Rev Left Radio - Red Hot Take: What If Bernie Wins?

Episode Date: October 5, 2019

In this third installment of our Red Hot Take series, Breht explores the history of US social democracy, the strategic logic of the DSA, the implications and obstacles of a Bernie presidency, and much more.  Learn more here: www.RevolutionaryLeftRadio.com Support Rev Left Radio here: www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio Outro Music: "A Report To The Shareholders: Kill Your Masters" by Run The Jewels ------- LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: https://www.revolutionaryleftradio.com/ SUPPORT REV LEFT RADIO: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Our logo was made by BARB, a communist graphic design collective! You can find them on twitter or insta @Barbaradical Intro music by Captain Planet. Find and support his music here:  https://djcaptainplanet.bandcamp.com --------------- This podcast is affiliated with: The Nebraska Left Coalition, Omaha Tenants United, Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), Feed The People - Omaha, and the Marxist Center.    

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. Today represents the third installment of our Red Hot Take sub-series, and today's Red Hot Take is on the topic of, What If Bernie Wins? Let's get into it. What If Bernie wins? A simple question, but an essential one. Sure, most of you listening have probably thought about it to some extent,

even if those thoughts were half-formed in passing. Some of you may, deep down, think that as long as Bernie gets into office, things will pretty much be okay. And the alarmists on the left who scream from the mountaintops about climate catastrophe in our lifetimes and the machinations of imperialism are well-intentioned, if not a bit hyperbolic. Though you probably won't be admitting that on Twitter anytime soon. Others may think that a Bernie victory would be meaningless,

and for all intents and purposes be nothing different than a Clinton or Obama presidency, and therefore not even worth caring about in the first place. Others still are so focused on just getting Bernie elected that they don't seem to have taken the time to think through what happens when the proverbial dog catches the car that it's been chasing. If Bernie loses, of course, none of these questions will matter, and we will have a whole other set of problematics to work through,

depending on who wins the election and what policies they plan on pursuing. But I think it's important to take some time now, in the middle of a highly competitive democratic primary in which Bernie is a top three candidate according to every poll to methodically think through the implications of American electoralism's best case scenario, a Bernie victory. I think it's important to do this for a number of reasons, and I want to start off this discussion by focusing on the logic of what I consider to be the most robust and organized supporters of the Bernie strategy, the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA, the largest formal organization on the U.S. socialist left, has an entire political strategy which revolves, more or less, around getting Bernie Sanders, and others like him, elected to high office.

The overarching logic of this strategy is that if they can get enough principled and accountable Democratic socialist candidates elected into office, they can fundamentally transform the American political system and move toward the construction of a robust social democracy. Some on the left flank of the DSA then argue that this would be followed by a more thorough transition into socialism proper, but it would be a transition that avoids the pitfalls and dangers of armed revolution, Marxist vanguardism, or anarchist insurrection. In short, it's a long-term strategy for a peaceful, non-violent, and so-called democratic transition away from capitalism. Now, before I go further, I want to acknowledge the fact that the DSA is a complex organization, which has a national leadership in the form of a national political committee, but marries that organizational leadership to a more or less autonomous network of local chapters.

These chapters can vary widely with regards to their ideological makeup, their praxis, and their reasons for being a part of the DSA. In other words, the DSA is not a monolith, and I am not pretending that everything I say about the DSA is applicable to every single member or chapter. It's not. But what I am taking as representative of the organization and its strategies broadly are the major outlets that are, either formally or informally, associated with the DSA and who parrot some version of the strategy I laid out above.

These include, but are not limited to, the DSA website itself, its main publication, the Democratic Left, its Associated magazine Jacobin, some major podcasts which align themselves with the DSA like Chopo Trap House, and the words of their flagship politician Bernie Sanders himself. It's also worth noting that the DSA, in official and unofficial ways, does lay out a far grander and more robust vision for the future, one that includes the bolstering of trade unions,

bringing private corporations under public or democratic control, and even more talk recently of reparations for African Americans, all laudable goals, of course. But there is a distinction to be made between what they say their long-term goals are and what they do in the here and now as an organization to move toward a state of affairs where those bigger goals will be within reach.

And it's very clear that the short-term strategy that they are pursuing is a fundamentally electoral and social democratic one in the hopes that its strategic victories on that immediate front will open the door for a move toward their bigger goals. On the front page of their website, when I visited it while researching for this piece, they make it clear what they are about in the here and now. The first slide reads, quote, Democratic Socialists for Bernie, build socialism, grow membership,

register and engage voters, canvas neighborhoods, end quote. Now, before we go on, I want to make it clear that the point of this episode is not necessarily to criticize the DSA, though criticisms of all left formations abound. Rather, the point of this episode is to earnestly and systematically explore the implications of their immediate and off-stated electoral strategy in order to see where it can take us. Part 1. The History and Logic of Social Democracy Now, as many of you know, I am a Marxist, a scientist, socialist and a historical materialist, which are three different ways of saying the same

exact thing. And as such, I first look to history when contemplating socialist strategies in order to parse out the effectiveness and viability of a given strategy. The major strategies pursuit in proletarian history can reasonably be put into three general categories, the Marxist strategy, the anarchist strategy, and the Social Democratic strategy. The Marxist strategy, broadly speaking, tends toward the formation of a revolutionary Marxist party, which seeks to build dual power, create high levels of militant organization and structural proletarian leadership, which can match the organizational capacity of our enemies, engage with other proletarian movements around the world in a principled anti-imperialist internationalism, and at some point

when the conditions are ripe, to wage arms struggle locally and globally against the capitalist class, the imperialists, and the forces of fascist reaction. The anarchist strategy, broadly speaking again, tends toward a more horizontalist formation, rejecting hierarchical organizing. It insists on building prefigurative forms of organizing and relating to one another, which collapses the false distinction between means and ends making them one and the same. It rejects entirely any sort of engagement with bourgeois parliamentarianism. It joins, bolsters, and attempts to connect spontaneous social movements, and it uses a wide variety of direct action tactics against their ends. enemies, ranging from sabotage and terrorism to occupations and, in some cases, armed struggle. The social democratic strategy, broadly speaking, rejects the illiberal and so-called authoritarian tactics

of both Marxism and anarchism. And as a side note, if you are skeptical that anarchists are seen by Sock Dems and liberals as authoritarian, I invite you to engage with liberal and social democratic critiques of Antifa, which make it clear that they consider anarchist direct action and defensive violence to be every bit as authoritarian as a Marxist state. But I digress. The social democratic strategy instead involves creating or joining electoral parties and then using the mechanisms and institutions of bourgeois society to democratically and non-violently move toward, at the very least,

a less cruel and belligerent form of capitalism, usually through the formation of a large welfare state and the expansion of political rights within that state. Democratic socialism, although it not, may have some differences with social democracy concerning the end state that they want to reach generally falls nicely within the category of social democratic strategy because, at least in the initial stages, it's indistinguishable from it. And now that we have a basic understanding of these three major strategies on the left, we can look back at about two centuries of proletarian history

and see how the various strategies have worked at different times and in different conditions. The Marxist strategy has led, like all strategies, to a mixture of both successes and failures. But among its successes include the creation of the first ever successful proletarian revolution in Russia in 1917, leading to the creation of the USSR, which, for all its excesses and errors, was able to defeat a coalition of 18 imperialist powers after its revolution and during its civil war with the whites, was able to industrialize its nation in an unprecedented amount of time such that it beat the United States into space and was able to generate a war machine capable of ultimately beating back and destroying the Nazi beast in World War II.

In China, the Marxist strategy led to a successful fight on the part of the Chinese communists against Japanese imperialism, and then immediately after that, a successful fight against the Chinese nationalists, turning China into a socialist powerhouse on the road to becoming a world power, all while experimenting with top-down and bottom-up power in truly unprecedented ways, and lifting millions of its people out of back-breaking poverty in the process. In places like Cuba, Vietnam, Burkino Faso, and Africa, and multiple countries in Latin America, the Marxist strategy led to successful anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and national liberation struggles, and in many cases unprecedented booms in the quality of life for people across the

globe, especially in the global south. I could go on, but the point here is that the Marxist strategy constitutes a historically viable strategy that has been shown to work in a multitude of different places, conditions, and times. The anarchist strategies have also had many successes and failures, but among its successes can be counted the powerful unions they built up in Spain, which led to an unprecedented restructuring of society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, and a genuine change in the relations of production of that territory for a time. It played a prominent role in the construction of the IWW, numerous instances of successful assassinations of reactionary political leaders, and important and influential roles in the formation of the

new left and the Situationist International, as well as the carrying out of May 1968 in France. Anarchist theory and praxis is, to a significant extent, also inseparable from the construction of social ecology and the subsequent political manifestation of Rojava in northern Syria. It was also fundamental to the anti-globalization movements of the late-Nexecutive. 90s and early 2000s, the anti-war movement, and countless anti-fascist formations across the Western world. Anarchism was the driving force behind Occupy Wall Street, and has had pockets of influence in Latin America, parts of Asia, and South Africa.

I think it's fair to say that while the Marxist strategy has had much more success facing down and challenging capitalism, imperialism, and fascism on a global scale, after all, what's more anti-fascist than storming Nazi Berlin, making Hitler bury a bullet into his frontal lobe and liberating the concentration camps, anarchists have always been involved in these struggles on some level and have had an undoubtedly large influence on anti-capitalism movements around the world. The dialectic between Marxism and anarchism, which stems back to Marx and Bakunin themselves, has certainly been a creative and productive one,

even with the long history of bitter fighting, backstabbing, and betrayal between the two major formations on the revolutionary left taken into account. But now it's time to turn to the third contender in this history, historical survey. Social democracy. The social democratic strategy, unlike the Marxist and anarchist strategies, has much fewer successes in its history if by success you mean the challenging and toppling of capitalism and its core manifestations, imperialism and fascism. In fact, social democracy, nine times out of ten, fails to challenge capitalism at all, seeking instead to be included within it. If, however, you take success to mean any material gains for the working class,

then certainly social democracy can lay claim to the creation of many reforms that have made life easier on working and poor people living under capitalism, at least in certain privileged parts of the globe at certain times. An achievement often held up by the defenders of social democracy in the United States is the signing into law of the New Deal, a set of policies, regulations, public work projects, and reforms aimed primarily at alleviating the suffering of working people after the disaster of the Great Depression. of course these programs and reforms were not by any stretch of the imagination race and gender neutral and while it did help an unprecedented amount of struggling Americans it also functioned on some level to further institutionalize the racial and gender hierarchies of the time it's telling that there is a popular story which claims that toward the end of his life fDR was asked what his greatest accomplishment was and he allegedly replied that it was quote unquote saving capitalism it's also worth noting here that the reforms of the New Deal were really forced from below by radical movements within the country,

including feminist groups, militant workers, angry farmers, huge swaths of desperate and pissed off unemployed people, as well as many others. And it was pushed forward also by the fear the American ruling class had that if it didn't do something for its beleaguered and beaten down working class, it could have a Bolshevik-style revolution on its hands, something that they desperately did not want to happen. But I really want to emphasize something here that is crucial to this entire discussion and that I want everyone listening to really reflect on. The successes of the Social Democratic New Deal, the high point of social democracy in American history, and its figurehead FDR, ultimately functioned not to increase radicalism or to take the class struggle to a higher stage,

rather it functioned as a release valve for capitalism, undercutting the expansion of radical left-wing political movements and sweeping the legs out from underneath those movements by co-opting their rhetoric and their leaders and funneling all of that potential revolutionary energy back into the maintenance of the two-party system and bourgeois electoralism. And by so doing, actually acted not to challenge the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, but to protect it and extend its life into the future. And this right here is the hidden threat of social democracy.

In fact, once you understand that social democracy isn't a challenge to capital, but one of its manifestations, one of its defense mechanisms, you realize that it's actually a category error to group social democracy with anarchism and Marxism. The latter to, whatever their flaws may be, sincerely aim at the overthrow of the capitalist state of affairs and mode of production, while the former aims ultimately at its preservation. But because it often presents itself as not only an alternative to Marxism and anarchism, but the responsible alternative, it's incredibly insidious and convinces otherwise genuine anti-capitalist to, in effect, abandoned their anti-capitalism and re-employ that potentially subversive energy into a political

program which often strips it of its subversiveness. It truly is a testament to the evil genius of capitalist realism and the overall flexibility, adaptability, and survivability of capitalism writ large. And this critique of social democracy was lent significant credence in the September 12th Democratic debate when Bernie Sanders, when pressed on his views as a self-identified democratic socialist said that he aggressively rejects the idea that Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolution have anything to do with his form of democratic socialism, and instead pointed to Canada and Europe as concrete examples of where he wants to take the United States. The last time I checked, Canada and Europe were solidly and brutally capitalist and imperialist to the core. And if democratic

socialism truly is revolutionary in the way that so many of its proponents insist that it is, then surely the Venezuelan model would be pointed to as an imperfect but important example of what democratic socialist strategy can do. After all, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led initially by Hugo Chavez, used the democratic and nonviolent mechanisms of its bourgeois society to build a political party capable of challenging the national and international bourgeoisie and rallying the masses of poor and working Venezuelans to its side. It nationalized its oil industry, ripping it, out of the hands of international capital and used it instead to improve the quality of life

for the Venezuelan working class. Hugo Chavez was then, as Maduro is today, a leading critic of U.S. imperialism on the international stage, earning them both the deep hatred of the U.S. ruling class and the violent contempt of both major U.S. political parties. To see Bernie take the sight of U.S. imperialism in the U.S. ruling class over the Bolivarian Revolution and the Venezuelan proletariat truly speaks volumes

about what form democratic socialism will likely take in this country. Now, some may argue that Bernie was clearly just toning down his rhetoric and concealing his true beliefs tactically to appeal to the average Democratic voter. But if a core strength of Bernie, according to his supporters, is that he widens the American political imagination on issues of class, then why would he suddenly stop doing that and default to mainstream liberalism so aggressively on the debate stage in front of tens of millions of Americans?

If the goal of democratic socialism really is the transcendence of capitalism, then it requires a constituency that is made aware of that reality and not lied to. If, on the other hand, the democratic socialist goal is simply to make America more like Canada, France, England, and Germany, then why in the fuck should anti-capitalists of any stripe defend it, much less spend their time and energy organizing for it? In summary, from a historical materialist point of view, social democracy and its derivative democratic socialism have historically proven not to be vehicles of meaningful anti-capitalist class struggle, but have rather been proven, with a few notable exceptions, to be nothing more than a mask that capitalism puts on in certain conditions to ensure its survival, especially in the imperial core. And in the same way that FDR and the New Deal manifested in the wake of the Great Depression, we are once again seeing that same strategy information manifest in the wake of the Great Recession and 40 years of brutal neoliberalism. This is not a coincidence. Capitalism in crisis first tries to put on a friendly mask of social democracy in order to survive.

And when that fails to work as intended, the mask drops altogether, and that's when the teeth and claws that capitalism tries to hide from sight comes out into plain business. view. This latter manifestation of capitalism is what we colloquially know as fascism. And if fascism really is capitalism in decay, as Lenin said, if it really is a form that capitalism takes in certain crisis conditions, then it's no wonder why Marxists have for years referred to social democracy as the quote-unquote left wing of fascism or quote-unquote social fascism. For it seeks to preserve, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, the very soil from which the grotesque weeds of fascism burst forth, namely the soil of colonialist capitalism.

Part 2. Okay. But what if Bernie wins? Having briefly traced the history of the three dominant trends in anti-capitalism, and having shown social democracy in the imperial core to ultimately be a mechanism of capitalist self-preservation and revolutionary co-option, it's time to turn to an examination of the specifics concerning what a Bernie presidency would actually. actually look like. I want to start off this section by saying that I do not think Bernie or his supporters are fascists by any stretch of the imagination. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the vast majority of Bernie supporters and DSA members, as well as Bernie himself, are genuinely

well-intentioned people doing their best to make this country a slightly less monstrous and unforgiving place to live. And I admire and share that goal. In 2016, my family and I caucused for Bernie Sanders. And I will be caucusing for him in both the primaries and voting for him in the general election if he makes it that far, because while I certainly am not a social Democrat, nor do I advocate for a democratic socialist strategy, I do believe in alleviating as much suffering as as possible. And I believe radicals and revolutionaries are essential in pushing for meaningful reforms that can make a real difference in innocent people's lives, like health care, child care, affordable education and housing, immigration reform, environmental protections, etc.

The point of the previous section was not to argue for some form of half-baked accelerationism, nor to dissuade anyone from voting for the least shitty option, especially after four seemingly never-ending years of a cruelly racist and bumbling Trump administration. The point was simply to help you understand the history, context, and limitations of any social democratic movement in this country, and to equip you with the necessary. knowledge to, at the very least, understand the nuances, complexities, and trajectories of social democracy historically, and hopefully to help such movements in the present hedge against their more noxious, surreptitious, or furtive manifestations.

And importantly, I want even those people who are more or less aligned with the democratic socialist strategy to understand that the struggle is much bigger than elections, and the only way for a Bernie presidency to be meaningful is, if it's tethered at the grassroots and organizational levels to mass work, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, and a willingness to take whatever electoral victories you may achieve as mere first steps, and then to build on it in order to push beyond the confines and limitations of social democracy towards something genuinely revolutionary. Because without that bottom-up, revolutionary forcefulness, such a movement can only ever default back to, and therefore never get beyond, liberalism. And when we have the

entire future of our species hanging in the balance, defaulting back to liberalism at this crucial juncture in our history, would be synonymous with an embrace of the barbarism, state repression, and fascism, which are surely to grow out of the conditions it perpetuates. In an increasingly less stable world, capitalism will not magically become more enlightened or humane. It'll do quite the opposite, as the global ruling class becomes increasingly desperate to maintain its hold on power, wealth, and privilege. So with that out of the way, let's turn to the central question of this section. If we take social democracy and the election of social Democrats into office to be the

short-term goal of democratic socialism, all of the historical and ideological concerns raised above set to the side for a moment, then it behooves us to think deeply about what a Bernie presidency would look like, what its obstacles would likely be, and what it could possibly achieve. First and foremost, if Bernie were to win the general election, his administration would be immediately attacked in a number of ways, from both inside as well as from outside the government. Recall for a moment how the right in this country absolutely lost their shit when Obama was elected president in 2008. Even before Obama won the general election, he was swamped by far-right conspiracy theories, ranging from him being a secret Muslim

Brotherhood agent infiltrating the American government, to him being a dyed-in-the-wool, hardcore Marxist communist, all the way to widespread assertions that he was not a real American citizen. Rather, according to huge swaths of the American right, he was secretly born in Kenya, and therefore his entire presidency was a sham, and something akin to a terrorist attack on the country as a whole. As an aside, it's worth reflecting on the fact that the main proponent of that last conspiracy theory went on to become the president of the United States in 2016.

In any case, Obama, as we all know very well, was none of these things. In fact, he was the epitome of a middle-of-the-road moderate centrist neoliberal who packed his administration from day one with status quo ghouls from Wall Street and past administrations top to bottom. His number one policy focused throughout his presidency was repackaging a market-friendly Republican health care plan initially put in a practice by Mitt Romney when he was the governor of Massachusetts. From day one, though, the talking heads and leading political figures of the right stated quite explicitly that their goal was to obstruct anything and everything coming out of the

Obama administration, realizing that it was to their benefit to abandon even the appearance of bipartisanship and to use every tool at their disposal to ensure Obama and his administration failed. In many ways, they were successful. Now, of course, we know that race played a huge role in this relentless conspiracy thinking and obstructionism. But if that's what they threw at a black neoliberal moderate, it's hard to imagine they won't outdo themselves when presented with an old Jewish socialist from Brooklyn this time around.

Add to the efforts of the red-baiting and anti-Semitic right in this country, the disdain for Bernie, which floods forth from the Democratic Party establishment and their neoliberal proxies in the mainstream media, and Bernie will actually face even more opposition than Obama did. For all the bullshit Obama had to deal with, he always had the Democratic Party firmly behind him. This will not be the case for Bernie. It's

virtually certain that if Bernie were somehow to capture the White House, the center and the right would in a myriad of ways, many of which we can't even predict at this time, team up to bring Bernie down and to either reassert the neoliberal status quo in the case of centrist's or to counter with an increasingly

right-drifting, conspiratorial crypto-fascist program, which is steadily becoming the norm on the political right and within the GOP itself. All of this begins on day one of a Bernie presidency. Outside of the media narratives discussed above, there is also a slew of procedural tools that Bernie's opponents can and will use to prevent any meaningful legislation, like Medicare for All or Green New Deal. Chief amongst them is the filibuster. The filibuster, as some of you may know, is a tool that a Republican-controlled or dominated Senate will definitely use to try and shut down any and all legislation passed by a Democratic House and supported by a Bernie administration.

The filibuster came into its own as a primary weapon of obstructionism during the Obama years and has since become perhaps the single biggest turd in the shit-greased plumbing of the United States government, clogging up the pathways of congressional lawmaking and preventing anything beyond the most watered down and compromised legislation to pass. The Senate in the United States was created by the so-called founding fathers specifically to ensure a firewall between the lower classes and the levers of power. It is an institution of wealth and extreme privilege, and it acts as the final bulwark against any bottom-up movement coming to real power in this country. The filibuster is a weapon of that Senate that was not present at the founding, but which has been developed over the last century and which blossomed most aggressively during the Obama administration. It's a mechanism by which a reactionary minority can prevent any and all legislation coming out of a Democratic House and a Bernie administration by essentially delaying and ultimately blocking a vote on said legislation.

And this weapon will be used endlessly by the GOP against a Bernie administration, effectively disallowing for the big fundamental changes that Bernie and the DSA claim they will pursue once in power. add to all of that an increasingly balkanized media and scattered narrative brought about by the internet and cable news, the deeply conspiratorial thinking, which is now simply a feature of the American right, a mainstream media both liberal and conservative that is just a mouthpiece for the ruling class, and a curious and cynical resurgence of Republican obsession with bringing down the debt, and you have all the ingredients for more deadlock, more widespread confusion, and ultimately, more of the same. But even if a Bernie administration was able to pass one or two big pieces of uncompromised legislation somehow, the realities of the American electoral system would almost certainly make them temporary at best. We can look at how the Trump administration came in and undid most of Obama's executive orders, which is the only tools a president has in the face of a gridlocked and filibustered Congress, or we can even look back further at the slow disintegration of many

key features of the New Deal and the Great Society during the rise and domination of neoliberalism, which started with Reagan and Thatcher. We saw the rise of Trump and an insurgent neo-Nazism after eight years of centrist Obama. How would the right react after four or eight years of Bernie Sanders? I do not think it's unfair to predict more right-wing terrorism and mass violence, as well as a Republican Party which drifts ever more aggressively to the fascist right as the contradictions of late capitalism intensify. Here we see the grotesque pendulum swing of American politics in all of its disclory. After a Clinton, you get a Bush.

After an Obama, you get Trump. After a Bernie, well, who fucking knows, but it likely won't be pretty. Add to all of that still, a Supreme Court with a five to four conservative majority with lifetime appointments, as well as the fact that Ruth Bader Ginsburg could pass away at any given moment before the election, allowing Trump to put a third lifelong justice on the bench and push the Supreme Court to a 6.3 conservative majority. And the promises of a Bernie presidency seem to slide further and further into the realm of fantasy. Now, before we get too depressed and start tossing back bottles of whiskey and cleaning our guns, I do want to offer a possible way out

of this dreary future I've just painted for you. And it's actually what Bernie himself seems to realize with extreme clarity. In order for a Bernie presidency to be even slightly successful, it would absolutely have to be undergirded by a robust, widespread, and bottom-up insurgency of the American left. It would not only require the DSA and left liberals, but fundamentally and interestingly enough,

it would require even further left movements to rise and fight, not for Bernie per se, but for the future broadly. In a similar way to how the far right was emboldened by Trump, The far left would have to take the opportunity created by a social democratic presidency, the first one perhaps ever in American history, and capitalize on it. The Overton window would certainly shift leftward, and that would create more space for Marxists, anarchists, and other left-wing radicals to come to the fore and build on that energy. It would require an expansion of militant anti-fascism.

It would require a resurgence of left-wing trade unions. It would require everyday working people to become engaged with politics well beyond the ballot box. and it would require more organization and more structure on the left in this country. A default to Occupy Style Horizontalism would be a death sentence for the left in this country. Building real dual power outside of American electoralism is absolutely essential, regardless of which politicians happen to be in office, for it would create the political power necessary to push North American politics further and further to the left, inspired genuine terror in the hearts of our enemies

and allow the left to operate autonomously and effectively outside of bourgeois institutions. In short, if a Bernie presidency has literally any chance of even moderate success, it will be premised on the expansion of an increasingly militant, organized, and coherent revolutionary left, which will in turn allow us to transcend the need for electing politicians to run for bourgeois office at all and grant us the sort of autonomy and power necessary to wage the sort of class war

that is so desperately, desperately needed in this country. In lieu of that, a Bernie presidency will be almost indistinguishable from an Obama presidency. A few nice reforms here and there, some good executive orders, but ultimately nothing more than a blip on the radar as we careen ever more violently towards eco-dispopia. And this dual power will be absolutely necessary, for another reason as well. For if a Bernie administration, undergirded by an increasingly militant and organized grassroots left, was able to accomplish anything that directly or indirectly challenges

the wealth and power of the American ruling class in any significant way, the facade of bourgeois democracy will fall to the ground and explode like a wineglass on concrete, as the ruling class and its reactionary proxies take off the gloves and attack the radical left. It will be McCarthyism times 10. and with a lot more weapons and violence. The very structure of American electoralism would disintegrate, and the forces of reaction will turn to bloody and repressive barbarism in the face of an insurgent socialism.

They would meet our democratic socialism with reactionary state and non-state violence, the likes of which have only really been experienced by the indigenous and black people of this country. This will, almost without a doubt, lead to some form of civil war. If you think the American ruling class reacts violently, to proletarian projects in the global south, how do you think it would react to one

inside of its own borders? And if, for some absurd reason, you still hold firm to the fairy tale belief that as long as we do things democratically and non-violently, the American ruling class and the American far right, will be forced to concede defeat and walk side by side with us into a new socialist future,

I would implore you to slaughter the naive infant in your mind and study history. As Mao once said, quote, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture or doing embroidery, it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another, end quote. Any real revolution in this country, even the first tentative steps in that direction, will be met by an absolute tsunami of reaction, and we will all be

forced into actually fighting for what we believe, instead of just posting about it on Twitter. Now, you may recoil from that reality, repulsed and horrified as you should be, but what's the alternative? The alternative is to maintain business as usual, and let the blood-soaked vampires and oil-drenched snakes of the American ruling class usure us into apocalypse. Business as usual in the third largest and most powerful country on earth, which also happens to be a white supremacist imperialist, genocidal death machine, even with a few reforms around its edges, is tantamount to a death sentence for our species. If they can melt the Arctic, extract all the oil, and pump it into our atmosphere for a few dollars of profit, they will. If they can drown any movement which challenges

capital and imperial hegemony in an ocean of blood to keep the money flowing in, they will. if they have to kill the oceans and darken the sky to maintain their status and privilege, they will. And whatever your political tendency may be, to turn away from this reality and to fill your head with fantasies of a peaceful and democratic transition to socialism, is akin to burying your head in the sand and murmuring meaningless prayers into the void. Above all, it's just downright irresponsible. Marx once said that capital comes into the world, quote, dripping from head to foot, from every pore with blood and dirt. And it's not likely to leave the world any differently.

The transition from feudalism to capitalism was not done through democratic and non-violent means, and the feudal rulers did not, on the whole, simply concede defeat and walk away from their power and privilege. In most cases, it was war of one type or another that was the engine for this transition. And there's no reason to expect it will be fundamentally different this time around as we try to transition from capitalism to socialism

in enough time to save our species and our future as intelligent beings on this beautiful blue dot swirling through the cosmos. None of what I've said today is meant to fetishize violence nor to call for it. Violence is a terrible and brutal thing. It's traumatic. It hurts the powerless more than the powerful. And it's something I very much hope humans are able to transcend in the future. Moreover, none of what I've said today suggests that we shouldn't fight for reforms,

nor that we should refuse to vote for the least shitty option, which again is definitely Bernie. The point of this monologue, above all else, is to help all of us, regardless of where we stand on the left, and regardless of what our opinions on Bernie are, to have a more sober-minded understanding of what a Bernie presidency would entail, and to think through the implications of different strategies on the left as we speed toward 2020. A Bernie presidency would be for the left what a Trump presidency is for the far right, nothing more than an opportunity. It's our duty to one another

and to the future of our species to capitalize on that opportunity should it come. And if it doesn't, if Bernie loses and we see either a return to the status quo or four more years of Trump, then the history and strategic thinking

I outlined in this essay will be even more urgent and important. Because no matter which way the pendulum swings this time, the very fact of its swinging symbolizes that time is running out. Our planet is changing more rapidly than it ever has before. And as such, it requires real, meaningful action from you and I right now

if we hope to rise to the challenge of our time and create a truly better world out of the rotten, sour ashes of this one. Good night. We're horses. I mean a horse is a horse, of course, but who rides is important. Sitting high with a uniform parking orders, the man of order. And I'm scared that I talk. too much about what I think's going on

I got away with this they might drag me away for this I'll be in a case for this I might pay for this I just say what I bought like I'm made for this but I'm afraid some days I might be wrong maybe that's why me and might get along hey not for the same part of time but we both hear the same sound coming

and it sounds like war and it breaks our hearts when I started in spin didn't have no plans, didn't see no arc just run with the crap have a couple laughs make a buck and dash Yeah, yeah. Get a little tap like, yeah, I'm the fucking man.

Maybe give a little bat like, yeah, I do what I can. It's all chose to smoke to the two-star scheming. Can't contain it. It's stained with your demons. Talk cleaning. Bomb hospitals. So I speak with the balance mile possible. And I drink like a vocet.

Losing all faith in the logical. I will not be confused but dawson. I'm free. Motherfunk so I'm happy. Choose the lesser of the evil people and the devil still going to win. It could all be over tomorrow, kill our masters, and start again. But we know we all afraid, so we just simply cry and march again. At the gym convened, my heart broke apart when I've seen a march mama's in.

As I wrap this verse right now, I got tears flowing down my chocolate's in. Told the truth and I've been punished for it must be a massacist because I've done it again. Ooh, Mike said uterus. They're acting like Mike said, you a bitch. To every right of road and miss quoted it, Mike said, you a bitch, you a bitch, you a bitch. Had a nigga for the black rider started that sewer shit. I maneuver through manure like a slumdog billionaire. L.P. told me fuck them devils, Mike, we're going to be millionaire.

I respond with a heavy air. Big brus says fuck that tough enough staying ready, right, raw rap shit, rugged rough. The devil don't sleep us either. L speeds by I speed ether We the gladiators that oppose all season Coming soon on a new world tour Probably play the score for the world war At the apocalypse play the encore

Turn around C L and I smile Hell coming that we got about a mile Until it's over I remain hostile I remain hostile I remain hostile I don't know. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Millermortals of God's comments or miss me with the wolfy-woom, you take the devil for God's comments or miss me with the wolfy-woo. You take the devil for God. Look how he's doing you. Jack Johnson, I beat a slave cat to snaggle two. I'm type of flowers with a higher power, hallelujah. Life gets so bad and feel like God mad at you. But that's a feeling, baby, ever lose.

I refuse. I disabuse these foolish fools of their foolish views. I heard the revolution coming. You should spread the news. Garvin mine, Tyson punch, this is bad news. So feel me, follow me. Devil then got on top of it. Bad time's got a monopoly.

Give up, I did the opposite. The pitch perfect did it properly. They only killed by his property. This life will stress you like Orson Wells on a radio War after war in the world to make all your sayness go And these invaders from Earth are twirking our ways, you know Can't wait to load up the silos and make your baby glow It's so abusive you beg somebody to root for you

They'll snap your hope up and use it like it's a hula hoop And it's a loop, they talk to you just like their rulers do These fucking fools and forgotten just who they're fooling for that who Kill him, killem, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill your mass, come on. Kill you, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill you mass. Killing children of men on the throne, roll for no atonement, got me feeling like I'm Klyboin, and rolling through a fruit you're frozen. The flows a burning wind blowing to your coasting.

Now in cages, because we roll the waves of your explosions. Done appealing to our killers, man, and stop the bleeding. These songs are dirty bomb for they dirty dealings. Foods on the roof. A Charlie Men gets dumping through the ceiling. Math to peeing on these lost Europeans' thieves. Shepie Grimmie, lay-law, born the Reaper, born in the beast, a feasting a tear in its features.

The world searches, the nation's nervous. They can't disperse us. We ain't at the service. We'll stay sedated. We'll state our numbers or our names it. Remain their faces. Predictify they can't erase it. We ain't a safe. We rope, but go through the flames.

Man, the war going to buy her what's implied in the name. We want to kill him, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you. Kill you kill you, kill you, kill you mass. Kill you, kill him, kill him, kill you, kill you, kill him, kill him, kill, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him.