How Sanders Exposes the Democratic Establishment's Neoliberal Underbelly

[Ferd Berfel]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/06/how-sanders-exposes-democratic-establishments-neoliberal-underbelly

A view from abroad

"It looks as though Clintonites are fast discovering that as far as the Sanders platform is concerned, progressives cannot have Wall Street and their equality politics too."

On Friday April 2nd, President Obama observed, in a gently scolding tone, that “people pay attention to American elections”, and indeed they do. The pantomime-like atmosphere of US Presidential campaigns has a frenetic and transfixing appeal, as do the gaffs and quips and dressing downs generally, but there is more to the drawing in of international bystanders than entertainment. The outcomes of US elections are duly noted and folded into the daily efforts of almost everyone on the planet to navigate a world vacuum packed by globalisation. What happens in America doesn’t stay in America. What changes America changes everything.

Certainly few races have been quite as revealing or compelling as the last few months of the Presidential Primaries. The increasing absurdity of the Trump extravaganza has focussed international incredulity to a point of high mania. Undoubtedly, mainstream political commentators did not expect Trump to get so far, but then no one expected Sanders to still be in contention either. Where Trump has become the media’s go to sideshow, Sanders has been maligned and ignored, treatment which has oddly, oxygenated both campaigns. The refusal of Sanders to politely bow out when the Clinton corner gave the nod has infuriated Democratic Party faithfuls, and ratcheted up antagonisms between camps from the centre to the far left and everywhere in between. If Trump represents some kind of Rubicon moment for Republicans, then Bernie is staging a pretty seismic shakedown too.