One of my radicalizing events was in 2016, when I was a delegate for Bernie at the Colorado caucus. (I can't recall exactly what level, but there were probably 200 people in the room.
The Hillary folks controlled the stage and completely ignored the Bernie crowd's calls of "point of order!", throwing out the rules to rush through their agenda despite the wishes of (more than?) half the crowd.
I know Bernie has a lot of detractors, and the calls of "socialist!" scare a lot of people off. But still, the process should have happened. I still think he had a real shot of winning 2016, because people were ready to overturn the system and the Dems establishment didn't see it. So instead many people who wanted that revolution turned to the other person who promised to burn it all down. Maybe I'm libbing out, but _I want to believe_.
I got incredibly ill for days after that experience, likely from the fact that there were a lot of folks yelling and sharing germs in a closed room, but also from the sheer stress of seeing the establishment flagrantly violate Robert's Rules when it served them, and state it as law when that served them instead.
I'm still mad. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Why shouldn’t establishment Democrats revile Bernie? He has been independent or third party his entire career, except during two brief stints where he joins the Democratic Party to use their national apparatus to run for president, much to the frustration of career Democrats.
Oh, I agree! I was just frustrated that they were willing to break the rules to defeat Bernie (but then when they lose to the Republicans, it's just too bad and we must follow the rules).
I dunno. I'm not arguing that Dems should break rules/laws/whatever. I'm just venting about the hypocrisy that I think cost them the 2016 and 2024 elections.
When they lose to Republicans, the "rules" are not Robert's Rules of Order or the bylaws of the Democratic Party. Instead, the rules are the federal election laws. Not following the rules is a bit less of an option.
Bernie, while being Vermont's Senator, has secured the democratic party primary every time he's run. He has pushed hard for policies that align with democratic voters and he's been extremely consistent. He's also fundraised for the DSCC and other democratic aligned organizations.
If you're familiar with his political stances it's bizarre to not classify him (in our two party system) as a democrat.
What? From the very beginning he negotiated with the Democratic party to run under the D banner and support major platforms of the party - but he's not beholden to the Whip. His job was to represent the people who elected him, and he's very consistently done so, and probably worked 'across the aisle' to get things done moreso than anyone else in congress in decades.
The irony is that Sanders has been super-loyal to the establishment Democrats. He endorsed and campaigned for Clinton. He endorsed and campaigned for Biden. He publicly defended Biden when people wanted to replace him on the ticket. And then when Biden was replaced, Sanders endorsed and campaigned for Harris. And he hasn't used to power as a Senator to block legislation, like Manchin and Sinema. He's been a reliable vote.
Despite all of the talk of a "political revolution", Sanders is anything but a revolutionary. He's practically an establishment Democrat himself.
The same goes for AOC, by the way. She never "brought the ruckus" against the Democrats. She's 100% establishment now.
Maybe because 45% of this country is independent voters. I'll continue writing in Bernie rather than voting for an establishment and nobody owns my vote. I'd rather see the country go to hell under R until blue votes for a progressive leader. If you can't bring true universal single payer healthcare, you're not someone I'll ever vote for. I want principles, not special interests.
Isn't Bernie overall quite good for the party? Isn't having a president of your party in office good for your party? Seems like cutting off their nose to spite their face for the Democratic Party to shun him.
Someone remarked recently that the Democratic Party's fatal flaw is that it is not really a democratic organization, and this author's experience seems to support that idea.
> I still think he had a real shot of winning 2016, because people were ready to overturn the system and the Dems establishment didn't see it.
I wouldn't assume that it's that they didn't see it but that they're the system being overturned. The GOP did get turned over and it's unrecognizable compared to 2012, I can't even imagine being a long-time Republican senator trying to do right by people and suddenly have to gargle Trump's sweaty balls and betray a lot of what you believe in or be out of a job. I think it's a natural reaction to being cornered. Moderate Republicans are homeless right now boxed out of their own party and staring down their dwindling political and social capital. It's gotta hurt.
Don't get me wrong I would love to Feel the Bern, I don't agree with a whole lot of his pie-in-the-sky ideals but when he talks about actual concrete issues and policy changes to me it's clear he gets it.
Media, business and "power centers" of any kind align to wherever the power is, and take whatever form is necessary to tap into that power. The only ones actually wedded to ideology are the rubes who show up to the polls.
Oh, the democrats saw this the whole time, but I think the establishment democrats would rather have an R in the white house over Bernie because when it comes to policy and maintaining existing power structures, they're closer to a Republican than they are to Bernie.
I think he would have won too, because he would have gotten the poor, working class vote that Hillary and Kamala failed to get. He would have faced a hell of a battle getting any of his policies implemented. But damn, I wish we lived in that timeline. He's the only "democrat" candidate that people have actually been excited about since 2008 Obama.
This is a good essay despite the fact that it has literally nothing to do with anarchism. It's a great look into what the sausage is like when you're on the bottom rung of the organized political process and how messy and frustrating everything really is.
I mean, it seems that they're less incompetent? They manage to win with less money. That sort of suggests that their execution is better. It doesn't matter that they play dirtier, they win, and it's all about winning, not being "right".
I think a whole lot of the money that was spent on the conservative side just didn't go through the campaign and was spent through many other channels, especially on alternative media figures.
Depends also whose money you count. I just listened to an (slightly outdated) German national radio material about AI and election influence. It was chilling, of course. Here's the link for you German speakers, I know you exist: https://www.ardaudiothek.de/episode/ki-verstehen/harris-vs-t...
> We’re supposed to take seriously these people saying that democracy is at risk if we don’t vote, but they’re so apathetic about who wins that they’ll help any Democrat become president who pays them? Mind-boggling. “Blue no matter who,” truly.)
Wonderfully put, I think this is something that’s true for both political sides, we’re moving closer and closer to a reality where both sides just want their color to win, and are completely closed off to any change.
I split my ballot in a blue state (WA). Voted Harris for president, but mostly R for the other state and local elections. As a result, none of my picks actually won in the last election.
I think there are a lot of voters like me: we only dislike Trump because he is crazy and could lead the economy/world into disaster, we aren't really liberals or progressives per say, we just don't want to be poor.
The sad part is that with Trump being president, far right and left wingers are going to be even more embolden in local and state elections (like in 2016-2020): anyone with moderate opinions is simply going to be called a Trumper (if in a blue area) or a communist (if in a red area) and is going to get trounced solidly. Elections are simply going to be really polarized for the next 4 years, and moderates on both sides are going to lose out.
I went to a 2016 NV caucus with my wife at a nearby elementary school. After an hour of waiting in line, we finally got inside and saw why it was taking so long. The volunteers were signing people in on ipads, and they had no idea how to use them. They were mostly older people and had trouble with the website. My wife and I literally took out our phones, copied the URL, and started signing people in with our personal phones. We processed people 4 to 1 compared to the actual volunteers. It's ridiculous how disorganized it was, and how unprepared the volunteers were. The ensuing chaos at the county and state conventions made me swear I wouldn't do anything with the NV Democratic Party again. I changed my registration and everything.
Then came Trump 2.0 and I swallowed my pride and decided I had to do something.
My wife and I volunteered to do outreach with the party. We showed up at a coffee shop and nobody was there. Eventually we saw someone who looked like they were volunteering too, and we asked if they were. They said yea and handed us some letters to sign saying like "Vote for Kamala because I am too". Again, really disorganized and disheartening to someone who actually wants to help. Who knows if those letters were even mailed.
If this is representative of the Democratic parties in other states, it's no wonder millions of people didn't show up to vote for Kamala.
What I find very interesting about some of the election post mortems, and there is an echo of this in this essay too: Poland had a similar political crisis just a few years ahead of the US. A "Trumpist" party, funnily enough called PiS, took over from a fairly successful and liberal centrist coalition, and held on to power over quite a few nationwide elections. There were so many commonalities: abortion rights, strongman government, convicted criminals in government, etc.
The key reason why the fairly competent, liberal and inclusive agenda lost time after time was that the people promoting it felt so self-important with their advanced degrees and great pedigrees that they felt that should be enough to win. That it will be enough to remind the voters that the other side is Bad and that's job done. The PiS party, in turn, was incredibly good at reaching voters, they spent ages building grassroots structures, including in unglamorous rural areas, where they remain very popular now. They have cohesive, very populist, but clear and catchy slogans nad programs. They have cultural clubs, newspapers, TV channels, everything.
The good news (if you're liberal) is that the centrist parties finally got organized, ran a common election platform and campaigned beyond "surely, you'll just all vote for us because we bothered to turn up to your smelly little town". Although whether they learnt they have to do that every time remains to be seen.
Yeah, the returning liberals are kind of OK, not great. Still, people seem to forget how bad the alternative is. It's not an excuse for the liberals, they need to try harder, but frankly I'll vote for them even if they don't get their act together, because lazy liberals are still better than busy illiberals.
I wish I would see in other countries this same new reach on new channels and new media, but I just don't. It's almost like only neonazis know what a tiktok is, while the very few historical parties members trying it are stuck at "fellow kids" approach. Not even on Facebook, called home of the boomers, are they even trying. I'm sorry but I can call this only stupidity, fully agree with your points, and hope those folks learn the new lessons as well.
I think politicians only learn this when in opposition, and for long enough. Only once they see that what worked for them N years ago is falling flat and flatter again on its face, do they change.
By the way, I think that's a clear benefit of a multi-party system. When there's only two, you don't really compete for most of your voters, because they will vote for you no matter what. It is only the marginal voters that need your attention, so there's plenty of opportunity to slack off.
But when you can't take your own electorate for granted, you suddenly become much more attune to how you need to reach them.
Power flows from controlling the media. Those who have that power lock out those who are outside the Overton Window, and the further they are outside, the more they are locked out. Those who are out have to turn to fringe media in order to get their message out at all.
But in the internet age, "fringe media" can become mainstream rather quickly - more quickly than the old gatekeepers can keep up. The gatekeepers think in terms of "we control these media, and they're the only media that matters", rather than "we control access to information, no matter via what medium. If there's a new medium that starts to become important, we need to control it."
So the outsiders sometimes become powerful on a new medium, and then the medium becomes important, and now they're powerful on an important medium.
In some ways, it's good that there's a way to do an end run around the gatekeepers. But in other ways, the people who do it are... often not the ones you would wish to have success at controlling any medium.
Jesse recruited me to run early vote and caucus locations in 2020. He was bright and a hard worker. It was my second time volunteering for a campaign, and the chaos and workload he describes are accurate. Campaigns are organized chaos—like setting up a large event full of unknowns, which makes things more reactionary than I’d expected.
Each cycle, most of the field organizers are young, passionate, and inexperienced; some inevitably wash out. Many see it as a rite of passage to a political career and tolerate the frenzy. Those looking to advance politically often aim for a role with more responsibility in the next cycle.
This was the state party in a relatively small state, which mostly shuts down between elections. Twice, I saw them scale up to an impressively large organization, rally an army of volunteers, and then dissolve it all after the campaign—everyone exhausted but with a real sense of accomplishment. Campaign work seems less like a job and more like a military campaign. Or a startup.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 91.0 ms ] threadThe Hillary folks controlled the stage and completely ignored the Bernie crowd's calls of "point of order!", throwing out the rules to rush through their agenda despite the wishes of (more than?) half the crowd.
I know Bernie has a lot of detractors, and the calls of "socialist!" scare a lot of people off. But still, the process should have happened. I still think he had a real shot of winning 2016, because people were ready to overturn the system and the Dems establishment didn't see it. So instead many people who wanted that revolution turned to the other person who promised to burn it all down. Maybe I'm libbing out, but _I want to believe_.
I got incredibly ill for days after that experience, likely from the fact that there were a lot of folks yelling and sharing germs in a closed room, but also from the sheer stress of seeing the establishment flagrantly violate Robert's Rules when it served them, and state it as law when that served them instead.
I'm still mad. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I dunno. I'm not arguing that Dems should break rules/laws/whatever. I'm just venting about the hypocrisy that I think cost them the 2016 and 2024 elections.
If you're familiar with his political stances it's bizarre to not classify him (in our two party system) as a democrat.
Despite all of the talk of a "political revolution", Sanders is anything but a revolutionary. He's practically an establishment Democrat himself.
The same goes for AOC, by the way. She never "brought the ruckus" against the Democrats. She's 100% establishment now.
- The Democratic party is the one that wants to reduce the use of electoral politics (i.e. democracy) for policymaking
- The Republican party is the one that wants to reduce the scope of the commonly-held institutions that execute policy (i.e. the republic)
I wouldn't assume that it's that they didn't see it but that they're the system being overturned. The GOP did get turned over and it's unrecognizable compared to 2012, I can't even imagine being a long-time Republican senator trying to do right by people and suddenly have to gargle Trump's sweaty balls and betray a lot of what you believe in or be out of a job. I think it's a natural reaction to being cornered. Moderate Republicans are homeless right now boxed out of their own party and staring down their dwindling political and social capital. It's gotta hurt.
Don't get me wrong I would love to Feel the Bern, I don't agree with a whole lot of his pie-in-the-sky ideals but when he talks about actual concrete issues and policy changes to me it's clear he gets it.
The Democratic establishment didn't want it. I suspect they saw it.
Would the media and political power centers align with the Republican party?
I think he would have won too, because he would have gotten the poor, working class vote that Hillary and Kamala failed to get. He would have faced a hell of a battle getting any of his policies implemented. But damn, I wish we lived in that timeline. He's the only "democrat" candidate that people have actually been excited about since 2008 Obama.
(Never.)
Does this precedent hint at some level of disorganization?
(It does to me.)
Wonderfully put, I think this is something that’s true for both political sides, we’re moving closer and closer to a reality where both sides just want their color to win, and are completely closed off to any change.
I think there are a lot of voters like me: we only dislike Trump because he is crazy and could lead the economy/world into disaster, we aren't really liberals or progressives per say, we just don't want to be poor.
The sad part is that with Trump being president, far right and left wingers are going to be even more embolden in local and state elections (like in 2016-2020): anyone with moderate opinions is simply going to be called a Trumper (if in a blue area) or a communist (if in a red area) and is going to get trounced solidly. Elections are simply going to be really polarized for the next 4 years, and moderates on both sides are going to lose out.
Then came Trump 2.0 and I swallowed my pride and decided I had to do something.
My wife and I volunteered to do outreach with the party. We showed up at a coffee shop and nobody was there. Eventually we saw someone who looked like they were volunteering too, and we asked if they were. They said yea and handed us some letters to sign saying like "Vote for Kamala because I am too". Again, really disorganized and disheartening to someone who actually wants to help. Who knows if those letters were even mailed.
If this is representative of the Democratic parties in other states, it's no wonder millions of people didn't show up to vote for Kamala.
The key reason why the fairly competent, liberal and inclusive agenda lost time after time was that the people promoting it felt so self-important with their advanced degrees and great pedigrees that they felt that should be enough to win. That it will be enough to remind the voters that the other side is Bad and that's job done. The PiS party, in turn, was incredibly good at reaching voters, they spent ages building grassroots structures, including in unglamorous rural areas, where they remain very popular now. They have cohesive, very populist, but clear and catchy slogans nad programs. They have cultural clubs, newspapers, TV channels, everything.
The good news (if you're liberal) is that the centrist parties finally got organized, ran a common election platform and campaigned beyond "surely, you'll just all vote for us because we bothered to turn up to your smelly little town". Although whether they learnt they have to do that every time remains to be seen.
By the way, I think that's a clear benefit of a multi-party system. When there's only two, you don't really compete for most of your voters, because they will vote for you no matter what. It is only the marginal voters that need your attention, so there's plenty of opportunity to slack off.
But when you can't take your own electorate for granted, you suddenly become much more attune to how you need to reach them.
But in the internet age, "fringe media" can become mainstream rather quickly - more quickly than the old gatekeepers can keep up. The gatekeepers think in terms of "we control these media, and they're the only media that matters", rather than "we control access to information, no matter via what medium. If there's a new medium that starts to become important, we need to control it."
So the outsiders sometimes become powerful on a new medium, and then the medium becomes important, and now they're powerful on an important medium.
In some ways, it's good that there's a way to do an end run around the gatekeepers. But in other ways, the people who do it are... often not the ones you would wish to have success at controlling any medium.
Each cycle, most of the field organizers are young, passionate, and inexperienced; some inevitably wash out. Many see it as a rite of passage to a political career and tolerate the frenzy. Those looking to advance politically often aim for a role with more responsibility in the next cycle.
This was the state party in a relatively small state, which mostly shuts down between elections. Twice, I saw them scale up to an impressively large organization, rally an army of volunteers, and then dissolve it all after the campaign—everyone exhausted but with a real sense of accomplishment. Campaign work seems less like a job and more like a military campaign. Or a startup.