Democracy after Sanders

The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.

Bernie Sanders podium. Flickr/Gage Skidmore. Some rights reserved.

The US presidential primaries have shown that there are important similarities and convergences in methods and tactics
between Donald Trump’s followers and sections of Bernie Sanders' mass support.
Even though the two movements have radically different goals, the politics of
feeling and the use of social media and mass rallies to campaign for utopian
change are closer than one might imagine. But while social media activism and
mass rallies can act as a catalyst to spread a vision, they cannot on their own
deliver the desired change.

Hillary
Clinton’s recent victories in big states like New York and Pennsylvania
consolidated her lead over Bernie Sanders. She is likely to be the Democratic
candidate in the November presidential contest. Clinton’s opponent on the
Republican side will probably be Donald Trump. Sanders, however, is far from
defeated. He has won several states and mobilized millions of voters, with a
particularly strong appeal among the youth, traditionally disillusioned with
mainstream politics. Most of all, he has succeeded in shifting the axis of
American – and Democratic – politics to the left, with a focus on strong public
services and wealth redistribution.

The Sanders’
campaign has remained on the whole anchored on key policy issues – free
university education, free universal healthcare, redistribution of wealth by
taxing the rich and financial capital, among others. The tone between the two Democratic
contenders has become increasingly bitter, but Sanders made it clear that, despite
the big differences, he would support Clinton if she becomes the Democratic
nominee. But will his supporters follow him? Various polls show that in November a significant section of
Sanders’ electorate will not vote for Clinton – and a smaller proportion might even vote for Trump.

In the last
months, a parallel spontaneous campaign on social media expressed similar
sentiments. The message is clear: Clinton embodies the worst of the US
establishment. She should be held responsible for the atrocious acts conducted
by the American military complex in recent years – especially Libya and Syria.
She is in the pockets of corporations who pay her exorbitant speaker fees. She
is a promoter of anti-poor measures, and conveniently adjusts her policy
stances to appease her audience. The conclusion is that Clinton is no better
than Trump, and it would be wrong to support her as the “lesser evil” against
him.

Some went
further. Far left intellectual John Pilger argued that Trump would be a better president than Clinton.
According to him, he would be an anti-establishment president, less interested
in waging wars abroad than Hillary Clinton. Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon said that, while she supports Sanders, she thinks
that voting Trump might not be a bad idea. Her argument is an extreme version of
Marxist revolutionary theory: a candidate like Trump would bring all the
contradictions of the system to the fore, a prelude to the “inevitable”
collapse that will give way to a new, and presumably better, world order.

How is it
possible that sectors of the far left committed to anti-racism,
anti-imperialism, gender equality and human rights, are basically endorsing a
candidate like Donald Trump who is overtly racist, sexist, xenophobic, supports
the use of torture, and openly instigates his supporters to violence?

Far left and far right converge

There are a number of factors that explain this
paradoxical situation and the mounting wave of anti-Clinton sentiments. Sexism plays
a role: if Clinton does pretty much what most other American establishment
politicians have done, why do the same actions all of a sudden encounter such a
furious reaction? Race is another issue: there is a tendency among white
leftists to underestimate the scourge of white supremacy and its dangers. After
all, they are much more palpable for people of color and migrants than for
whites. There is a utopian charge in these demands
that cannot be ignored. People are calling for a new world order to deliver
them from the evils and injustices of the current dispensation.

Some of these positions are also informed by a good
deal of left vanguardism: Trump could either bring down the establishment with
his far-fetched anti-establishment policies, or escalate ongoing global
conflict to a point of no return – thus allegedly opening the way for radical
change that far left groups could harness in the “right” direction. In this
view, Clinton is just another pawn of the system, and her liberalism would slow
down this process of irreversible decline.

But there
seems to be a closer convergence between the far left and the far right – or to
put it more simply, between many of Sanders’ supporters and Trump’s fans. The
visions that drive the two groups are radically different. Sanders’ socialist
democrat ideas call for a market regulated by the state via taxation and state-led
redistribution, emphasize free goods available to all like health and
education, and uphold principles of equality and human rights based on an anti-imperialist
internationalism.

Trump’s worldview flirts dangerously with white
supremacy and asserts the primacy of the needs of disgruntled whites, who are
seen as the only true Americans, threatened by “Mexican migrants” and Muslims.
A dislike of big government and an emphasis on individual freedom have more of
a currency among his supporters.

But there
is something that unites people on both sides: they are tired and angry with
the current system that is threatening their economic base and the possibility
of a dignified existence. The crowds calling for change have experienced the
negative effects of the withdrawal of state support, which funded decent public
education at all levels, grants to cushion unemployment and mitigate work
poverty, and vital social spaces like public libraries and community centers.
The concurring changes in the economy, which drove real wages down and made
everybody precarious, destroyed any sense of workers’ wellbeing and stability, broke
unions and diminished workers’ solidarity. Big corporations killed the local
grocery stores where owners had friendly relations with their customers and
neighbors. The growth of material insecurity has gone hand in hand with the
drastic erosion of social bonds and a sense of community.

The very
fabric that holds communities together is now under threat, with the visible
effects of a dramatic increase in alienation and anxiety, and the disappearance
of face-to-face regular contact with other fellow citizens. Families,
neighborhoods and civic associations have been weakened by the increasing
control of big corporations over all aspects of life. Government bureaucracies
are more interested in policing citizens, than providing them with essential
social services. In the midst of this crisis, social media have taken over as
the main public space for the disaffected majority to express grievances,
alongside their innermost hopes and fears.

The process
hit hardest those who were already suffering from structural discrimination: people
of color, women, low-income migrants and people with disabilities, to name a
few. But the middle classes have also been affected and experienced a huge
reversal of the fortunes built up in the post-war boom. Nor are these trends
confined to the United States: they are spreading in most areas of the world,
to differing extents and in significantly different socio-economic contexts.

Trump and Sanders are able to draw support from the
same broad social base that went through this crisis – even though they offer
radically different remedies to it. There are also similarities in the organizing
tools and methods used to make political demands and call for solutions. People
on both sides have a powerful weapon in their hands: a politics of emotions
that is hard to dismiss. They shout back at power their frustrations and suffering
caused by a system that does not listen to them. These emotionally charged
statements are used to mobilize support in social media and gather crowds at
rallies. They help masses of isolated and disenfranchised individuals to connect
with each other and foster new solidarities.

But exactly because their actions are driven by a
sense of exasperation and disillusionment with traditional politics, these
movements do not want to carry on with the conventional mechanisms of representative
democracy. Sanders and Trump’s supporters are asking their leaders to do away
with the ills of the system all at once, and to avoid at all cost compromising
with those that would stand in their way – mainstream politicians, bankers and
corporations are the main enemies. There is a utopian charge in these demands
that cannot be ignored. People are calling for a new world order to deliver
them from the evils and injustices of the current dispensation. Gradualist
approaches to reform are perceived as ineffective and ultimately serving the
interests of the powerful.

Social democracy
and broad consensus

This is not new. Movements like Occupy and Black Lives
Matter, again with very different agendas and goals, have developed over the
years similar methods and ways of making political claims. But their rejection
of representative democratic structures has been more extreme: they have stayed
away for the most part from electoral politics, and favored horizontal participation
and leaderless structures. There is no doubt that,
despite the challenges, the tradition of grassroots organizing and long-term
community projects is alive and well in America.

This is different in the case of Sanders and Trump. Supporters
have chosen a leader to bring about change. Trump’s case is easier to
understand. He is able to manipulate and appease his crowds. His narcissistic
personality leaves no doubts about the leadership style: he portrays himself as
an authoritarian figure that will deliver what the crowds demand, all they have
to do is place their trust in him.

As for Sanders, there is a fundamental tension between
the kind of mass support he is drawing and his own politics. Sanders is an
old-school social democrat. The media label him a “radical” only because the
cultural hegemony of neoliberalism has made it taboo to advocate for policies
like free education and higher taxes for the rich.

He comes from an era when grassroots organizing in
small communities with long-term bonds went hand in hand with fighting for a
different national and international economic and political system. His
experience as mayor in the small city of Burlington, Vermont, is telling.
Elected against all odds in 1981, he was re-elected three times. He mobilized
citizens to reclaim the waterfront from corporate interests, winning a landmark
legal battle that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. The revitalized waterfront
became a successful example of urban renewal, with playgrounds, parks and cycle
routes opened to the public. He made more affordable housing available, and
worked with civic organizations, unions and social welfare agencies to improve
citizens’ welfare. At the same time, he invited intellectuals like Chomsky to public
events and condemned US imperialism. Sanders proved to be an effective and visionary
administrator, committed to broader social change. His success in Burlington
was as much about engaging people in the streets, as it was about conducting
long and tiring negotiations with powerful people and institutions.

There is no doubt that, despite the challenges, the
tradition of grassroots organizing and long-term community projects is alive
and well in America. It is not an accident that Sanders started his
presidential campaign in Burlington. But we rarely hear about this kind of
politics in the hype created by his candidacy. We hear about his crowdfunding, #FeelTheBern
and other hashtags used by his supporters, how many millions of strangers have
been reached by catchy campaign ads.

Sanders’ policies were the pillars of social democracy
in Europe until recently, and are still current in Nordic countries like Norway
and Sweden. Not only there is nothing “radical” in these policies, but they
were supported – and still are in the Nordics – by a broad consensus that
encompassed most political parties from left to right, trade unions, churches,
and civil society organizations fighting against various forms of
discrimination.

Sanders’ policies have been effectively implemented by
government bureaucrats supported by a large alliance linking people in small
communities all the way up to the national levers of power. Of course it would
be delusional to think that we can replicate those historical conditions at
will. But still, there is a lesson there that is easily forgotten. Behind
social democracy, there was a national society, composed of various popular associations
that maintained strong and durable bonds between their members, with frequent
face-to-face contact. This world has little in common with the Facebook video
montages of Sanders’ speeches accompanied by dreamy music and pictures
preluding to a “brave new world” that is supposedly just around the corner.

Bernie Sanders supporters. Flickr/Gage Skidmore. Some rights reserved.

Beyond mass
protest

The current structures of US liberal democracy are
fundamentally flawed. They have become part and parcel of a system that excludes
most people from decision-making and endorses policies that actively work
against them. Mass protest plays the essential role of
signalling to a corrupt and undemocratic establishment that things have to
change and soon. But it cannot deliver the changes desired by itself.
Contemporary forms of dissent are a response to the loss of community and sense
of belonging produced by decades of free market rule. They are also weakened by
that very loss: many of Sanders’ supporters want community and belonging, the
same principles Sanders is fighting for. But they struggle to find other
durable avenues for community building beyond social media and mass rallies.

As we move closer to the end of the
Democratic primaries, the Sanders’ campaign has a tremendous opportunity. It
can harness the positive power of mass dissent into a durable social movement
fighting for a progressive alternative to the current US-dominated world order.
The horizon is much longer than the likely presidential contest between Clinton
and Trump – even though it should be clear by now that a Trump victory would
only do harm to such aspirations.

It is time to start talking seriously again about a grassroots politics
that aims to build a broad consensus, give priority to long-term face-to-face
projects with physical communities offline, and recruit skillful and honest
politicians to connect people to places where decisions are made – Sanders is
one of them. We can use social media and the momentum built by his campaign for
this, but the main goal should be to harness the unprecedented explosion of
anger and hope into political actions that will bring tangible change in
people's lives.

We hear a lot about all kinds of experiments to address the democratic
deficit in decision-making mechanisms – from direct action to digital democracy
and more. But few talk about a more profound crisis: our lives are filled with alienation
and isolation, our communities have been broken, and impersonal forms of social
interaction are replacing personal ones. Meeting with other citizens outside
our close circles is good for democracy. But we should be skeptical of
impromptu mass gatherings and social media debates as the only places to make
vital decisions that will affect our lives for years to come.

We need to develop democratic spaces that address common national and
global challenges, but are grounded in local interactions and foster bonds
among people in the physical world. New technologies can hugely improve our
lives, but ultimately society is made of humans. The kind of human interactions
we foster make all the difference in this world – and the next.

How to cite:
Laterza V.(2016) Democracy after Sanders, Open Democracy / ISA RC-47: Open Movements,17 May. https://opendemocracy.net/vito-laterza/democracy-after-sanders