A democratic socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign amplified and projected ideas that radical grassroots organizers have been demanding for centuries in this country. His surrogates gave fiery, mesmerizing speeches at rallies that featured crowds larger than 25,000. Now, he has suspended his presidential campaign. This was his second run for the Oval Office.
Sanders’ political outsider savviness was his strength and weakness. He was sometimes criticized for not having specific plans for black people. I agree with a more nuanced version of this claim: Sanders did not demonstrate how he would prevent racism from impeding the universal programs that would help black people. While disappointing and warranted, his shortcoming mostly provided an easy cover for liberals to undermine his political ascension. Former vice-president Joe Biden authored a devastating crime bill that increased policing and mass incarceration, but that was smoothed away with his “We Know Joe” slogan aimed at black communities. The California senator Kamala Harris laughed about threatening to prosecute poor black mothers for school absenteeism, but also made punchy race soundbites during debates that went viral. Even the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s defense of capitalism and neoliberal ideas was obscured by her larger pronouncements to protect black women in hospitals and the workplace – bastions of capitalist exploitation. But Sanders’ wise refusal to pander to black voters manifested in a perhaps unwise polar extreme: an unarticulated specific response to black plight.
When he flew to Michigan instead of where he was scheduled to speak in Jackson, Mississippi, headlines emerged that Sanders ceded the south – meaning black voters – to Biden. He did not give a race speech in Detroit, but instead passed the microphone to black organizers to talk about their own issues. The day before his campaign suspension he talked about black voters, the coronavirus and the need for a targeted response in a virtual town hall.
Nonetheless, Sanders had the most progressive presidential campaign in recent memory. By far, he had the enthusiasm and support of black people under 50, and was polling higher than Biden among black people as recently as late February. Free college and complete student debt cancellation could have decreased the wealth gap for all people, but for black students in particular because they disproportionately carry high debt loads. Medicare for All could have decreased future generations’ prospects of facing pre-existing conditions and increased their health outcomes. Ending wars would have reduced the United States’ militarism and slowed down the armed services from calling on this country’s poorest people. Vulnerable, dispossessed and oppressed communities in the United States and abroad would have experienced a significant improvement in their quality of life. Unhoused people would have entered homes and billionaires entered political homelessness. And when Biden went virtually absent during the Covi-19 panic, Sanders shifted his campaign to a multimillion-dollar relief effort.
Sanders’ supporters now face a nearly impossible situation. For years, politicians and pundits asserted that Sanders is not a “real Democrat”. Those same critics now expect Sanders supporters to “vote blue no matter who”, regardless of being independent voters. If Biden loses to Donald Trump, then Sanders’ supporters will be blamed for failing to fall in line. If Biden wins, the Democratic party will resist any transformational concessions to the party’s left voters. We must not let them.
If Sanders is right about losing the electability argument but winning the ideological one, then that’s where his supporters must continue organizing if Biden wants their vote. Rather than “vote blue no matter who”, we must vote green for our planet, and brown and black for our people – and make demands on Biden that will fundamentally change this country. I do not expect Biden to become a socialist overnight, nor can he expect Sanders supporters to wake up neoliberal capitalists. Thus, Biden supporters should be putting pressure on him to change instead of threatening millions of other voters with a Trump card.
As an alternative to using social media to express #NeverBiden, individual progressive voters might join or support coalitions that are using a collective and organized process to put pressure on the vice-president to agree to universal healthcare, a moratorium on deportations, and to overhaul his climate change plan. And instead of shaming protest voters who refuse to participate in this fragile election, Democrats should examine why their party fails to inspire millions of people they claim to represent.
We must not vote like our lives depend on it. Biden must change because our planet depends on it.
Bernie Sanders’ political outsider savviness was his strength – and weakness
Derecka Purnell
If Sanders is right about winning the ideological argument, then that’s where his supporters must continue organizing if Biden wants their vote
Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters
A democratic socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign amplified and projected ideas that radical grassroots organizers have been demanding for centuries in this country. His surrogates gave fiery, mesmerizing speeches at rallies that featured crowds larger than 25,000. Now, he has suspended his presidential campaign. This was his second run for the Oval Office.
Sanders’ political outsider savviness was his strength and weakness. He was sometimes criticized for not having specific plans for black people. I agree with a more nuanced version of this claim: Sanders did not demonstrate how he would prevent racism from impeding the universal programs that would help black people. While disappointing and warranted, his shortcoming mostly provided an easy cover for liberals to undermine his political ascension. Former vice-president Joe Biden authored a devastating crime bill that increased policing and mass incarceration, but that was smoothed away with his “We Know Joe” slogan aimed at black communities. The California senator Kamala Harris laughed about threatening to prosecute poor black mothers for school absenteeism, but also made punchy race soundbites during debates that went viral. Even the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s defense of capitalism and neoliberal ideas was obscured by her larger pronouncements to protect black women in hospitals and the workplace – bastions of capitalist exploitation. But Sanders’ wise refusal to pander to black voters manifested in a perhaps unwise polar extreme: an unarticulated specific response to black plight.
When he flew to Michigan instead of where he was scheduled to speak in Jackson, Mississippi, headlines emerged that Sanders ceded the south – meaning black voters – to Biden. He did not give a race speech in Detroit, but instead passed the microphone to black organizers to talk about their own issues. The day before his campaign suspension he talked about black voters, the coronavirus and the need for a targeted response in a virtual town hall.
Nonetheless, Sanders had the most progressive presidential campaign in recent memory. By far, he had the enthusiasm and support of black people under 50, and was polling higher than Biden among black people as recently as late February. Free college and complete student debt cancellation could have decreased the wealth gap for all people, but for black students in particular because they disproportionately carry high debt loads. Medicare for All could have decreased future generations’ prospects of facing pre-existing conditions and increased their health outcomes. Ending wars would have reduced the United States’ militarism and slowed down the armed services from calling on this country’s poorest people. Vulnerable, dispossessed and oppressed communities in the United States and abroad would have experienced a significant improvement in their quality of life. Unhoused people would have entered homes and billionaires entered political homelessness. And when Biden went virtually absent during the Covi-19 panic, Sanders shifted his campaign to a multimillion-dollar relief effort.
Sanders’ supporters now face a nearly impossible situation. For years, politicians and pundits asserted that Sanders is not a “real Democrat”. Those same critics now expect Sanders supporters to “vote blue no matter who”, regardless of being independent voters. If Biden loses to Donald Trump, then Sanders’ supporters will be blamed for failing to fall in line. If Biden wins, the Democratic party will resist any transformational concessions to the party’s left voters. We must not let them.
If Sanders is right about losing the electability argument but winning the ideological one, then that’s where his supporters must continue organizing if Biden wants their vote. Rather than “vote blue no matter who”, we must vote green for our planet, and brown and black for our people – and make demands on Biden that will fundamentally change this country. I do not expect Biden to become a socialist overnight, nor can he expect Sanders supporters to wake up neoliberal capitalists. Thus, Biden supporters should be putting pressure on him to change instead of threatening millions of other voters with a Trump card.
As an alternative to using social media to express #NeverBiden, individual progressive voters might join or support coalitions that are using a collective and organized process to put pressure on the vice-president to agree to universal healthcare, a moratorium on deportations, and to overhaul his climate change plan. And instead of shaming protest voters who refuse to participate in this fragile election, Democrats should examine why their party fails to inspire millions of people they claim to represent.
We must not vote like our lives depend on it. Biden must change because our planet depends on it.
Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist