In the 4th century BCE the Greek poet Pindar wrote that “war is a glorious thing to those who know it not.” He might have said the same of revolution.
Bernie Sanders is my distant second choice for President. O’Malley is my third. My fourth is despair.
This is not one of those disclaimers that are so popular here, but should Sanders win the democratic nomination, I will do all that I can to support him.
My real point is that I would not support him if I thought he were a political revolutionary.
Political revolution denotes radical change in the political system. That is not what Sanders advocates. He is a sitting U.S. Senator, campaigning to be the presidential candidate of one of the two establishment political parties in America, and his platform does not propose a single change to the political system itself. There is nothing revolutionary here, and this is a good thing.
Real political revolutions are violent, bloody things. They have to be, because they occur when people conclude that they can no longer achieve their political objectives within the system. Revolutionaries reach that conclusion because of entrenched, systemic, powerful opposition to their objectives. That kind of opposition does not go gently.
Political revolutions are inimical to democratic socialism as I understand it, and as I believe in it. They are a last recourse when democracy has failed. They reject democracy in support of a greater Truth that they cannot achieve democratically. They have a tendency to devour their children. Because of this I wholly disavow them.
My revulsion for revolutions is an important reason why Sanders comes second for me. He isn’t a revolutionary, but I do not believe that his economic goals can be achieved without revolution.
The horrors of the last two weeks have driven this home.
The people who happily applaud the murderous attack on Planned Parenthood, the Republicans who goad on their hatred, the Democrats who vote to further the suffering of refugees … these do not appear to me to represent a “fringe.” There is an entrenched, powerful opposition to the kinds of radical reforms that Sanders champions. This opposition is the beneficiary of a system that erects daunting barriers to radical changes.
Short of a revolution, I do not think that Sanders can govern effectively. The system, with its entrenched power, resists radical change and favors incrementalism.
Sanders offers no political middle ground. He equally offers no viable pathway to shift the ground. He is not a political revolutionary, but he offers no political plan to convince the right – or even the center of the Democratic Party – to back his agenda. Challenged to explain his political vision he conjures up a revolution, but it seems to me to be an empty rhetorical one.
I can support Sanders because I think that, if he were elected, the system would force him to pursue change incrementally. He would not – could not – achieve the radical changes that he promises, but he would pursue and promote some changes I believe in, and he would resist the reactionary right with all of the power that the system provides to a president. I am skeptical that he would do this as well as Clinton, who is far more experienced and skilled at this type of game. I am not even certain he would do it as well as O’Malley. But he would fight against despair.