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The political and media establishments may claim otherwise, but by any reasonably democratic standard Bernie Sanders won the Iowa caucuses. He won roughly six thousand more votes than runner-up Pete Buttigieg, and it was working-class people of all backgrounds who put him over the top. While some on the Left are still apprehensive about all-out participation in the Sanders campaign, there is little evidence that this will somehow inhibit extra-electoral mobilization and base-building in the working class. In an environment of profound social fragmentation, it should not be surprising that popular discontent has found expression through the Sanders campaign and the “political revolution” it spearheads. The decline of organized labor and the social disintegration of many working-class communities means that only a relatively small fraction of workers are positioned to pursue effective forms of collective action in their workplaces or communities. Election campaigns are therefore one of the few channels currently available to engage and politicize a mass working-class audience, reconstitute the working class as a political subject, and create a more favorable environment for workers to organize both inside and outside the electoral arena. The Sanders campaign is priming working people to think of themselves as members of a class with an interest in political revolution. How could this be anything but a boon to the Left and the prospects for labor movement revitalization? It is certainly the case that typical electoral campaigns serve as substitutes for mass organizing instead of vehicles for it. This is the crux of Robert Brenner’s classic critique of reformist electoralism. But the Sanders campaign has consistently shown itself to be no typical campaign. To begin with, it does not “accept consciousness as it is and try to adapt,” as Brenner argued of electoral activity in general. It is premised on connecting people’s private troubles with public issues, and it raises popular expectations instead of lowering and managing them. It has also brought techniques and tactics typically employed in labor and community organizing into the day-to-day work of the campaign, which has allowed it to reach more deeply into the working class and impart these skills to an army of volunteers and staffers. They will not forget what they learned when the campaign comes to an end, and the relationships they establish now will likely feed into future organizing efforts both inside and outside the electoral arena.

“This Is a Movement of the Working Class” This unique approach to campaigning came to fruition early on caucus day, when Sanders won the first contest in the town of Ottumwa, Iowa. Fourteen night-shift slaughterhouse workers, most of them immigrants, turned out to caucus for Bernie after their shift ended. They may not have if it weren’t for the dogged efforts of Sanders supporters, who canvassed workers outside the plant in the dead of night and followed up with them at home like organizers on a union drive. These are not the kinds of voters who campaigns typically target, and these are not the kinds of tactics that are typically used to reach them. The Sanders campaign also borrowed a key labor organizing technique by recruiting service industry workers as campaign volunteers and staffers. According to one report, campaign field organizers in Iowa included an “Olive Garden server in Iowa City, a Bettendorf brewery worker, a North Liberty Hy-Vee clerk, an Iowa City cashier at Lowe’s, a St. Kilda’s bartender from Des Moines, an Ottumwa security guard, and a records store worker from Sioux City.” The idea was that these sorts of workers could play a role similar to the organic workplace leaders who are the key to any successful union organizing drive. They are often well-known faces in their communities, can communicate effectively with many different kinds of people, and can mobilize people through their often extensive networks in the service industry. As a waiter and Sanders campaign organizer put it, “I was hired directly out of the working class, because this is a movement of the working class . . . They met me where I was, and I thought, if I’m going to be an organizer, I should do the same.”