The Walking Dead, or has Sanders done a Corbyn?

‘Dead man walking’ is an overused expression. But I can’t help feeling it fits Bernie Sanders perfectly. Barring some kind of miracle, the only thing that stops his campaign for the presidency being over, is that he won’t admit it.

An analysis in the New York Times rang a bell with me:

While Mr. Sanders has not ended his bid, he has fallen far behind Mr. Biden in the delegate count and has taken to trumpeting his success in the battle of ideas rather than arguing that he still has a path to the nomination.

Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, soon to be ex-Leader of the Labour Party, led us into two general election defeats. The second, in December, was crushing. His supporters now claim that he ‘won the debate but lost the election’.

How much worse would the defeat have been had we lost the debate too?

Lost causes both. However well read the campaigns may have been

All this reminded me of a note a friend of mine posted online some weeks ago.

I had been wondering how Momentum had been able to do so many things in the General Election that the Labour Party could not or did not do.

A friend in Momentum told me to read "Rules For Revolutionaries" by Bond and Exley.

My first reaction was, “if it’s an idea from Momentum, it’s probably best to stay well away from it”. Momentum is a faction inside the Labour Party that was set up specifically to back Jeremy Corbyn. So it shares responsibility for his failure.

When I expressed my scepticism, however, my friend responded that I should perhaps read the book. That was a reasonable reply, so I did – or rather, I listened to it, my preferred way of getting to know books these days (haven’t tried it? I suggest you do. You can listen while doing something else, which is particularly welcome if the something else is housework).

The book’s by Becky Bond and Zack Exley and it’s a fascinating read (or listen). It’s an American study, so it’s hardly about anything anyone in Europe would recognise as revolutionary. It’s about basic reforms, radical only for the States, such as healthcare free at the point of care or university education without fees.

Many intriguing ideas

It focuses above all on organisation and tactics, drawing heavily on the authors’ experience of the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign. 

They have some excellent ideas. The biggest is the extensive use of volunteers, rather than paid staff. Volunteers can recruit others who can recruit still more, creating a spreading network of supporters actively working for your candidate.

The other, related to it, is to raise your money from huge numbers of small donations. That’s been very much a keynote of both of Bernie’s presidential campaigns, and it’s impressive: it leaves him beholden only to ordinary voters and not to the huge corporations or lobbying organisations that have been toxifying Washington politics for at least a century and a half.

Not all of this is directly transferable to the UK. For instance, a curse and an advantage of US politics is the primary election.

It’s a curse, as the Democrats are discovering now, because it leaves a party squabbling with itself as candidates vie for the nomination, while Trump sits in the White House trying to look presidential.

The advantage is that it gives candidates a long time to connect with voters to listen to their concerns and to communicate a response.

We have no such institution in Britain. Arguably, we should. I think it most unlikely that Corbyn would have led Labour into the last election if Labour voters, and not just members, had been consulted. But for the moment, we don’t.

However, it is perfectly imaginable that we organise discussions with voters about principles. For instance, in Corbyn Labour has had a leader who was a Brexiter without the guts to admit it. Without that handicap, the Party could have spent the time after the referendum explaining to its supporters that Brexit would harm their lives, even if they had voted for it. That might have kept enough voters on side to win an election, and even have built support to reverse the Brexit result.

So some of Bond’s and Exley’s proposals could certainly be applied in Britain. But surely not by Momentum. Bond and Exley are all about recruiting huge networks of volunteers and empowering them to campaign as they see fit. That means delegating authority, and accepting the small number of inevitable failures for the sake of the far greater overall gain.

Momentum, to give you an idea of how the faction operates, sent out a ballot to its members over the Labour leadership election. Did it delegate the choice to its members? Did it heck. It called on them to either accept or reject only one option, the politburo’s.

Sorry. Momentum has a National Coordinating Group. However it behaves, it’s not actually called a politburo.

None of this, though, is the biggest problem with the book. The real problem is that it was written by people associated with a losing campaign. The book drops a hint as to why Sanders lost.

Becky Bond wrote Rule 4 of the Rules for Revolutionaries. That’s ‘Fighting Racism must be at the core of the message to everyone’.

She describes a public meeting at which candidates were asked to react to the call ‘Black Lives Matter’. My transcription of the audio is:

… his [Bernie’s] response to protestors was to declare, “black lives of course matter. I spent fifty years of my life fighting for civil rights and for dignity.” Then he continued, “but if you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK. I don’t want to outscream people.”

It was in this way that Bernie missed a crucial, early opportunity to put race at the centre of the message to everyone.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Bernie Sanders’ campaign, particularly the current one, is his inability to gain traction amongst black voters. Like Bernie, Corbyn’s response to accusations of anti-Semitism, was to point at decades of campaigning against racism.

More fundamentally, however, Bond’s account of this moment provides a glancing reference to a much more serious problem that the book fails to address: it doesn’t matter how well you organise if the candidate’s no good. And he’s no good if he can’t put together a winning coalition of voters.

That’s Corbyn, but it’s also Sanders. Not only can Bernie not mobilise black voters, he can’t break out of the narrow circle of those who share his views. Here’s the New York Times again, with comments that apply as strongly to Corbyn:

Mr. Sanders proved unable to expand his base well beyond the left or to win over African-Americans in meaningful numbers. He failed to heed warnings from traditional party leaders, and even from within his campaign, about the need to modulate his message and unify Democrats.

Sanders rejects what he sneeringly refers to as the Democrat ‘establishment’, which makes it surprising that he’s angered by the failure of the centre and right of the Democratic Party to rally behind him. In the same way, Corbynists in Labour denounce anyone else as ‘Blairites’ or ‘Red Tories’. 

That doesn’t matter too much if the objects of their contempt are fellow Labour members. We voted for the Party anyway, despite Corbyn. But outside the Party, there was nothing like Party loyalty to oblige the huge numbers who mistrusted Corbyn to stick with him in spite of their aversion. So they voted against.

It can be invaluable to have clever organisational methods. Great campaigning tools are even more valuable. But if your candidate isn’t prepared to reach out to voters who don’t already share his views, well, he’s doomed before he starts.

Bernie. Jeremy. Walking dead both.

This ides of March and that one

The Ides of March, to quote Shakespeare, are come. And this year, 2061 after the murder of Julius Caesar that took place on that date – 15 March – it’s particularly apt to mark the event.

Julius Caesar, populist and autocrat
Sadly, we have indeed seen his like again.

Why? Because the assassination of Caesar was an attempt to prevent the conversion of Rome, and its growing empire, into an autocracy. The driving force towards dictatorship? Caesar, a populist who, though an aristocrat himself, had won himself a powerful reputation among the common people as a man to speak for them.

My problem is that I’ve never known who to sympathise with in that incident. There’s no doubt that Caesar was an opportunist, a narcissist and a budding tyrant. He had shown not merely his effectiveness in warfare but his ruthless cruelty, as he wiped out thousands of his defeated enemies, including women, children and the old.

Unfortunately, though the men who opposed him spoke for the Republic, it was nothing like the kind of Republic we’ve come to know and admire since the revolutions – notably in France and America – in the eighteenth century. Entry to the senate wasn’t by election but by appointment from within a wealthy elite. And even elective office was, in effect, bought by those who could win themselves the most short-term popularity with Roman voters.

Certainly, Cassius, Brutus and the rest weren’t fighting for any kind of democratic or popular government that we would recognise. They were trying to defend a system in which they represented the establishment, and which worked to protect their interests and power. It was a system rotten with corruption and principally focused on the needs of the wealthy.

Essentially, the assassination was the culmination of a battle between an autocratic Republican maverick reaching for power on the back of a populist wave, and a corrupt Republican establishment intent on defending its privileges. I can sum up my feelings in another line from Shakespeare: a plague on both your houses.

My main feeling, though, is a sinking one, at the thought that the choice is as poor today as it was 2061 years ago.

Still, today we have a better solution than assassination: we can vote for change. We just need a genuine alternative. Come on Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the United States.

And in Britain, come on you successor to Jeremy Corbyn – whoever you may be.

Trump blunders. But is his fall what we should wish for?

It seems the age of wonders is not past. Even Donald Trump has had to backtrack at last. He’s trying to wriggle out of what he told MSNBC about abortion. It’s left him looking just like any ordinary politician who has “misspoken.”

Initially, he said that abortion should be made illegal. Then he went one step further, arguing that women who nonetheless persisted in having an abortion – an illegal abortion – ought to be subject to “some form of punishment.” Finally, he nailed his colours to the ‘pro-Life’ mast.

CNN reproduces Trump's unfortunate interview on MSNBC

It seems he may, finally, have made one gaffe too many. Across the Republican party, the statement was greeted with horror. The Guardian quoted Mallory Quigley, speaking for an anti-abortion Political Action Committee, who questioned Trump’s commitment to the ‘pro-Life’ cause and added, “If Donald Trump wants to be a leader, he has to demonstrate that he understands the pro-life position.”

Trump’s now trying to row back from his statement. It seems his approval rating among women is down at the 25% level, which could make it hard for him to win the Presidency, seeing as women are a pretty significant part of the electorate (53% of the turnout at the last election). More immediately, he’s not doing well in the next primary to be held, Wisconsin, where he’s trailing Ted Cruz in the polls.

It’s a fascinating development, isn’t it?

The first aspect that struck me was the language used. I’ve talked about this before. This notion of being ‘pro-Life’ really gets me. What are these characters saying? That the rest of us are in some sense anti-Life? That we like to see a bit of death around the place, just to brighten up our day?

The truth is that we’re neither pro-Death nor even pro-Abortion. It’s hard to imagine who would favour abortion, or why. Those of us in the other camp from Mallory Quigley’s aren’t pro-abortion, we’re simply for a woman’s right to choose. It doesn’t tend to be a light decision to take, and what we maintain is that a woman should be entitled to take it without the moral pressure of the ‘pro-Life’ movement and free of a legal prohibition against it (at least up to a reasonable point in gestation).

Pro-Life? The reality is that they’re opposed to freedom of choice. Which is curious, isn’t it, as they tend to flock around the libertarian right for whom freedom of choice, at least in other fields, is a cardinal principle?

The other aspect of this incident that caught my attention was the effect on the Trump campaign itself. It could very well derail it. Now, I never thought I’d say this, but it worries me if Trump is denied the nomination at this stage – because the damage he’s done to his own standing means that he’s unlikely to beat a Democratic opponent, whether Clinton or Sanders, in November.

What worries me is the thought that Cruz might sneak in and take the nomination, because he could prove harder for the Democrats to beat. He may be a quieter man, but underneath the surface he’s at least as dangerous as Trump, possibly more so. In particular, there’s no doubt of his ‘pro-Life’ credentials, in other words, his vehement opposition to freedom of choice for women.

It’s a lot of fun watching that buffoon Trump blunder and shoot himself in the foot. Just as long as we don’t end up with Cruz instead. Because then the last laugh might be a very bitter one indeed.

Uneasy lies the head that wields a vote

It’s been fun to be out here in the US and see a bit of the Presidential race up close, even if briefly and only in a thoroughly unscientific and anecdotal way.

Most of the people I’ve met over the last week have, I believe, been Republicans. They’re coy to admit it, but that’s how I read some of their comments and their body language. Perhaps their coyness too.

Most strikingly, they’re stumped.

How can they help decide who should win their party’s nomination? Cruz, the candidate placed second to Trump, is far too right wing, it seems.

“What,” I asked, “is Cruz to the right of Trump?”

“Way to the right,” I was told, “because he really is of the far right. Trump’s just erratic. You have no idea what his position is on anything until he takes it.”

“And not even then,” I was tempted to add.

It’s tough. Since Kasich and Rubio aren’t going anywhere, the choice seems to be between Cruz and Trump. Which is a choice between the unbearable and the unconscionable – and it doesn’t much matter which you consider to be which.

So most of the Republicans I met seem increasingly resigned to voting, against their conscience and their inclinations, for Hillary Clinton in November’s general election. No one is inspired by her. No one particularly trusts her. But given the likely choice of candidate on the Republican side of the fence, most of the people I met are resigned to having to vote Democrat and, specifically, for Hillary. And to do so only because their own party is going to put up a candidate it would be horrific to see in the White House.

Which creates an even deeper dilemma if Bernie Sanders pulls off the unlikely feat of beating Clinton to the nomination. He seems to be generally viewed as more honest and more likeable but, as I have been so frequently told, “this country isn’t ready for a socialist president.”

Preferable but unelectable? Believe me, we’re familiar with that dilemma in Britain.

Trump, Clinton, Cruz, Sanders
Decision time. And it’s a tough choice...

Equally, we British have often had to vote with a clothes peg on our noses, as we choose candidates we dislike only to avoid something much worse.

In France, too. I was there back in 2002, when the Centre-Left presidential candidate Lionel Jospin ran such a lacklustre campaign that he was knocked out in the first round, leaving only Conservative Jacques Chirac to face off to the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second. That was certainly clothes peg time, and Le Pen was trounced by more than four to one.

Funnily enough, Le Pen is one of the foreign politicians to have endorsed Trump, as is Vladimir Putin. There’s a French saying, “tell me who you hang out with and I’ll tell you who you are.” Putin and Le Pen: appropriate company, one can’t help feeling, for the authoritarian Trump.

As it happens, there are also plenty of foreign leaders lining up against Trump. Unsurprisingly, the Mexican president and two of his predecessors have denounced him, but then Trump is proposing a wall to keep Mexicans out and, to add injury to insult, wants to charge them for it. But the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken out, as has the German Vice Chacellor Sigma Gabriel, and even British PM David Cameron.

That’s unusual: the convention is that politicians say nothing that could be interpreted as an attempt to intervene in another country’s elections. But if he’s anything, Trump’s unconventional. Even so, voices in the US are being raised against foreign interference. For instance, although she’s not a Trump fan, Republican and foreign policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, Danielle Pletka, pointed out:

It’s none of their bloody business. This is our election, not theirs.

Well, up to a point. When you’re talking about the wealthiest nation and most powerful military power on Earth, choosing a leader with at least a modicum of rationality is a matter that affects us all.

On the other hand, seeing how much Americans who actually have a vote are struggling with the decision, perhaps it’s no bad thing we don’t have to. Or would it be any kind of struggle at all for voters outside the US?

Polarisation of opinion: boldness or recklessness?

Looks like we’re once more being cursed to live in interesting times.

Divisions, on both sides of the Atlantic, are becoming starker, more polarised. We’re rejecting the dull middle, the conformist and customary, and opting for the edgy, the bold, the different. Trouble is, the bold is exciting but can also be dangerous.

Charles the Bold, for instance, is often thought of as Charles the Reckless. It’s easy for one to slip into the other. Charles himself (briefly) made that discovery, as he lost his life at the Battle of Nancy in 1477.

Charles.
Could have been the bold. Turned out to have been the reckless.

In Britain, we in the Labour have elected ourselves as leader a man, Jeremy Corbyn, who identifies himself as a socialist. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, another man who makes the same identification, Bernie Sanders, has won the primary in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

“Together we have sent a message that will resonate from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California,” he announced after his victory, “and that is that the government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors, and their Super PACs.”

Refreshing stuff. His is a nation, as Lincoln pointed out, founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and its government today is in hock to the men (and a scattering of women) with the deepest pockets.

Sadly, as Sanders won his primary, comprehensively beating the candidate of the middle and the establishment, Hillary Clinton, one of those deep-pocketed men was wrapping up the primary for the other party.

“We are going to start winning again,” Donald Trump made it clear, referring no doubt to his surprise defeat in Iowa, “we are going to make America so great again.”

Trouble is his view of making the US great isn’t to reassert the founding principle of equality of creation, it’s to chuck a lot of people out and build a bloody great wall to keep them out. The notion is ludicrous, of course, if only because it massively underestimates the ingenuity of man in getting around walls, and the sheer scale of the task of guarding any barrier 2000 miles long. All his idea would achieve, if it were ever put into practice, is to improve business for people-traffickers, who would be able to charge more to defeat the wall and trump Donald.

All the same, the idea’s gaining traction among a certain and far too large section of the US electorate.

And that’s the trouble with polarisation. It’s great if things go one way. Catastrophic if they go the other.

As happened to Charles the Reckless.