Bernie's greatest legacy: Suddenly it's OK to question capitalism.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

Bernie Sanders is not going to be president. But in defeat he has accomplished something extraordinary, probably something more important than anything he could have achieved in four or eight frustrating years in the White House. For the first time since the end of the Cold War — and perhaps since the beginning of the Cold War — large numbers of Americans have begun to ask questions about capitalism. Questions about whether it works, and how, and for whose benefit. Questions about whether capitalism is really the indispensable companion of democracy, as we have confidently been told for the last century or so, and about how those two things interact in the real world.

Bernie Sanders did not invent those questions or cause them to emerge, to be sure. They have emerged from a whole range of objective conditions and subjective perceptions, including the dramatic worsening of economic inequality, the near-total paralysis of our political system and the awakening of an entire generation of young Americans, supposedly from the non-poor classes, who have graduated from college tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But Sanders has served as an important channel or catalyst for such questions and the shift in consciousness they represent. He or his advisers appeared to see or sense a rising current of discontent that took nearly everyone else by surprise.

After several generations in which a capitalist economy dominated by the neoliberal policy prescriptions of tax cuts, deregulation, privatization and fiscal austerity has been understood as the natural order of things — and as the oxygen necessary to nourish democracy around the world — the Western world’s entire leadership caste has been startled to encounter a resurgence of systematic nonbelief. To the bankers and politicians, it feels almost as if a crusty old Vermonter had come close to stealing a major-party presidential nomination on a platform of Flat-Earthism, or by professing that the moon landing was a fake. (Those politics, to be fair, are largely confined to the other party.)

Excellent article, read the rest here: http://www.salon.com/2016/04/24/bernies_greatest_legacy_suddenly_its_ok_to_question_capitalism/

[brooklynite]

1. Why question capitalism if Bernie isn't?

He's not a Socialist; he's a Social Democrat. He believes in a strong social safety net as part of a capitalist economy. Socialism as an economic model will never be more than a fringe political movement here.

[uponit7771]

2. Sanders legacy will be that he blamed poor people for his loss

[Hiraeth]

3. unchecked capitalism vs Moral Economy. yes. From now on we must qualify and define it.

Bernie opened the dialogue with help from a few other enlightened souls. bless them.

[Renew Deal]

4. It was a little more sudden during OWS

And in 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/19/AR2008101901416.html

[Onlooker]

5. A friend of mine who has lived overseas for many years said to be recently ...

... she's thinking of moving back to the United States now that socialism is no longer a dirty word. That was a huge achievement by Bernie, and he's opened the door to all sorts of new possibilities. The challenge will be to keep the Sanders movement alive after the convention. If that happens, we will be in for exciting, progressive times.

[Peace Patriot]

6. This primary is NOT over. So Bernie's great legacy may be...

...much greater than the awakening of the country to the evils of predatory capitalism.

Sanders' numbers in national polls on trustworthiness and favorability are so high that he will likely win the GE by a landslide (whereas Clinton's numbers are so low she may well lose the GE). If the Sanders campaign can survive the incredible corruption of our Democratic Party leadership, and of Clinton herself and her campaign, and prevent Clinton from reaching the magic number of delegates (which I think is quite possible), then we are going to see a contested convention in which it will become apparent to our party leaders and members that Clinton cannot win the GE--i.e., that she only has a constituency WITHIN the Democratic Party and that is simply not enough to win the GE. (Independents now comprise 40% of the electorate, and they overwhelmingly favor Sanders.)

It is therefore possible that Sanders will win the nomination and it's pretty much guaranteed that he will win the presidency.

And, in that case, watch out, predatory capitalists! You are facing a new New Deal!

That will be a great day in my life. I'm a 70 year old Democrat who has seen our party sink into corruption and corporatism, year after year, since the Reagan junta, while our poor and middle class people suffer and our very planet is now imperiled by the corporate predators who are running everything.

I never thought I'd see a presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders in my lifetime--an honest man funded by 6 million small contributions, and beholden, body and soul, to We, the People. It is astonishing. And it is true that his example alone is a revolution--but we still have the chance to make it far more than an idea.

And, frankly, our planet doesn't have a lot of time. It cannot take any more fossil fuel pollution. We need strong, immediate, no-nonsense measures to REVERSE the pollution, or Mother Earth is going down for the count. Sanders is the ONLY candidate for whom this is a first priority and a moral imperative (his word). We need that leadership NOW.

[ContinentalOp]

11. Independents don't matter as much as you think.

They're roughly half and half democratic leaning vs. republican leaning and only a small percentage are truly independent. And guess what, Romney won independents and still lost the election. It's not like no independents will vote for Clinton. If you look at exit polls from some of the swing states, Sanders won independents by only 58-42 in Virginia, 55-41 in Florida, 66-33 in Ohio, the worst case scenario in some states being 70-30. So she has some support from independents, and certainly some of those Sanders voting independents will end up voting for Clinton in the general.

[TheDormouse]

7. Bullscheiss--Bernie isn't against capitalism; he is against capitalism run amok

Bernie also isn't against corporations

What he's against is the "heads I win; tails you lose" mentality of the plutocrats who run this country. He's against a handful of billionaires getting 90% of the pie that all of us pitched in to bake.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. He's in good company.

?w=577&h=309

[reformist2]

9. You don't have to be a socialist to question capitalism. You just have to be awake.

It should be obvious to every living, breathing, human being that the existing system doesn't work. Look who the two front runners for president are: a man who became a billionaire off of flipping real estate, and a woman who became a multi-millionaire by selling access.

[jack_krass]

10. Bernie has shown that you can run for president...

Last edited Sun Apr 24, 2016, 01:47 PM - Edit history (1)

without being a corporate um.. stooge. This one issue, corporate money in politics, rules all others, affecting things as wide ranging as the drug war, big pharma influencing laws, regime change and ME wars, classroom to prison pipeline, and others. Corporate money in politics TRULY is the root of all evil.

If Bernie does lose, then Hillary, as the true extent of her "financial relations" with corporations and banks becomes clear, will probably do down as the most corrupted corporate stooge ever to hold any office, will be a one termer, and will drive a serious anti-corporate politics movement in 2020, and lead to a great candidate (i'm an optimist)