Update: I wanted to write a quick summary of my argument. I agree with Markos when he says that crashing the gate involves a populist movement employing alternative media to fight against "entrenched interests who are actively harming the party" and, by extension, the nation and the world. Who are these entrenched interests? Short answer: the oligarchy, i.e. the billionaires and large multinational corporations. The gate is protected by their bought politicians, i.e. the entire GOP as well as BlueDog/ThirdWay/NDC/DLC-type Wall Street Democrats.
As long as this gate stands, we will not see the kinds of robust change we need to rebuild the middle class, reform our criminal justice system, enact sane environmental policies, repair our crumbling infrastructure, develop a single payer health care system, rebuild public education, expand social security, reverse the damage done to women's rights, and on and on.
And there is only one presidential candidate actually crashing this gate: Bernie Sanders. Why? Because despite being a sitting senator, he is far outside the oligarchy and their paid-for politicians. And the Democratic party leadership is being dismissive of Bernie precisely because he is not one of them. Despite this, he is drawing huge crowds and phenomenal grassroots support that is slowly but steadily improving his poll numbers against the frontrunner and presumed nominee. Just as Howard Dean did in 2004, Bernie is riding a populist uprising against the status quo. And that is something every progressive should be excited about.
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Hey Kos. I read your response to my diary. Well, it was partly a response to my diary...it was largely a frustration-fueled rant against a certain brand of anti-Kos commentary. And hey, I don't blame you—I'd be irritated too, especially with the conspiracy silliness. I completely agree that the more zealous Bernie supporters would help him with a more even-handed approach. Of course, your rather patronizing diatribe against Bernie supporters as a whole was both unfair and discourteous. But whatever.
So, I'm going to bypass most of what you wrote, since it was at best tangential to my diary, and stick to the topic at hand, which is whether or not Bernie's campaign is "crashing the gate". With all that you wrote, your answer really boiled down to: No, because he's a senator, most of his current supporters are White, and he can't win. Even if we stipulate that the first two are certainly true and the third is probably true, it doesn't follow that his campaign is therefore not producing a people-powered, populist movement that can inspire genuine, lasting positive change. And while it would be ideal for Bernie to have a more diverse group of supporters and a clearer path to victory, their current lack does not disqualify him as a gatecrasher.
See, the question about whether or not Bernie is crashing the gate depends on how you define the gate. So let's use what you wrote in your diary, that the gate is essentially defined by the "entrenched interests who are actively harming the party." I'm going to expand that definition to include interests harming the nation and the world. By this metric, Bernie is absolutely outside the gate in terms of ideology, policy, and attachment to monied interests. In fact, I'm going to argue that the Sanders campaign is crashing the gate in six important ways.
1) Sanders is coming into the Democratic Party as an outsider. Yes, as a sitting senator he is not without power, but powerlessness is not a requirement for being a gatecrasher. An independent democratic socialist is not exactly an insider or upholder of the beltway status quo. This is evidenced by how dismissive the party leadership has been towards him. In other words, his insurgent campaign is happening despite a lack of support from party leadership (and probably some behind the scenes pushback). As such, Bernie is crashing the gate of the Democratic Party.
2) Sanders is hardly the only progressive politician. But he is one of the few who have been so for their entire career in such a full-throated way. His basic principles have remained unchanged for decades and he has never apologized for or hid from his liberalism, even when most Democrats were hiding under rocks or selling GOP-lite policies during the Bush administration. He continues to trumpet the cause of liberalism with a refreshing forthrightness. As such, Bernie is crashing the gate of political values and policies.
3) Sanders is very pro-labor and is pounding on issues related to economic fairness and real employment-based, working/middle class prosperity. There's no mystery why nearly all his top contributors over the years have been unions. At the same time, he is going hard after the corporatist culture embedded in DC. As such, Bernie is crashing the gate of labor, economics, and money in politics.
4) Sanders knows that the only way fundamental change is going to happen is with a large movement pushing for it. Record-breaking rallies and an early 100,000+ strong meetup are evidence that such a movement is indeed being built. There is huge enthusiasm and effort amongst his supporters, and while this might or might not ultimately translate into victory at the ballot box, it absolutely is fulfilling the basic mandate of creating change through the matrix of populism and alternative media. As such, Bernie is crashing the gate with grassroots, "people-powered" movement building.
5) Sanders has been a warrior for social justice his entire adult life. While he has room to improve in terms of diversifying his core team, his fundamental commitment to equality and justice for women, people of color, and LGBT folks is without question. It's easy to fault him for his less than elegant handling of the BLM protest at Netroots Nation, but the fact remains that he instantly integrated their core message into his campaign. His 97% rating with the NAACP, 100% with NARAL, 93% with ACLU, and 100% with HRC are evidence of his lifelong commitment to civil rights. As such, Bernie is crashing the gate of social justice.
6) Sanders has long recognized the reality of climate change and the need for radical energy reform. His voting record shows a history of fighting the big fossil fuel corporations. He backs policies that will actually make a difference. As such, Bernie is crashing the gate of environmentalism.
Kos, you wrote,
Crashing the Gates was about the power of individuals to take on entrenched interests who were actively harming the party. In 2003, we didn't sit there and demand that the NY Times or Time or Newsweek share our passion for Howard Dean, we built our own alternative media to spread the message. We were the change we were seeking.
You couldn't have better described the Sanders phenomenon! We aren't waiting for the NYT or MSNBC or Vox to share our passion for Bernie, we are using alternative media to spread our message. And looking at the size of Bernie's crowds and his climbing poll numbers, it appears to be working. You are right to be skeptical that this will necessarily translate into electoral victory, but it takes honed cynicism not to see that his campaign represents everything the netroots has been fighting for since 2006, both in terms of liberal policy as well as fighting the entrenched interests that are actively harming the party (and the nation as a whole). Regardless of the electoral outcome, the authors and readers of
Crashing the Gate should be openly and enthusiastically celebrating Bernie's campaign.
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Addendum
As usual, there are commenters that articulate my positions better than I do. Here are some great examples:
Addison: CTG was about the movement underneath the candidate, not the candidate themselves. How that movement formed, operated, and was funded. And then how to use that sort of self-funded decentralized grassroots movement to, in essence, take back power and influence from the DLC (among others). And so when Markos wrote CTG, a longstanding Democratic governor from Vermont, not some unknown from nowhere, was the politician face for the electoral sections of CTG. It's not necessarily about the politician's "rank", geographic location, or even their ideology.
JosephK74: Pragmatic realism is a way of defending the gates. If you select your candidate based on electability you're perpetuating that gate with respect to race, gender, and above all economic policy.
Geenius at Wrok: And Howard Dean was a governor. And Hillary Clinton was a first lady, a senator and a secretary of state. Arguably, if you're going with a definition this narrow, the only real gate-crasher in the presidential race so far is Donald Trump.
Doug in SF: You're outside the gate when as the second leading Democratic candidate who has better poll numbers than any single Republican at the moment, still isn't afforded the privilege of having his speech to the Urban League televised when Clinton's was [...] Sanders is therefore forced to use alternative means to get his message out, and has said so all along. This is an exact definition of what Kos is talking about in his book so I have no idea why he says that the opposite is true.