Not Him, Us

As I was walking my dog yesterday afternoon my imagination started churning over what I’d like to hear from a Bernie Sanders presidential inauguration speech. I know I’m getting way ahead of the game here, the topic is very narrow, and may even seem banal. But it was a train of thought driven not only by what I believe the Sanders campaign represents, but how I hope it can be expressed and articulated to the American public.

A Sanders presidency would be a monumental achievement for the left, but his election would be just another step in an already long and arduous struggle to wrest power from the leaders and institutions that have brought the country and world to the brink of annihilation. A Sanders administration is not the culmination of a left project. It’s simply a chance for our voices just to be heard and reckoned with in the country’s highest levels of official power. And while a Sanders presidential victory will certainly be cause for a brief and well-deserved celebration, I am hoping that such a scenario is also seized as an opportunity to clearly reiterate and explicitly state the rest of the struggle that must immediately be faced. It should be an occasion to double efforts and build momentum.

Returning to the seed of this piece, I want a Sanders inaugural speech to contain stark, bold, and rousing reminders of what we still must fight against. The forces that have controlled and exploited the world for centuries will not be immediately weakened by a Sanders victory alone. They will remain strong as ever, emboldened by the new challenge we present them. They will deploy the vast resources at their disposal to resist the required, fundamental changes posed by a left-wing administration. We’ve already seen an example of what incumbent officials and administrations will do to hamstring incoming administrations following electoral defeat. But the greater forces and enemies reside in the corporate and financial sectors, where accountability also has minimal relevance and unfettered greed is the supreme, existential directive. Corporate media is completely under the control of these forces, and as we’ve already seen, there’s virtually no limit to the degree to which they weaponize this enormous platform to demagogue any political figure or policy that stands opposed to the capitalist machine.

It’s going to take monumental resolve to fight these ultra-wealthy institutions, not only from the potential administration, but the people of the movement itself. Policies will have to be cleverly conceived and painstakingly written to keep the dodges and loopholes at a minimum. I expect the most powerful and influential corporations will cry foul and threaten even harsher austerity when faced with the full weight of appropriate taxation and necessary environmental standards of operation. Citizens will have to mobilize and harangue the countless corrupt, corporatist senators and representatives into submission.

This is just a very brief overview of the realities of this struggle that come to mind, and as daunting as this scenario is, I think it’s of the utmost importance to highlight these things in the inaugural speech. Doing so would provide a reminder to the voters that the work is only just beginning, and that success is by no means guaranteed. Including these themes would also underscore the fundamental nature of the Sanders campaign – and the leftist/progressive/activist movement – that everything we must set out to accomplish depends upon an enormous collective effort that extends well beyond the top-down, technocratic forms of legislation and governance that have ruled the country to date. Ideally, it will solidify the collaboration between the government and the governed to create, truly for the first time in US history, the universally just and democratic society we’ve always flippantly proclaimed ourselves to be.

This entire struggle boils down to the essential unavoidable fact that the ruling class does not want to pay what they owe. Certainly there are other, peripheral factors in play, but the bottom line is their bottom line: amassing and maintaining extraordinary wealth. It’s the driving force behind wealth inequality, environmental decline, poor and non-existent healthcare, perpetual war and brutality, rampant corruption, the list goes on. And perhaps the most maddening realization is that even a hefty dose of taxation and regulation would not render this ruling class destitute. The ultra-rich could remain in a wildly privileged position of comfort and luxury. Even parting with enormous chunks of their wealth and a few extravagances would still leave them completely financially secure many times over. But that is obviously not enough for them. They will do anything to maintain that firm grip on capital and power. They already have; it’s precisely how it was attained.

This is what we’re up against, and the potential of a Sanders presidency – or anyone else with similar ideology – does not change that. It would present the best opportunity in many decades for us to claw back meaningful gains in justice and wealth. This will reach far beyond Bernie Sanders’ influence and life. Perhaps his advanced age is not a weakness, but represents yet another reminder of the overwhelming collective project we must commit to. So let us not get too caught up in affinity for or reliance upon Sanders the man, either. Let there be many devoted and bold activist leaders spring up in his wake, and do the work ourselves, for each other. It is quite literally the only way any of this could possibly work.