Crushing it

If you look at its history, you see that Bernie Sanders fits more snugly into the traditions and policies of the Democratic Party than does the Clinton cohort. If you ask the liberal base of the party, you get the same answer: that's what cost Hillary Clinton the job in 2008, and it's why, despite incredible institutional advantages, she hasn't been able to knock Sanders out of contention.

In this election, what’s at stake is not which particular subset of the oligarchy gets to decorate the big corner offices on Capitol Hill or who gets to weekend at Camp David. This is a fight about the future of the country.

The Democratic Party is a vehicle, a tool. If that tool can be used to improve our people's lives, great. That's the measure of its success. Winning, alone, is not. But even for those for whom the only goal is thwarting the GOP, in this season of frustration and discontent, Sanders is more likely to win the general election than Clinton.

More important: if it is not an instrument for improving the lives of ordinary citizens, what good is any political party? Why should people fighting for a living wage vote for a party, whatever its rhetoric, that stands in its way? Why should people who value economic justice vote for a party that embraces giveaways to the economic elite? Why should people who want peace vote for the party of war?

Oh, yeah: the other guys are worse. Is that truly enough?

The young are rallying to Sanders because he is addressing their fears about the future. The economic policies pursued by the Democrats and Republicans over the past 30 years have hurt everyone (except the 1%) to one degree or another, but the young most of all. Crushing debt, joblessness, vanishing career paths, globalization, demographics, and the rising cost of housing are slamming the incomes and destroying the prospects of millions of young people, resulting in unprecedented inequality not just between the economic elite and everyone else, but between generations. Of course they want a leader who makes fixing the economic mess the first priority.

What is true for the young is true for nearly every other demographic (with the possible exception of the elderly, whose lives are cushioned somewhat by programs, like Social Security and Medicare, initiated by -- that’s right -- the New Deal and the Great Society), which is why Sanders’ appeal has such a wide reach. Everyone is mad as hell; maybe, for the first time since the plutocratic counter-revolution began in the early 1970s, they’re not going to take it anymore. In the end, if the duoparty nominees are a radical reactionary and an establishment factotum, the Green Party may be about to enjoy its best year ever.