The Bernie Sanders revolution is just getting started

16

The Bernie for President campaign is over, but the political revolution that he launched against corporate rule is just beginning.       

Sanders and close advisors are now strategizing and developing a new organizational structure to keep growing the grassroots rebellion, but a multitude of Bernie supporters are not waiting on a smoke signal from headquarters. Their percolate-up creativity has already burst into new political organizing projects that are advancing this energized populist movement.       

One such effort got underway just three days after the final Democratic primary. Some 3,000 Berniecrats from across America gathered in Chicago for “The People’s Summit.” Rather than being morose or cynical about Sanders not winning the nomination, attendees were exuberant about the movement that he galvanized. This extraordinary event was a combination of tent revival and a big workshop for strategizing, organizing and mobilizing. The two-day summit was convened by National Nurses United and co-sponsored by more than 50 diverse and effective democracy-building groups.       

This meeting had a minimum of blah-blah and a maximum of planning on how to put experienced, locally based organizers and volunteers directly into growing the movement — starting now. These ever-larger and broader local coalitions will: (1) be rooted in principled, anti-corporate politics; (2) launch direct grassroots initiatives and actions on a range of populist issues; (3) recruit, train and elect thousands of movement candidates to school boards, city councils, state legislatures and other offices; (4) deepen the relationships and sense of shared purpose in this revolutionary democratic movement; and (5)make it fun, putting the party back in politics.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

16 COMMENTS

  1. Until theRussians & JulianA$$mange hack BSBernie’s emails.Then you’ll be confronted w/ Sanders the money-grubbing capitalist. Revolutionary!!

    • I doubt it. But it would be a great gesture in support of transparency if the Sanders campaign organization released all its internal emails. There’s no point asking the Trump campaign to do so, and probably no point, since we know the low-down, and I do mean low-down, on Trump.

      • Well if Trump doesn’t release his emails, you leftwads could always fabricate a mess of them for him! It’d be a dirty-trick but .. you’re not going to let a little thing like ethics stand in your way of attaining .. POWER !!

  2. Let a thousand followers bloom. Unfortunately, the revolution will probably fracture into dozens of competing mini-movements. The much-maligned elites serve a purpose.

    • We don’t need to pump theDemocrats up into something they’re not. Their major advantage is the academic/journalistic (Democrat-Media) Complex, which has been exposed by #DNCLeaks, leading a good portion of their base to recognize what’s been obvious to conservatives/libertarians & Republicans all along. Propaganda is spelled `news’ for theDemocrats, & a weapon against their opponents.
      When you’ve got theSecretary-of-State setting up a secret insecure email system from day one in office, & a Senate Democrat leader who’s been half-blinded after what looks like a beatdown by the Mob, & an FBI director who’s making excuses for crimes that would get any ordinary person buried >under< the federal penitentiary, & a weaponized-IRS that still hasn't been called to account, you crassly get the idea we have a public corruption problem.
      When the supposed "opposition party" funds all of their "opponents'" priories, using the same unaccountable omnibus continuing resolutions as theDemocrats did when they ran theCongress, you crassly get the idea they're on the make as well.
      TheGOPe ..WOULDN'T.. stop Obama, & they couldn't stop Trump, so now they'll just have see what happens.

    • Let’s return to your point about … der revolution will probably fracture .. the much-maligned elites serve a purpose. – You enter into an interesting angle there.

      I have had the feeling that we have been watching the `emptying of the treasury’ stage of democracy for a long-time now – at-least since theDems Cloward/PivenStrategy enclosed in LBJ’s GreatSociety fraud of the mid-60s, & that we are getting to the `picking the scraps from the bones’ stage.
      I get the feeling the “elites” are well aware what they are doing is disastrous. The WashDC aristocracy have adjusted the election system — gerrymandering(not just Repubs are responsible for this), secret party money — so that our uninformed peasant votes don’t matter. That’s not a bug, it’s a modern post-Teddy Roosevelt era design feature.

      What are we going to do about it? Or, is reclamation of theDemParty out of the hands of the bolsheviks (& by extension theRepub) irredeemable & the nation has to go a-l-l the w-a-y d-o-w-n the drain?

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here