does not only occur online. That revolution occurs with boots on the ground with individuals talking to people everywhere and all of the times. It means not answering manufactured questions of the Right and centrists who are responsible for the plight of the middle-class. It means setting the agenda. It means setting the tone of the discourse.
Do not fight on a failed turf. Define the field. As Bernie Sanders says in the video in this post, do not allow a discussion on cuts. Do not allow the discussion from the standpoint of austerity. Start the discussion with middle-class expectations and demands. We are a rich country. The middle-class made it so. It is time for the middle-class to see the fruits of its labor.
If you are a Bernie Sanders supporter, tell Americans what you are going to do to expand the dialog. Tell Americans how they can reach others who would be attune to the message, most Americans. Suggest to other Americans what they can do to make this a revolutionary election. It always starts with you.