Revolution?

As the Sanders campaign becomes more and more credible, the pundits, rightly, are scrutinizing the viability and popularity of his campaign promises.   That is all well and good.  It is true that such changes need to be well considered and thought out.  Changing a large and complex society, let alone the most influential one in the world, needs to be done very cautiously and carefully.  What bothers me is that Sanders’ proposals are not being given a fair hearing.  Every attempt is being made to invalidate Sanders’ proposals at the expense of truth and accuracy.  Even so, a large and growing constituency continues to believe.

Making major changes in a complex society necessarily requires a step into the unknown.  In the case of technological change, it means that some people who are heavily invested in the status quo are likely to be displaced or lose assets that are no longer viable in the new context.  Think fossil fuel and health insurance companies.

Another step into the unknown happens when a transfer of political and economic power is called for.  Sanders is calling for a “political revolution,” or, rather, is offering to lead a movement that has arisen spontaneously from the all of us.  An acquaintance came up to me recently and asked if there was a less harsh term to characterize Sanders’ campaign.  She, of course, was referring to the likelihood that “revolution” commonly conjures up the image of Russia in 1917 or the French Revolution, both of which were very bloody and chaotic.  Even our American Revolution was no walk in the park.  

The crucial difference between those revolutions and the one we are contemplating now is that the earlier ones involved a change from one form of government to a new, up until then, untried form of government.  In the case of Russia and France, they were improvising as they went, and there was an utter vacuum of power up for grabs that attracted unscrupulous or manipulative ideologues like Stalin and Robespierre.  In the case of our own revolution, the offending government and most of its operatives continued to exist across the ocean, and the initial new US government was actually a federation of already organized and operating colonial governments.  There was power to be grabbed, but nothing like in Russia and France.

Still, what we are contemplating now is nothing like those.  It involves a transfer of power within the same government from a small, wealthy group to the electorate at large.  It is not the introduction of Socialism.  We are already as much a socialist country as we are capitalist.  It is not unlike what FDR accomplished in addressing the Great Depression.  It is still a revolution in the sense that the current wielders of power have no intention of giving up their advantage willingly.  
The difference between Sanders and all the other candidates of either party, with the possible exception of Donald Trump, is that all the others leave the current distribution of power intact.  Power and wealth have become so concentrated in the hands of a few that the idea that we need to set a new course has become apparent across the political spectrum.  Once again, we have people benefiting from the status quo and those fearing change on the one side, and those that see that it’s time for fundamental change on the other.  What that change entails needs to be ascertained.  For some, Trump is the answer although what exactly he offers is entirely unclear.  Seemingly even Trump doesn’t know where he is going.  His appearance at this time closely resembles the rise of fascism in other times.  Rather than invest power in one strong man, Sanders intends to invest power evenly across the electorate.  That means that implementing the program that Sanders has laid out will require active and ongoing pressure from all of us.  If we continue to act like spectators, as we have in the past, there will be no reform or revolution.  That is the lesson we should have learned from the Obama administration.

If you will remember, in 2008 Obama campaigned to reform or throw out NAFTA-type free trade agreements, support single payer health care, hold Wall Street executives to account for the grand larceny of 2008, close Guantanamo, end the wars in the Middle East, and fight climate change.  The enthusiasm for Obama was similar to that for Sanders now.  Our experience with Obama should have taught us that the “we” in “ yes we can!” was very important.  We expected Obama to deliver without providing the activist pressure from below.  We also underestimated the degree to which Obama was beholden to the wealthy special interests that provided most of his campaign money.  What didn’t happen was not entirely Obama’s fault.  We just didn’t realize how important the money trail was.  Clinton, who is claiming the Obama legacy and is similarly indebted to the special interests, will have the same problems.  A small number of people are wielding power and aggrandizing themselves at the expense of the rest of us and are rationalizing it by saying that, in a democratic society, this is the best you can get.  Don’t buy it.

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terry@vashonloop.com