"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana
We've all heard this quote (or it's several misquoted variations) many times. And yet, despite it's ubiquity, the vast majority of us still stubbornly refuse to put it's lesson into practice.
A case in point is provided by looking at the current division in the American political Left. I'll be the first to admit that a large chunk of the anti-Hillary/anti-Establishment side has become unreasonable and strategically ineffective. But in this piece I'm going to discuss a huge, past-forgetting, strategic error that the pro-Hillary side is still making right now: Blaming Bernie for Hillary's loss to Trump.
And I'm going to point out why this is a mistake without using any of the counter-arguments that Bernie supporters usually provide.
I can already hear some of you repeating the cliches of "The election is over, so get over it", "stop whining", "move on", etc. But if you're a Hillary supporter making such an argument to Bernie supporters, you're not only forgetting Santayana's valuable lesson, you're also being deeply hypocritical. Hillary and her supporters in the Establishment media are currently engaged in a massive attempt to re-write the history of 2016, with Bernie as the villainous interloper from the "unrealistic" "Far Left" who sabotaged Hillary's chances of becoming President. And it's transparently obvious what the goal of this narrative is: To shame and silence left opposition and prevent any Bernie-style progressives from challenging the Democratic Party Establishment's anointed candidates in the future.
But not only is it an incredibly self-defeating strategy (if Democrats vilify and ostracize Bernie supporters, where do you think they're going to go next election?), it's also bad history. And to understand this, all you have to do is think through the various alternate scenarios the way any good chess player would.
But before we start, we must first dispel the myth that Bernie somehow created the anti-Hillary sentiment on the Left. If only mean old Bernie hadn't shown up out of nowhere and started criticizing her, the progressive Left would have been on her side and Hillary would have had a much easier path to the White House, right?
Wrong!
How soon we forget what should still be very clear in our memory. After all, it was less than thee years ago. Hillary didn't officially announce her campaign until April 12, 2015, but everybody knew for at least a year before then that she was the clear front runner and Establishment favorite. And long before Bernie threw his hat in the ring, long before most Americans had even heard of him, there was enormous anti-Clinton sentiment on the Left, and a huge groundswell of energy to find a Democratic primary challenger from the Left.
For example, have we already forgotten MoveOn.org and Democracy for America's efforts to draft Elizabeth Warren beginning in late 2014? Have we forgotten RunWarrenRun.org? Reminder: Bernie didn't announce his campaign until April 30, 2015 (with a formal announcement on May 26, 2015), only after Warren made it clear she would not be running. So it couldn't be any clearer: Bernie didn't create the anti-Clinton energy on the Left. Far from it. He merely tapped into a sentiment that was already very much there.
And no, this anti-Establishment anger didn't just suddenly materialize at the prospect of a President Hillary, either. It had been simmering and growing for a long time. These same progressive voters were deeply critical of Obama and his many sell-outs and betrayals (remember Larry Summers? The crackdown on whistle-blowers? The refusal to include a public option?, etc, etc). And it was already very much there as far back as the 90's with Bill Clinton's many Republican-Lite policies (Doesn't anybody remember reading Noam Chomsky or The Nation back then?).
So now that we all understand this reality, let's take the time to think through the possible alternate scenarios had Bernie never challenged Hillary. What do you think would have happened instead? Do you really think Clinton would have sailed through the primary with no progressive challenger and no criticism from her Left? Not a chance.
First off, with Bernie out of the picture, someone else from the progressive Left, either within or outside the Democratic party, would have almost certainly filled that niche. There was a tremendous demand for it. And they likely would have made the same very reasonable and very necessary critiques of Clinton's policy positions that Bernie did. Don't believe me? You really don't think there would have been any progressive primary challenger if Bernie didn't do it? Ok, then. For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true and go to Alternate Scenario #2:
Without anyone like mean old Bernie raining on the parade, Clinton sails through the primary facing no one but the weak non-entities we've all forgotten already (O'Malley, Chafee, Webb). OK, now where do you think those millions of anti-Clinton progressives (i.e.- the ones who tried to draft Warren, remember?) would have gone? What do you think they would have done? Do you think they would have just shut up and fallen in line behind Clinton?
Keep dreaming. Maybe a few of them would, but far more of them would have either stayed home in disgust or sought an alternative outside the Democratic party. Take a moment to think this through carefully and dispassionately with me:
If there had been no progressive primary challenger like Bernie, it would have provided an entire full year for Jill Stein's Green party to build it's momentum & promote Stein as the only progressive alternative, attracting far more donors and convincing potential millions of ex-Democrats to switch to Green. You think Stein was a spoiler in November? Imagine how much bigger a spoiler she would have been had there been no Bernie in the primary. You could kiss goodbye that three million popular vote lead in the general. At least that many extra votes would have likely ended up with Stein, and Clinton's loss to Trump would have been even more embarrassing. So by running as a Democrat, Bernie effectively destroyed the Green Party's chances of being a significant spoiler in November.
So if anything you should be thanking Bernie, not blaming him! Unlike Jill Stein, Bernie wisely understood that we could not afford to divide the Left into competing parties and still win in 2016. So instead of berating Bernie for not being a "real Democrat", you should thank him for running in the Dem primary instead of running as an Independent. And you should thank him for inspiring millions of new young voters to sign up as Democrats. And you should thank him for putting his support behind Clinton after the primaries instead of Stein, even though his values and principles were far more in line with Stein's than Clinton's. Bernie wisely foresaw that Stein didn't stand a chance, and that by working to get Clinton elected President, he would have much more leverage and a much better chance to get real progressive policy ideas considered.
So there you have it. When we look at how the alternate scenarios likely would have played out, it becomes obvious that Bernie's primary challenge helped Hillary far more than it hurt her. In 2016 the American public were deeply hungry for a populist anti-Establishment outsider. In retrospect, a centrist/third-way insider anointed by the Establishment, male or female, and without the charisma of an Obama, probably didn't stand a chance in hell of beating Trump. So instead of bashing and blaming Bernie and his supporters, we should thank him for running & them for keeping a huge chunk of that populist energy inside the Democratic party instead of letting it bleed out.
As catastrophic as the November election was, it would have been even worse for Hillary had Bernie never entered the race, or if he ran as an Independent. So if you truly want Democrats to win back the White House, you need to stop blaming Bernie and his supporters. Instead you should thank them! And encourage their input into the party in the future.
But sadly, I'm sure my plea will fall on deaf ears. The corporate wing of the Democratic party & it's Wall Street billionaire donors will continue their media campaign to demonize and purge progressives from the party. And then continue to blame these very same progressives when Republicans continue to hand Dems their asses every election.
So I'll end with another, less famous, quote from George Santayana:
"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim."