There is a fundamental disconnect this primary season between the two camps and they’re talking past one another.
For example, one recent diary right now explains to Sanders supports that criticism of the Hillary-Huerta events of last night doesn’t help Sanders.
Another recent diary takes Sanders to task for not raising money for the party.
For this Sanders supporter at least, these critiques are irrelevant.
The Sanders campaign is a movement campaign. It’s not about Bernie Sanders and it’s not about the Democratic party. This is the disconnect between the two camps, and the difference between “establishment” and “anti-establishment,” between caring about the SCOTUS argument and not being all that bothered by it.
The Big Question
One question is likely to divide the supporters of one campaign from the other this season:
Are we trying to win an election within and head the current, established political system, or are we working, quixotically or not, to overcome/transcend/overthrow the current political establishment entirely?
For most Sanders supporters, the answer is the latter.
Explaining that Clinton will be a better politician in our system, will “get things done,” is irrelevant because we don’t like the system. If she’s good at doing things in those ways, most of us prefer to vote against her precisely for that reason. We want a different system. Why would we advocate for a candidate that is at its absolute top?
Talking Past One Another
The same goes for the common critiques.
It won’t help Sanders to point out truth? Oh well. The point is the truth. The point is to give voice to that which (and those whom) are so often silenced and have been silenced for decades in our society. All of them. Not just women. Not just POC. Not just whites. But the ninety-nine percent of the population that knows the truth but never hears it from politicians and has no effective way to speak it to power. If Sanders doesn’t win, then there will be somebody else to follow. The point is that it’s time to have some integrity, and to fight for a better life. There is no point in “helping” Sanders if doing so is a matter of, once again, politicking as usual, placing integrity and justice behind “winning” in the order of things. Sanders has our support because winning isn’t everything and he can articulate this. Even winning the presidency isn’t everything. Win the presidency “at all costs” enough times and what you soon have, as a result of your deal with the devil(s) of our establishment, are a growing series of ever-more-pyrrhic victories.
It doesn’t raise money for the party? Good. The party sucks. The party is a disaster. The party has been hurting people more and more for years. The party does not represent us. The party is a part of the establishment that has to go.
Don’t let the door hit us in the ass on the way out, one camp says?
Hell no, we won’t go. That’s what every part of the establishment, every party, every chamber, every elite power broker, every corridor of power, every congressperson’s and senator’s office have been telling us more and more for years. Get lost. There is no place for you.
You’re not being heard or represented? Do not care. Don’t look at me.
Only eventually you begin to realize that it’s all a giant conspiracy. Turns out none of the parties, chambers, power brokers, corridors of power, or congressperson’s or senator’s offices are the “right place” for the public to be heard. None of them will admit to being the “right” place to be represented.
Because they’re all the same elite and the game is rigged. The idea is that we’ll keep leaving, tail between legs, taking care “not to let the door hit us in the ass on the way out” everywhere we go, forever.
OCCUPY.
This election season, and every election season from here on out, is an occupy season. Don’t let the door hit us? We won’t, because we’re not leaving.
Telling the truth does our candidate no favors? Fine. But we’ll keep telling it.
We’re not raising any money for the party, or giving any aid to the elites? No, we’re keeping the money inside the movement and using it as we see fit. We’re moving it around via PayPal rather than via the Very Grown-Up (Elite Establishment) People in the party HQs.
It doesn’t matter if Sanders isn’t helped by the truth. It doesn’t matter if money isn’t being raised by the party. Because this started years ago and it continues, and the goal is to Occupy the Party, and to Occupy America. Before it’s too late.
Talking Past One Another, Redux
For those that think this is all nuttery, fine. Think what you want.
But just as you say that critiques of your party and your candidate don’t resonate with you because your candidate has the most experience and can get things done and the other side is all unicorns and rainbows, you may as well know that critiques of our movement and our candidate don’t resonate with us because our candidate is not an elite power broker, can’t claim to be one, and the entire party and political system appears to us to be composed of (to coin a phrase that was once used a lot here) crooks and liars.
We’re talking past each other. You want to win the White House and work with congress to get things done. We want to occupy the White House and force most of the congressional thugs and elite power brokers—including anyone that is allied against truth, justice, or regular folk—out of office.
Our loyalty isn’t first and foremost to our candidate, nor is it to the party, nor is it even to the modern de-facto American system. In fact, we’d just as soon see the latter two in their current forms liquidated.
Or, at the very least, occupied.