Pandemic Updates
Let’s start with a bit of an update regarding the pandemic. According to data from Johns Hopkins, at the time of writing, we have reached just over 1.7 million cases and 106,000 deaths worldwide. The United States still remains the country with the most people infected with over 500,000 confirmed cases and seems we may have passed Italy in confirmed deaths as CNN reporting has said we have passed 21,000 deaths (South Korea, which I said on this show had a much more coordinated response, has 241 deaths). Some models suggest that we have reached our peak in areas like New York and New Jersey, but Florida and Texas could get worse throughout the month. It seems as though ‘stay-at-home’ measures are working but it definitely is too premature to allow people to go back to work and operate their businesses.
We have hit another record number in unemployment claims. In the last week, an additional 6.6 million people filed bringing the number just shy of 17 million in just three weeks. For context during the recession in 2008, it took 18 months for us to lose just 15 million jobs. Some economic policy experts like Heidi Shierholz point out that we are nowhere near the end of this, and that the labor market has been “upended” as many workers will not be able to find work until after we get the virus under control. We have not felt the true effect of the downturn yet and our recovery will depend on how quickly we can ramp up widespread testing, contact tracing, and vaccine production.
The other items worth noting with regards to the pandemic response, were two surprising moves from the political right who are proposing policy more to the left of corporate Democratic leadership. Firstly, Donald Trump announced that his administration would be suspending student loan payments for the next 6 months. This is a policy that even Democratic leadership was not bold enough to insist on and push for publicly (in fact I think a smart politician would be using this as an opportunity to push for full student debt cancellation). I fear this move and the contrast it creates to Democrats could help Trump scrape away some young voters in November who see this as him actually materially helping him. Trump understands when to run left for political expedience; we cannot afford to cede that ground again, though I fear the corporate Democrats and Joe Biden already have.
The other example is one that Saager Enjeti has frequently highlighted; a plan from Sen. Josh Hawley which calls for us to take an approach similar to the UK and have the government give companies “payroll tax rebates that reimburse 80% of payroll costs.” This is an unprecedented proposal for the GOP which traditionally would probably malign this kind of government intervention as ‘socialist.’ This I think is a very important moment in our politics.
For one thing, this is an opportunity for us on the progressive left, who generally advocate for the government having a larger role in directly helping working people, to find actual agreement with conservatives. This plan is a truly eye-opening example of how we have more in common with populists on the right than corporate centrists that dominate the Democratic party. It’s the overlap that Krystal and Saager represent on Hill TV; Rising pretty much the only political show I have seen provide this balance.
Hawley is just one of a growing number on the populist right who has formed what Matt Stoller calls a new ‘thought collective’ that is focused on China and on rebuilding the working class. They have been bold in pushing on their party leadership and have embraced ideas that have overlap with populists on the left. This is an opportunity for us to begin to converse with those across the isles in substantive debate and unite to form populist coalitions. It also provides a blueprint for us on the left to rethink and reimagine our politics creating our own thought collectives and putting pressure on our party leadership instead of caving to their petty calls for ‘unity.’
If I was in government I would be reaching out to Josh Hawley to start a public dialogue about this plan and other populist solutions that meet the moment. We could start to strategize about how we can use our collaboration to create media headlines and use the subsequent political and social capital we whip up against party leaders to actually substantively oppose corporatist policies.
The bulk week’s episode is going to be a bit emotional. Bernie has dropped out of the race and his chapter in politics is complete. I’ll admit, like many on the left, I already processed the hopelessness after Super Tuesday. I even said on this podcast a few weeks ago that barring some miracle, this thing was all but over. It is still really sad for me to see Bernie’s journey end, but we have come along way since that first Brooklyn campaign launch rally in March 2019.
There was a genuine belief in the air. We were all standing there in the damp snow for hours knowing we came to finish what we started in 2016. Nina Turner riled up the crowd, preaching truth and grounding our moment in solidarity which she does so brilliantly. Sean King reminded us exactly who our champion was as a human being, as Bernie is often too humble to talk about his past experiences and accomplishments. And Bernie himself walked on to the campus where he was once a student in the city he grew up in, and gave his first of many stump speeches and reminded us of his working-class roots; he knew exactly who he was fighting for.
I was never really involved in 2016, but what played out with the DNC and the convention really opened my eyes to the real problems we faced, and only Bernie was offering the vision that we were supposed to be a part the solution; Hillary wanted us to trust her experience, Bernie called for us to get involved.
After three long years of Trump where he undermined public administrations with his appointments, pushed through Brett Kavanaugh and gave a historic tax cut to the wealthiest Americans, the primary season finally started. Those of us who weren’t blaming Russia, Comey, or Bernie for defeat, were finally ready to select a new kind of vision to go up against Trump. Many like me wanted to prove that a progressive platform that substantively was designed to help the working class was the actual formula to defeating Trump’s right-wing faux-populism.
Bernie was the clear and obvious choice with the boldest vision for American social democracy, the most name recognition, and the most independent voter appeal. I even took up a position on the digital organizing team on the campaign and was able to witness a truly remarkable organizing operation. It was my first ever involvement in politics; my first time donating, my first time truly paying attention for the entire cycle, and my first time learning about all of the archaic primaries and caucuses.
The campaign was launched and we were feeling bold and underestimated. Many in the media counted him out and the field quickly filled up with candidates. Most of the candidates on offer were providing some flavor of a return to “normalcy” where a neo-liberal corporate consensus continues to rule and dictate what we can and cannot afford. Elizabeth Warren tried to carve a lane for herself in between that ‘return to Obama’ and a new vision akin to the social democratic vision of Bernie Sanders, but ultimately, in my opinion, undermined efforts to get Medicare for All and a Green New Deal and certainly did him no favors by accusing him of being a sexist right before Iowa which stunted his momentum and took the headlines away from his attack on Joe Biden’s record that he laid out in the CNN town hall the week before the debate.
Obviously, we all remember the heart-attack in October after Bernie was campaigning intensely, hitting 4-5 rallies every day; that was definitely the lowest moment in the campaign until the final day. I remember feeling devastated and for a week or so, many said it could be over for Bernie. At that desperate moment, AOC and other ‘squad’ members saw the heart attack as a ‘wake up call’ and what should have been the end of his campaign, turned in to its resuscitation with a new wave of progressive endorsements. The ‘Bernie’s Back’ rally also had fantastic energy; Michael Moore, AOC, Nina Turner and a host of progressive New York state and local politicians joined over 25,000 people in the heart of Queens and kickstarted the campaign again.
In the months that proceeded that heart attack, the threat of Bernie really started to become real. His campaign started posting record fundraising numbers and built out a digital organizing infrastructure that was prepared to help volunteers across the country host their own events, knock on hundreds of thousands of doors, and make millions of calls.
Pretty much all of the debates were abysmal. Most issues were presented with right-wing framing, and crowded stages made us long for some substance that actually reflected the gravity of the situation we were in. Polling seemed to show the race was going to end up between Biden and Bernie, but Pete, Warren, and Amy still seemed in contention to compete for delegates in the first few states. As January rolled around, the mainstream media really started to panic, as it seemed like Biden was disorganized in the first few states and that Bernie might just win some states to make a case for his electability. As I mentioned before, Warren pulled out her smear just in time to stunt Bernie’s momentum going into the famous Iowa caucus; at that point, momentum was Bernie’s best chance at upending Biden’s polling lead.
In February the speculation ended and voting finally began. The Iowa caucus was run so poorly, we might have to call the contest into question the next time around. After a long night of gathering in different corners of caucus locations, math errors, coin flips determining delegate winners, and issues with the precinct result reporting app ‘Shadow’, Bernie won the popular vote and yet somehow Pete ended up with more delegates; there certainly was some suspicion with the way the DNC chose to use an app that was so dysfunctional and was partially funded by Pete’s campaign. Bernie didn’t get the benefit of a victorious media cycle, in fact, Pete basically declared victory before all of the votes were counted.
New Hampshire went well for Bernie as it was his neighboring state. Pete was able to creep up to a very close second with his momentum coming out of Iowa, but Bernie successfully won his first state and he started to build up his own momentum. Then Nevada rolled around and the campaign hit its peak with a dominant victory that proved Bernie’s strategy worked in turning out the Latin American communities in impressive force.
Then, of course, South Carolina pulled through for Joe and Obama made the call for the empire to strike back on what Kyle Kulinski has aptly called ‘Bloody Monday,’ when the centrist candidates coalesced in time to give Biden momentum before Super Tuesday. It all came crashing down before our very eyes; we actually thought he could win this time, but plainly the powers that be outplayed us. We all learned a lot from this election and it is important we accurately assess what happened and re-strategize as a movement. We need to understand what we did right and more importantly what we did wrong.
Firstly, let’s get the ‘excuses’ out of the way; there were many things that were stacked against Bernie and it would be a disservice to Bernie and everyone who spent time working on his campaign not to mention and examine them.
Obama - a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
While Bernie’s campaign was on the rise, some were comparing the dynamics between him and the crowded field of corporate-friendly party moderates to the dynamic between Donald Trump and the stratified field in the last Republican primary. It seemed like Bernie could rise and hold a lead with a third of the electorate as moderate voters searched for an alternative and split their vote. The people who actually hold power in this country — the donor class, Wall St, the military-industrial complex, the Silicon Six, the Mainstream Media — certainly were not going to have this happen, so they made sure that their last successful Democratic marketing personality put his thumb on the scale at the right time. Unlike the Republicans in 2016, the Democratic party had a leader that the electorate generally liked, looked up to, and revered; Barack Obama. He has a lot of influence on up-in-coming democrats, undoubtedly about the party leadership, and still is adored (and now dearly missed in the age of Trump) by faithful Democratic voters. He has, in essence, been an ever-hanging presence in the race, never coming out to endorse one centrist or another, and only now has he finally come out to endorse the dementia-ridden former VP (even though he was the first one to tell Joe not to run, he knew Joe wasn’t up to the task).
He may appear to have been on the side-lines, but NBC News reported that in addition to congratulating Joe Biden that weekend of the SC win, he also made a call to Pete Buttigieg who proceeded to drop out of the race and tell his supporters that his aim was to “shrink Sanders’ margin of victory coming out of Super Tuesday” and that he wanted to prevent Bernie from getting “too great a lead in the delegate race for anyone to catch up.” There was no reporting suggesting other candidates got calls from Obama directly, but it is reasonable to assume there were more than one out-going phone calls coming out of Obama’s phone that weekend; the political signal was sent. Even that one NBC News report presents the optics to voters of Obama’s approval of Biden and the media narrative after those few days and the imbalance of coverage certainly made sure that everyone felt comfortable with Uncle Joe.
At that moment, Obama made a choice to put his influence before the future generations of this country so that he could get a candidate that would re-affirm his corporate-friendly legacy instead of one who would call it out for how shameful it really is and completely repudiate it. As someone who was fooled into believing that Obama actually intended to restructure our economy and return to New Deal Era policy, it truly is sad and disappointing to see that he uses his power to preserve such a broken system. I really shouldn’t be surprised at this point, because he basically did nothing with a filibuster proof-majority in his first two years in office and deems the ACA his crowning accomplishment which was literally a plan written by Romney’s Heritage Foundation.
But plenty of people still revere him as a great leader. I spend time in middle school, during the 2008 primaries, putting up “Hope” fliers around my town and campaigned on campus during college where I cast my first-ever vote for the president to re-elect him in 2012. Admittedly, I wasn’t paying close attention to his policy, while he was in office. I did always have the politics of FDR and was fooled in 2008, but once he was in office I fell asleep until Bernie’s message convinced me that I need to be attentive and involved. Now I hope we all re-examine Obama’s presidency and start to think critically about what went wrong because that actually led to Trump, and I hope the blind faith in Obama as a political figure comes under new scrutiny.
If it wasn’t clear to you already based on his actions while having power and his choice of who to give $500,000 speeches to right after he left office, I hope the selfish and purposely covert role he played in this primary finally shows you which side Obama is really on.
Corporate Media Bias
If you didn’t notice the bias against Bernie Sanders and his supporters on mainstream outlets like MSNBC and CNN, you’ve probably been living under a rock.
From the beginning of the primary, the media tried to dismiss Bernie and did their best to ignore him and play down his chances. On this show, I have cited a few reports from In These Times that did a decent job of bringing some data to prove the patterns of the negative coverage and the comparatively positive coverage of his opponents. Every debate had question after question with a right-wing framing to force him to play defense on his policies and had a constant questioning of his ‘socialist’ labeling. Mainstream media pundits chose to focus on Twitter accounts supposedly of his supporters and not his unprecedented appeal and some even likened his movement to Nazis, brownshirts, and even the coronavirus outbreak. He was simply never given a fair shot.
Biden, on the other hand, was never truly scrutinized by the media. No one ever brought up his record on bussing and segregation, financial reform favoring credit card companies so much that he was dubbed the ‘senator from MBNA’ (a large credit card issuer) or his record on social security, trade and the Iraq war, which not only call to question Biden’s political intentions but would also certainly be a liability against Trump in November. One small example can be seen just this past week as the New York Times finally ran a story about Tara Reade’s sexual-assault allegation against Joe Biden, even though she was trying to tell the story for months and has already given interviews on Katie Halper’s show and Rising; how convenient that the outlet with the most resources waits until Bernie is out of the race to release a story that could call into question Biden’s character and electability claims.
Exactly as predicted @nytimes comes out with story about Tara Reade's allegations against @JoeBiden right after @BernieSanders leaves the race. They of course say they were working on story all along. Funny how accurately we can predict these coincidences.It certainly looks to me like some consent was manufactured against Bernie and eventually for Joe Biden. The mainstream media playing field was never even, but I personally never expected it to be.
Crowded Field
There were a lot of candidates on stage this time around; there were simply many alternatives who made enough rhetorical gestures to the changes Bernie was advocating for which gave him more competition than last time. People like Kirsten Gillibrand hopped on the ‘no corporate PAC money’ bandwagon, Kamala and Pete claimed publically that they were okay with Medicare for All but backtracked the second donors got involved, and everyone on stage began to talk a bit more about climate change and how our society and politics is pretty broken. In 2016 it was one-on-one; there was no debate stage with 10 people in the later stages of the primary, and there was not such a fervor to find someone that would definitely beat Trump. Perhaps some of Bernie’s vote in the previous primary did come from an anti-Hillary sentiment. Bernie overall, found it difficult to truly differentiate himself to convince the people who needed to add to his coalition for him to succeed; they kept shopping until Obama gave the signal, and Joe Biden proved he wasn’t a serial loser (his first-ever victory in a presidential primary was that fateful win in South Carolina in this cycle, and this is his third time running for president).
“Socialism”
Bernie made a choice at the beginning of this race to brand himself as a socialist and lean into the term. I believe he was hoping to de-stigmatize that word and elements of that philosophy. Ultimately even that label gave the media a stick with which to beat him, using McCarthyist tactics to fear monger about his vision. Chris Matthews famously voiced his concern with Bernie’s definition of socialism, whether he was advocating for policies like those in ‘Denmaak’ or something more extreme like what he remembers of “Fidelismo.” Generally, since the Cold War, Americans have been uncomfortable with left politics the labels of communism and socialism in particular. Bernie had a chance to label himself accurately by calling himself a Social Democrat, and then no one would be able to question that he was aiming for a mixed economy like the ones in Scandinavia. It’s important to remember that politics is a branding exercise and if your brand is associated with something voters are uncomfortable with, you will lose some support.
Older suburban electorate
As the votes rolled in on Super Tuesday and beyond, there was a clear pattern that showed most of the people coming out to vote were older voters over the age of 45. Many of those people who grew up during the Cold War are more susceptible to mainstream media’s McCarthyism, are more likely to be proud of their Democratic party registration, and ultimately they were more reliant on the mainstream media networks to feed them information about politics. All of these traits dominated the electorate and unfortunately, Bernie was not able to turn out enough young people, independents, and generally disaffected voters in order to come up against this older-suburban voting block which generally votes more frequently.
Now, because we are bigger men and women than the corporate democrats, let’s look inward and examine closely what went wrong and how we need to change. Bernie, his campaign, and we as a movement made enough mistakes that it cost us the chance to have a conduit for working-class people in a position of ultimate power. In some ways, the writing was on the wall; we knew the media would be stacked against us, we should have expected our opponents to consolidate, and we needed to be prepared to handle that skewed playing field. All of us need to take responsibility and not just point fingers as Hillary did when she lost to a game-show host. I know it is important to learn from our successes, but I’ve had enough of the cheerleading; we lost, again.
Bernie continued to insist on staying civil.
For this particular one, Bernie was in the hot seat. We saw in 2016 that he was unwilling to call out Hillary Clinton on her corruption because he wanted, as he often says, a campaign focused on issues. If he was going to have a chance in the crowded field this time around, he was going to have to differentiate himself fervently and clearly. He needed to be nimble and be ready to attack his opponents more consistently. He did have a few decent jabs at Bloomberg and at Pete for the number of billionaire donors he had, but he never landed an effective punch on the guy who led him in the national polls from the beginning of the race; a candidate who deserved a bloody nose and vetting of a record that includes voting for the Iraq War, numerous sexual misconduct allegations, advocating for cuts to social security, creating bankruptcy legislation that trapped millions of Americans students in debt … the list goes on and on. Bernie wanted to spare his ‘friend’ Joe’s feelings, instead of having the killer instinct to politically take him out.
He never pivoted his rhetoric.
Bernie always advocated for a revolution. His politics and policies were so new that they prompted a decent amount of uncertainty in the democratic electorate. This was an election where certainty was on the ballot; in the face of something so extreme and rash as Donald Trump, Democrats craved something they were comfortable with: ‘a return to normalcy’ (e.g. having an eloquent president who supposedly “knows what he’s doing”). Many of us in Bernie’s base understood that that supposed normalcy was what brought us the precarious conditions for the working class that led to Donald Trump; so Bernie’s revolutionary rhetoric is exactly what we wanted to hear. Nevertheless, we had to give those older voters who were not sold on his vision a reassurance that they would have stability in their lives. In debates and other public appearances he often seemed to sound like a broken record, pulling out his same stump speech over and over again. Just like corporate Democrats pay lip service to our issues, Bernie could have changed his rhetoric to address the fears and concerns that some voters had about too much change, even though his policies would indeed be revolutionary.
With regard to the mainstream media, he was always on defense.
The Bernie campaign was under no illusion that there was going to be a fair media landscape because his agenda is antithetical to the interests of the parent corporations of mainstream news outlets. The campaign chose to invest in their own internal media like their live streams and podcast, but never tried to control the mainstream media narrative aggressively, or consistently combat and expose unfair coverage. There was one time I can recall in one of the debates when Bernie rejected the framing of a question, but by in large he was on defense the entire time, having to re-explain his positions and he never seemed to be bold enough to consistently call the media out, publicly, for being blatantly bias. What Bernie needed to learn about the media is that you cannot put yourself at the mercy of their narrative, you have to be fearless in your actions and make a show they can’t help but cover, just like Trump. You can gain valuable earned media and force your way to a place where you are setting the narrative. The media was always going to be unfair to you Bernie, might as well go on the offensive.
His words were more revolutionary than his actions.
In the Declaration of Independence, our revolutionary founding fathers described the reasoning for their decision to start a revolution.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes desctructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying the foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by aboloshing the forms to which they are accustomed.
In many ways what Bernie offered was just as revolutionary. The reason so many of us appreciated his message was that it was clear he understood the structural corruption that leads to most of the injustice in our society. He was telling us that we have the right to abolish that government in which bribery of politicians is legal and where corporations and financial elites control our economy. Our campaign finance laws ensured that the people in power now could get there without the consent of the governed, us. The reasons we need change are in no way light or transient, thousands of people die every year because they don’t have access to health insurance, thousands of students are trapped in debt, and climate change is an existential threat to our species. Our income inequality has hit historic heights and the imbalance of power between industry and regular people must be reassessed in this new industrial era. Unfortunately, the pattern of humans suffering through evils while they are sufferable continues and most people were not ready for Bernie’s revolution. Even he didn’t seem to be willing to actually act revolutionarily and push back against his opponents, the media, and Obama who he said was not part of the establishment, even though the was the one who made the call to end our campaign. If you are running an anti-establishment campaign, match your rhetoric with your actions.
Now let’s talk about the things he did accomplish.
Shifting of the Overton window.
"It's common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think that's a mistake," says Noam Chomsky. "I think it was an extraordinary success — completely shifted the arena of debate and discussion." bit.ly/3aYgTEtBernie did pull the country forward politically without a doubt. He may not have succeeded in getting power, but he has successfully brought issues that previously were never taken seriously into the forefront. Medicare for All has become increasingly popular, movements like the Sunrise Movement have pushed bold climate action policy and made sure politicians understand that that issue is a top priority, and he inspired workers and teachers to organize for higher wages and better working conditions. Without Bernie, we would not have such a focus on a comprehensive progressive platform aimed at restructuring the economy and offering something that differs from the neo-liberal bi-partisan consensus. He has forced us to rethink what is possible and what we deserve as Americans. As Noam Chomsky said, he completely shifted the arena of the debate, and in that sense, his campaign was a success.
Record digital fundraising from working-class people.
Bernie Sanders was able to raise a record amount of money from a record number of individual donors, with each donation averaging under just $20. He was not reliant on corporate PACs or large donors and bundlers and he raised more than all of his other competitors, even those who spent their time in wine caves. Sanders has paved the way for new candidates to raise money directly from their supporters; AOC ran her campaign in that way, and I expect more candidates who want to become uncorrupted representatives will do the same.
Unprecedented organizing; People got involved in politics.
Millions of people around the country translated their enthusiasm for Bernie not just with their dollars but with their time. Consistently polling showed that Bernie’s base was the most enthusiastic and it showed on the ground. There were thousands of volunteer-run events from phone banking parties, to canvasses and debate watch parties. There was an unprecedented digital organizing team that enabled email, chat and phone desks to answer questions for voters and volunteers. People have never been more aware of the importance of being involved in the political process, and many like me were involved for the first time in this election and it will not be our last time campaigning. Democracy only functions when we all participate in civic activities and Bernie has definitely made a new wave of people who will keep his movement going, even though his campaign is over.
***
So what are we left with now? Well, the answer is former Vice President Joe Biden, who has a pretty terrible record that should concern anyone who cares about getting more government involvement in things like our health care, protecting workers, and combatting climate change. This is a candidate in clear cognitive decline and who can’t seem to speak in coherent complete sentences. This is also a candidate who told a room full of rich donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” and who famously said he “has no empathy” for Millenials like me. He has no intention of reaching out to Bernie’s base with substantive personnel appointments and policy commitments; he hasn’t even spoken AOC who is the most progressive representative in Congress and who likely will take the mantle as one of the leaders of our movement, his laughable attempt at an olive branch on health care called for lowering the Medicare age to 60 from 65, which is further to the right of what Hillary offered in 2016 when she considered lowering that age to 55 or even 50. We have a choice to pick between Trump and return to that neoliberal mess which gave us Trump.
I know people like me are going to be shamed into voting and advocating for Biden for the sake of defeating Donald Trump, and if he loses, no matter what the data says, the media and party elites will blame Bernie and his supporters anyway. I for one will opt to use the little political leverage I have and wait for Joe Biden to actually make a substantive attempt to earn my vote by committing to including specific people in his cabinet and to fighting for specific policies, namely Medicare for All and a Green New Deal which are both imperative to my survival and the survival of my fellow Americans. Likely he will not do any of this, and likely I will have to make a difficult decision in the fall, but as of now I am undecided and leaning toward leaving president blank because I live in New York and my vote materially will likely not affect Biden’s claim to my state in the electoral college. Bernie’s recent endorsement of his ‘friend’ Joe does not do anything to change my opinion.
I’ll end with a final thank you to Bernie Sanders.
You will forever be remembered by this movement and we will revere you even though as you said: “It’s not about me, it’s about us.” You woke me up to the reality of the systemic corruption in our society and what it is going to take for us citizens to change it. You have gotten me to mobilize and be involved in politics and in a movement. You made me believe in my own ability to affect change. You have definitely changed American politics and my life, forever. I will forever be grateful for you and your candidacy.
Thank you, Bernie. Not me, Us.