Bernie’s big lesson: Socialists should occupy the Democratic Party, not abandon it

[Scuba]

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/01/bernies_big_lesson_socialists_should_occupy_the_democratic_party_not_abandon_it/

But Stein is wrong: Sanders’ experience shows the current limits of third-party presidential politics and the real possibility that the left can use the Democratic Party toward radical ends. If Sanders had run as a Green or independent, he would have traded in his revolution against the one-percent for the prospect of getting just one-percent of the vote—which is what Stein is currently on track to pick up. Instead, he won millions over to democratic socialism and into left politics.

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“We are very close to building a majority coalition within the Democratic Party,” said Lev Hirschhorn, who worked as a regional field director for the Sanders campaign in Philadelphia, at Wednesday’s forum. “I have no interest in trying to reform the Democratic Party or pull the Democratic Party to the left…I think, however, that Bernie Sanders has demonstrated that we actually can take over the Democratic Party. That we have the ability. We are very close.”

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Sanders’ overwhelming support from young people, as Jacobin’s Bhaskar Sunkara argued on Wednesday, is the centerpiece of a political coalition better positioned to shape the future than Donald Trump’s. The bulk of that coalition is currently in the Democratic Party, and that’s where the left must engage them—they cannot simply be relocated to a third party by leftist fiat. It’s also, however, vitally important to maintain organizations independent of the Democratic Party—and to build the bases of more radical parties locally, from the ground up. No one understands this better than Sanders, who was positioned mount his historic primary challenge within the party only because he had spent his political lifetime outside of it.

Sanders activists have already remade the party, though only modestly so far. Clinton, after all, is the nominee. But the platform, to a significant if limited effect, is now a much better one, and Clinton chafes at new political constraints imposed by the left. Socialism is no longer a dirty word, and establishment figures must at least pretend to oppose corporate trade agreements. Last Monday, Sanders used his primetime speaking spot to warn Congress against passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership during a lame-duck session — an incredible shot across the bow at a Democratic president during a Democratic Convention.