Sanders is one of the most popular politicians in the US, and his political analysis and messaging remain as relevant and compelling as ever. But while his Tour to Fight Oligarchy is inspiring and important, the broad left badly needs a political vision that goes beyond Sanders.
Republicans control all three branches of federal government, and are using that power to dismantle and privatize the entire federal government, and this author’s suggested response is #walkaway.
Give your money to third parties that have no influence in federal politics whatsoever.
Impose a leftist purity test so strict no elected Democrat can meet it.
Withdraw support from congressional Democrats who, as shit as they are, are the only people in a position to slow the Republicans down.
In other words: abandon the Democrats to their fate and accept complete Republican control of the federal government in the hope that whatever leftist third party they come up with will be allowed to compete in a fair election? Will even have a fair election to compete in?
Sorry, but the time to redirect energies to leftist third parties was 2021, not 2025.
What we need now are more people like Bernie - people with the guts to fight Trump - in Democratic leadership positions. That means finding the Democrats who are fighting back the hardest, encouraging them to fight back harder, throwing our support to them and against Schumer and the appeasers.
The Democrats may be shit, but they’re the only opposition party we have.
We can talk about building a third party when the existence of a second party is safe again.
Bernie is an independent. The Dems are compromised. Schumer got nothing for passing CR.
Schumer got temporary safety from prosecution - he knows the Trump FBI is about to go after the leaders of the opposition, and he also knows just how much insider trading and lobbyist bribery they’ll find in his bank accounts. The threat of political prosecution is terrifying to generic corporate Dems because so many of them are actually corrupt af. The corrupt ones are the ones falling in line.
I still think some Dems are genuinely fighting for the people.
It’s going to be easy to spot them. They’ll be the ones actually fighting.
It’s possible the whole party is compromised and both Democrats and Republicans are working together to end democracy. But in that case we’re so completely fucked it’s worth the gamble to support the Dems who at least seem to be taking leadership positions in the opposition. At least for now.