The Bernie Sanders campaign is beholden to no one in high places, has no affiliated elites to please or negotiate with, and has helped unleash new working-class militancy in America. The question now is, how can we sustain this extraordinary left turn in American public life to transform society?

(snip)

Sanders and the movement behind him are not a mere repetition of the New Deal coalition, however. Times have changed. The Green New Deal is the most obvious example of a program designed to address a critical problem that didn’t exist a century ago. Other programmatic elements of the campaign tackle issues that the New Deal either avoided (racial justice) or only hinted at (universal health care) or, like climate change, were invisible to the naked eye (precarious labor, mass immigration, childcare, college education). Some of what the Sanders movement proposes is reminiscent of New Deal reforms but goes beyond them, as for example the call for joint labor-management control of industry.

(snip)

History is not a morality play. The point in recording the New Deal’s insider beginnings is not to create a rap sheet to taint its accomplishments. But it must be noted that, unlike FDR, if Bernie Sanders becomes president, he will do so not only as an outsider but as the leader of a mass movement.

(snip)

The Sanders campaign is unlike any of its rivals. This has much more to do with its poetry in motion, its elan, the way it summons the enthusiasm of millions living in domestic exile, its electrifying appeal to the solidarity of strangers, than its programmatic specifics (foundational as they most certainly are). This is what gives the campaign the feel of a mass movement. Other campaigns have their enthusiasts, gather large crowds, compile vast mailing lists, and on rare occasions helicopter into “bad neighborhoods,” places campaigns typically fear to tread. But they bear the imprint of the conventional. None would dream of describing themselves as a mass movement. The notion that they might need to invoke one to achieve their goals is unthinkable for political creatures bred within the prevailing order — in a word, to insiders.

(snip)

At this writing the powers that be are marshalling all their capacities to drive the movement under. They may succeed. The question then will be how to sustain this extraordinary left turn in American public life.


https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/03/bernie-sanders-campaign-fdr-new-deal