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BERNIE SANDERS' SOCIALIST AMERICA ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG NEW YORK OFFICE By Ethan Earle Bernie Sanders’ Socialist America By Ethan Earle I was born in North Carolina, but my parents ments in the country. This last measure has en- are from Vermont and I grew up taking long sured the preservation of low- and middle-in- summer road trips up the east coast to visit our come housing and calmed gentrification in the family in Burlington, the state’s largest city with midst of a waterfront revitalization develop- just over 40,000 people. It was on one of these ment project that has otherwise transformed trips, sometime in the early 1990s, that I first the city’s downtown. Bernie the Leftist invited learned about Bernie Sanders and his uniquely Noam Chomsky to speak at city hall and trav- American brand of democratic socialism. eled to Nicaragua to meet with Daniel Ortega and establish a Sandinista sister city. Bernie Vermont is an odd little place. It is 49th of fifty the Administrator balanced the city’s budget states with just 626,000 people, the vast ma- and oversaw the transformation of Burlington jority of whom live in small farming towns dot- into what is regularly considered one of the nic- ted around the Green Mountains that run like est and most livable cities in the United States. a spine up its length. Vermonters are charac- terized by a proud sense of self-reliance mixed In 1990 Bernie ran for the U.S. House of Rep- with a stubbornly independent and occasional- resentatives and became its first Independent ly revolutionary streak. The state was founded member in forty years. He quickly moved to by a breakaway militia during the Revolution- found the Congressional Progressive Congress, ary War. It would later become the first state to this day one of the few leftist bulwarks on to abolish slavery and play a crucial role in the Capitol Hill. He criticized politicians from both Underground Railroad, hiding escaped slaves parties for being subservient to corrupt Wash- in its sinuous terrain and shepherding them ington logic. He came across as an ever-seri- across its northern border to Canada. Growing ous, one-pitch politician, at all times earnest up I would hear these stories told as proof that and alarmed about the crises our country is Vermonters are engaged citizens who don’t take facing. If at times his manner could be gruff, kindly to injustice or political doublespeak. his social graces lacking, there was never any doubting that he cared deeply about his work. In 1980 Brooklyn-born Bernie Sanders entered He would soon emerge as an important na- Vermont politics stage left, running for mayor tional voice on issues ranging from income in- of Burlington as an Independent and self-de- equality and universal healthcare, to campaign scribed democratic socialist. He defeated the finance reform and LGBT rights. He would later five-term incumbent by ten votes and would become a prominent early critic of the Iraq War subsequently be reelected three times. During and domestic surveillance programs like the his period as mayor Bernie became widely PATRIOT Act. known as an outspoken leftist, but also, cru- cially, as an effective administrator. He opened Basically Bernie stayed the course he had set the city’s first women’s commission, supported from the start—that of an unabashed progres- the development of worker cooperatives, and sive who bases his work on principled indepen- initiated one of the first and most successful dence and the stubborn notion of getting stuff state-funded community-trust housing experi- done. Back in Vermont, where since 2006 he 1 ETHAN EARLE BERNIE SANDERS’ SOCIALIST AMERICA has served as senator, Bernie continues to be million from more than a million individuals incredibly popular, winning 71% of the vote in and a record 2.5 million total contributions. He his most recent election and consistently hold- is receiving consistent front-page coverage in ing among the highest constituent approval rat- every major U.S. media and is the subject of ings of any U.S. politician. His well-known refus- vertiginous numbers of tweets, shares, me- al to run attack advertisements, as well as his mes, and general Internet chatter. His ma- doggedly old-fashioned commitment to finding jor challenger and still-frontrunner—former common ground with political figures on the Secretary of State, Senator, Presidential First other side of the aisle, has only strengthened Lady, and Democratic establishment darling his reputation. But his greatest achievement, Hillary Clinton—was positioned as the most and the secret to much of his success, has been unstoppable candidate in a generation just six to build a new political consensus in the state of months ago. As of this writing, in mid-January Vermont. Of course he appeals to most dyed-in- 2016, she clings to a seven point lead nationally the-wool liberals, but he draws his real strength and is in a dead heat in the first two primary from small-town white working families, not states, which historically act as bellwethers typically known (at least in recent decades) for for the rest of the nation. Even more amazing- their democratic-socialist proclivities. ly, Bernie Sanders is doing this without taking money from corporations or receiving backing My family is a family of hairdressers, with a cou- from virtually any establishment group, all the ple of nurses and electricians mixed in. We’re while trumpeting the virtues of democratic so- a family of hunters and Katy Perry fans. We’re cialism and telling anybody who will listen that a family that contemporary American political this country needs a political revolution. culture has made to believe its voice doesn’t count. And I can tell you with all honesty that Having spent decades working on policy, it Bernie Sanders has made my family think dif- should come as no surprise that Bernie’s cam- ferently. Heading into the upcoming presiden- paign platform is broad and detailed—wonkish, tial primary, almost every one of them—other- one might say. Perhaps wonkish but not mud- wise liable to go Republican in any given elec- dled: he leaves no doubt that his greatest pre- tion—will be casting their vote for Bernie Sand- occupation is the inequality that increasingly ers. When I’m up in Vermont we don’t usually defines the U.S. economy. He proposes to raise talk politics, but when we do we talk Bernie. I the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 by 2020. can hear my aunt say now: “I might not agree He promises to create millions of jobs through with everything he says or does, but I know federal infrastructure and youth programs. He he means what he says and believe in what he says he will expand Social Security, provide does. I know he’ll never sell us out and he’ll al- free education at all public universities, and ways give it to us straight.” extend universal healthcare to all people in the U.S. through a single-payer system. His plan to +++++ pay for these programs is simple: raise taxes on wealthy individuals and large corporations, Senator Bernie Sanders’ increasingly un-quix- and tax speculative financial transactions. otic campaign to become the 45th President of the United States has stirred strange and In the stories Bernie tells of how America be- restless spirits in the American public. He has came one of the most unequal major coun- drawn far larger crowds and generated more tries in the world, he reserves special wrath enthusiasm than any other candidate in either for the large financial institutions he considers party. During 2015 his campaign received $73 responsible for the 2007-08 financial crisis. He 2 ETHAN EARLE BERNIE SANDERS’ SOCIALIST AMERICA laments that not a single bank executive went in contrast, is funded mostly by wealthy indi- to prison for their role in the crash, contrast- viduals and corporations; six of her ten largest ing this to a criminal justice system that has donors are banks. imprisoned millions of people for low-level, non-violent offenses. He calls for the imple- Bernie believes there has been a corporate mentation of a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act, takeover of American democracy, and this is which prevented commercial banks from en- where he returns to the idea of political revo- gaging with investment banks from 1933 until lution. In nearly every speech he makes this it was effectively repealed under the watch of clarion call, and he is always unequivocal about President Bill Clinton in 1999. More recently he the fact that neither he nor any other politician announced that, if elected, he would break up can make the necessary changes alone. Bernie’s all “too big to fail” financial institutions during idea of political revolution starts with the Amer- the first year of his administration. ican people getting out to vote in record num- bers—including a rollback of racist Republican However, his fiery brand of economic populism disenfranchisement measures—taking back does not alone explain why millions of people our democracy, and demanding the types of re- have come to “Feel the Bern,” the viral hashtag forms he proposes to increase our control over that has become a slogan for the campaign. the national economy and political process. Rather it is that he speaks so directly to a broad- +++++ er moment in our country’s history. Person- al debt and economic inequality are at record Not surprisingly the powers that be are not highs, and the generation now coming of age happy about Bernie, and the biggest offense has been socialized by the Iraq War and Great has been taken—also not surprisingly, if sad- Recession; raised on myths about the American ly—by the Democratic establishment.

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