Fusion’s Katie McDonough has weighed in with an article titled “What will the Bernie Sanders revolution look like without Bernie Sanders?” that gives us a revealing glimpse of what to expect from the ‘after Bern.’
Looks like a number of Bernie's followers now appear to have come to the realization that their exalted savior is actually going to crash and burn out of the 2016 Democratic primary race.
Unfortunately, the fact that those who were “Feeling the Bern” probably won’t actually leave to Canada - as previously contemplated if a Republican is elected - means that with crushed hearts in hand, they're aiming to stand fast and keep big government ideas alive.
Given Fusion's embrace of all things anti-free market, McDonough predictably regales the website's readers with the splendiferous and fantastical (and failed) things that socialist dreams are made of.
Bernie certainly exposed these people for what they are and what they really wanted and believed in when it comes to their political preferences. They decided to follow a man who not only was never taken seriously as a senator, but also, never passed any meaningful reform. It was a candidacy fueled by both persistent anger as well as old and failed socialist ideas.
In a way, we're better off for it. Conservatives now have a better idea of what they're up against, and until now, these leftist warriors operated much more subversively, never letting on what they truly felt (pro-idleness through massive redistribution of someone else's earned wealth, free this and free that, unfettered abortions of human life, repression of religious expression, etc. - all of it unsustainable). Now that Bernie has made it ‘cool’, they're opening up, and conservatives can now respond with the proven merit of their ideas and values.
This generation desperately needs that.
Below are excerpts from the April 26 Fusion.net article “What will the Bernie Sanders revolution look like without Bernie Sanders?.”
KATIE McDONOUGH, FUSION: So for the millions of voters who have made Sanders’ insurgent candidacy a force that reset the national political conversation and pulled the Democratic Party to the left, the question is now: What will the Bernie Sanders revolution look like without Bernie Sanders?
While Sanders’ candidacy undoubtedly galvanized progressive voters, young progressive voters in particular, a major force behind his rise had actually been building for years. Sanders was the right candidate—at the right time and with the right platform—to push issues like Medicare for all and free in-state tuition into primetime focus
In addition to support from young voters, the Sanders revolution drew its strength from a coalition of movements—from the Fight for $15 to Black Lives Matter—that have spent years building up the public vocabulary on issues like structural racism, police violence, income inequality, food insecurity, and poverty wages.
One of the major criticisms of Sanders’ campaign—which frankly applies just as equally to a majority of Clinton’s agenda—is that there was no way in hell he would be able to get anything like a $15 minimum wage past an obstructionist Congress. That’s true, and will remain true unless the Sanders’ coalition turns out in the same numbers to flip their districts.
So if the ambition of the Sanders revolution was to ensure that people in the United States could have access to healthcare, a living wage, affordable housing, and education, then there’s good news: virtually every other election ahead, from municipal to congressional, has exactly those same stakes.
