It’s urgent that we figure out why Sanders failed to galvanize significant numbers of progressive intellectuals and important social movements that were far from thrilled with Clinton and establishment Democrats. Some backed Sanders tepidly, or chose not to back any candidate in the race, convinced that no one had earned their vote, and that Bernie’s “political revolution” didn’t truly include them.
Though I did endorse Bernie, I recognize that there were legitimate reasons why many people of color and women made a different choice. Though Clinton thought her nods to identity politics could substitute for substantial economic change, it often appeared as if Bernie thought that economics could paper over the unique needs and histories of Black people, women, and other traditionally marginalized groups. Yes, he faced unfair smears in this regard. But the more important lesson is that without Bernie’s weaknesses on race and gender, he could have won, no matter how hard the Democratic Party establishment tried to hold him back. He would have won if he had persuaded more middle-aged and older women that he understood how important and precarious reproductive rights still are, and that he fully grasped the urgency of the epidemic of violence against women. In key states such as Pennsylvania and New York, he could have won if he had been able to win the support of just half of Black voters. But to do that, he would have needed to clearly and compellingly connect the dots between the country’s deepest economic inequalities and the persistent legacy of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and housing and financial discrimination.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing in the Atlantic, pointed out that when it came to confronting that legacy, the boldness and radicalism Sanders displayed when taking on Wall Street suddenly petered out. Asked whether he supported some form of reparations for slavery, he dismissed the idea as politically impractical and unnecessarily “divisive,” saying that big investments in communities of color would have the same effect. But as Coates rightly pointed out, the whole point of Sanders’s candidacy was to push the envelope of what is considered politically possible—so where was that same boldness when it came to racial equality? “The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as ‘divisive’ (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivalled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist,” Coates wrote. (Despite his strong critique, Coates publicly said he would be voting for Sanders in the primary as “the best option that we have in the race.”)
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, came out strongly against Clinton during the primaries, arguing that her track record on criminal justice and welfare meant she did not deserve the Black vote. But she also chose not to publicly endorse Sanders. The most urgent message of the 2016 election, she told me, is: “If progressives think they can win in the long run without engaging meaningfully with Black folks and taking racial history more seriously, they better get Elon Musk on speed dial and start planning their future home on Mars, because this planet will be going up in smoke.”
It’s a message we need to learn fast. Because if Left populist candidates keep missing the mark, and Democrats keep putting up establishment candidates in their place, there is every reason to expect an increasingly belligerent Right to keep on winning.
A Toxic Cocktail Around the World
Trump thundered: All is hell. And Clinton answered: All is well—we just need a few minor tweaks here and there to make it more inclusive. “Love trumps Hate” was Clinton’s final slogan. But love alone wasn’t up to the job; it needed something stronger to help it out, something like justice.
As a candidate, Hillary Clinton was in no position to speak to the mounting popular rage that defines our times. She had helped negotiate trade deals like the TPP that so many see as a threat; the first Clinton administration had deregulated the banks and derivatives market, laying the groundwork for the financial crash (she never came out against the move and had taken not-insignificant speaking fees from those banks herself). So she tried to paper over the popular distress…with the results we know.
In the absence of a progressive alternative, Trump had a free hand to connect with skeptical voters by saying: I feel your pain. You have been screwed. On the campaign trail, he directed some of the rage at the corporations who had pushed for these policies—but that’s mostly forgotten now. Most of his wrath was saved for the various racist bogeymen he conjured up: the immigrants coming to rape you, the Muslims coming to blow you up, the Black activists who don’t respect our men in uniform, and the Black president who messed everything up.
The Brexit campaign spoke to that same toxic cocktail of real economic pain and genuinely eroded democracy combined with identity-based entitlement. And just as Hillary Clinton had no compelling answer to Trump’s fake economic populism, the Remain campaign had no answer to Nigel Farage and UKIP, when they said that people’s lives were out of control and public services were underfunded (even as their proposed solution was poised to make things even worse).
The crucial lesson of Brexit and of Trump’s victory, is that leaders who are seen as representing the failed neoliberal status quo are no match for the demagogues and neo-fascists. Only a bold and genuinely redistributive progressive agenda can offer real answers to inequality and the crises in democracy, while directing popular rage where it belongs: at those who have benefited so extravagantly from the auctioning off of public wealth; the polluting of land, air, and water; and the deregulation of the financial sphere.
We need to remember this the next time we’re asked to back a party or candidate in an election. In this destabilized era, status-quo politicians often cannot get the job done. On the other hand, the choice that may at first seem radical, maybe even a little risky, may well be the more pragmatic one in this volatile era.
And from the perspective of our warming planet, it’s worth remembering that radical political and economic change is our only hope of avoiding radical change to our physical world.
Whatever happens, the next few years are going to be rocky. So before we focus on how to win the world we want and need, we first have to get ready for the next wave of crises coming from the Trump White House, shocks that could well reverberate the world over.
PART III
HOW IT COULD GET WORSE: THE SHOCKS TO COME
History is important. If you don’t know history it’s as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.
—HOWARD ZINN
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, 2004 documentary
CHAPTER EIGHT
MASTERS OF DISASTER