March of the Sandernistas
Bernie Sanders is surging. The democratic socialist senator from Vermont has stayed in the spotlight since his 2016 presidential run, centering the upcoming Democratic nomination on generational issues like income inequality, climate change and endless war. In this collection, we offer different perspectives on what the Canadian left can take away from the Sanders campaign.
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Elite political journalists are eager to kick Bernie Sanders on his way out the door
Bernie Sanders has always made elite political journalists uncomfortable, on a deeply personal level. When Sanders rails against the corporate-friendly status quo, it rubs them the wrong way. Accepting the status quo as fundamentally reasonable is a prerequisite for succeeding in modern mainstream political journalism. Anything else makes you an “activist”.
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The one-choice election
There are no substantial political differences between the Democrats and Republicans. We have only the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists adopt tolerant positions on issues regarding race, religion, immigration, women’s rights and sexual identity and pretend this is politics.
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Democratic establishment deals Super Tuesday blow to Bernie Sanders, but race is far from over
Super Tuesday did not go as Bernie Sanders and his diverse working-class movement had hoped. While there are still a few months left before the convention, the next few weeks will determine the fate of the campaign. And for the sake of social, political, economic, and environmental justice, Bernie must win.
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Bernie Sanders and the case for a Canadian left-populism
The “utopian” demands that we democratize our economy and do what we must to avert ecological collapse—by euthanizing our fossil fuel industries, investing in a green energy transition, and rehauling our foreign policy—are the only kind that could potentiate the mass movement necessary to gain ground in the electoral arena.
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The lesson Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have for the left: Embrace class conflict
It must be put clearly that class conflict is a reality in this country, too; that the economic elite have never supported the CCF-NDP, and they never will; and that we’ll be branded as class-warriors and socialists no matter what our policies, however ambitious or modest. We need to embrace the image we have, and not be ashamed of it.
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What Bernie Sanders can teach the Canadian left
While democratic socialism may well take a different form in Canada than with Sanders, the latter has shown us that the public, even in a conservative nation like the United States, is clamoring for social and economic equality and democracy. Americans are listening to Bernie Sanders; Canadians are listening to Bernie Sanders; NDP parliamentarians like Niki and Steve Ashton are listening to Bernie Sanders; the question remains: is the NDP as a whole listening?
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The Bernie Sanders campaign and left politics in Canada
Does the Bernie Sanders campaign matter here? Of course it does. Who among us has failed to “feel the Bern”? Thanks to Bernie, and contrary to what anybody thought possible only a few months ago, Americans are talking class politics — for the first time since the 1930s! It’s the working class versus the billionaire class.
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The new rules of the game
The quadrennial political game of least worst, or how to scare the public to vote for presidential candidates who serve corporate power, comes this season with a new twist. But should Bernie Sanders manage to evade the snares, traps and minefields laid for him by the Democratic Party elites, the game of least worst will radically change.
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Bernie’s very welcome assault on our cliché of greatness
Can you imagine electing a president so arrogant he actually claims the right to think for himself and challenge US foreign policy, past and present? A president who honeymooned under the Soviet moon? As the media is pointing out, the cliché we deeply cherish (we’re good, they’re bad) is under assault in 2020.
