Bernie Sanders has to rate as one of the most polarizing figures within the Democratic Party, a fact that is all more remarkable since he’s not a Democrat to begin with. Just the mentioning of his name on this site, for example, continues to evoke heated reaction nearly ten years after his peculiar story began its inevitable transformation from actual, real-time relevance to a kind of wistful lore, bittersweet or recriminating, depending on the company one keeps.
I remember Sanders when he was simply viewed as an anomalous if inoffensive Senator from that crazy liberal state of Vermont, tolerated by the party but seldom seriously discussed. Of course that all changed in 2016. Suddenly, to a huge plurality in the Democratic Party (as well as many Independents and even some erstwhile Republicans) he literally became an icon.
The one, basic, fundamental thing Sanders did that sometimes gets lost in all of the retrospectives and recriminations is to tap into a ready well of simmering Democratic frustration and anger. What was odd was that this bubbling reserve of inchoate frustration was surfacing even in the wake of an extremely well-liked and highly regarded president, Barack Obama, one who would have easily succeeded to a third term in office had the Constitution allowed it. The anger and frustration that Sanders channeled was not really ever about Obama, but it came from something deeper, with roots in the Occupy Wall Street movement that burned brightly, if just for a relative moment, in the aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2008-2009. That was anger against the greedy and heedless financial executives who brought that catastrophe down on us, and more broadly, a political system that allowed it to fester to that point.
Of course, there are different types of anger. Unfortunately for this country, there was also an untapped source of anger on the right — starting with the astro-turfed creation known as the “Tea Party” --that simply grew out of Obama’s eight years of holding office in the first place. That anger was, for the most part, stoked out of pure racism, and Trump tapped directly into it.
We all know about that type of anger, so there’s no need to elaborate on it here. What I think is much more interesting is the anger that Trump himself has generated over the last nine months.
In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Irish journalist and editor Fintan O’Toole fairly eviscerates Kamala Harris’ memoir of her failed campaign against Trump. I’m not going to rehash or debate all his points here (that would take too long), but this specific articulation of the difference between Kamala’s and Trump’s approached to the 2024 campaign seemed spot-on:
Trump [...] knows that, in the words of the Public Image Ltd. song, “anger is an energy.” He has, of course, directed it at immigrants, women, people of color, universities, journalists, and anyone who opposes his totalitarian ambitions. But, as Harris found out, joy is not the antidote to rage. The Democrats must channel anger. This does not mean aping Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric or opposing the violence of masked ICE agents and armed national guardsmen with violence. It means giving constructive expression to a legitimate indignation at the system that has allowed the top 0.1 percent of Americans to hold 14 percent of the country’s wealth while families in the entire bottom half hold 2.5 percent. It means being furious about the clogging up of the intergenerational social mobility that had been the driver of American dynamism: whereas 90 percent of Americans born during World War II ended up better off than their parents, those born in 1985 are as likely to be poorer than their parents as they are to be richer.
Two weeks ago the entire Democratic establishment (and most of the people on this site) were writing off Graham Platner’s campaign to unseat Susan Collins in Maine. And there were plenty of very good reasons to write him off: the presence of a Nazi tattoo, inflammatory online statements about guns, Communism, rape, and Black people’s purported tipping habits, are all certainly things that would have sunk a Democratic candidate only a few short months ago. Many Democrats, on this site, again, for example, said they could never support him after that.
But surprisingly enough, he’s still apparently in the running. Why? Well, Michelle Goldberg, writing for the New York Times, went to Maine and found out. The answer is … wait for it … anger.
Andy O’Brien, a former Democratic state legislator and newspaper editor, told me that outsiders didn’t fully understand how radicalizing the second Trump presidency has been for ordinary Democrats. Even senior citizens, he said, were becoming “fire-breathing leftists. They’re just pissed off.”
These voters understood that Platner had made mistakes, but they saw him as a fighter. “Five years ago, he would have been dead in the water, I think,” said O’Brien, who now works with the labor movement. “But this is such an unprecedented time. I think a lot of people really believe that we need somebody who can effectively fight against fascism.”
(emphasis supplied)
It appears that Platner is channeling the same degree of anger Sanders was able to tap into in 2016, but in a different context and in a far different environment. If anything, however, the same factors that motivated Sanders’ (and Platner’s) supporters have now become more acute, more entrenched. And with Trump they stand to be perhaps permanently embedded in our society. So the anger Platner is channeling is, at least to some extent, anger against Trump, his political enablers and cheerleaders in the GOP, and each and every sycophantic oligarch and hyperwealthy “Tech Bro” he’s catering to while he destroys our country, piece by piece.
Another factor in Platner’s appeal may be that Trump and the Republican party have done absolutely nothing for young people (those 30 and under) that could possibly portend for them a decent future in this society. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. To the contrary, what they’ve done is made things immeasurably worse for coming generations.
But it isn’t just young people who have a right to be angry at their futures being hijacked and trashed by these specific people. It’s the vast majority of us.
In the past decade we’ve heard endless platitudes from Democrats about how they stand for certain issues, “health care,” “affordable housing,” a living wage.,” etc. All of those are good things but they’ve proved insufficient and abstract to motivate voters. Anger, on the other hand, works best when it’s personified. Anger thrives with a concrete object — or person — worthy of its scorn.
As O’Toole states:
That requires a shift from standing up for to standing up to. Speaking on behalf of those who have lost out in the great economic upheavals of the twenty-first century now feels patronizing and elitist. The contemporary culture is one in which everyone has at least the illusion of having a voice—posting on social media provides a simulacrum of public expression. What is much more important now is whom you speak against—and whose wrath you are willing to risk in doing so. If the Democrats do not seem brave enough to take the risks involved in speaking against the overweening oligarchy, they will not prevent Trumpism from establishing itself as the American political order for the foreseeable future.
(emphasis supplied).
That requires spelling out exactly who is responsible for creating the problem and channeling voter anger against them. It’s a willingness to acknowledge voters' anger with clarity and specificity. And more importantly, it’s the willingness to bring that anger to the table, front and center.
Platner and Sanders may not seem to have a lot in common on the surface. But one thing they share is that neither one of them is particularly polite or reticent about placing blame directly and specifically on those who deserve it, and in particular denouncing fascism and its proponents for what it is and what they are. No future? Who exactly is responsible? Name names.
We need much more of this, from all Democrats, regardless of what you think of Platner or Sanders. Not abstractions or high-minded principles. Just talk about who is fucking us over , how they’re fucking us over, and what they’re getting out of it.
As O’Toole notes, the phrase “Anger is an Energy, is the refrain from a song called "Rise" by Public Image, Ltd. making it the first time I’ve seen it in something as highbrow as the New York Review of Books.
I will be out tonight but will check back in when I can.
