“I recently had the opportunity to meet with Secretary Clinton and discuss some of the very important issues facing our country and the Democratic Party. It is no secret that Secretary Clinton and I have strong disagreements on some very important issues. It is also true that our views are quite close on others. I look forward, in the coming weeks, to continued discussions between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda. I also look forward to working with Secretary Clinton to transform the Democratic Party so that it becomes a party of working people and young people, and not just wealthy campaign contributors: a party that has the courage to take on Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the fossil fuel industry and the other powerful special interests that dominate our political and economic life.”

So spoke Bernie Sanders yesterday. In this article, we had a fanciful speech of Sanders in which we predicted exactly this.

What it means is that if Clinton gets elected (which will be with Sanders support), she will sign a new Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. She will continue the attacks on working class people all around the world. She will continue and ramp up support for the racist Stat of Israel… On and on.

Democratic Party Platform

Sanders talked a lot in his speech about the Democratic Party platform. This is a meaningless piece of paper. Sanders is just hiding behind this as a fig leaf.

We have recounted the history of campaigns similar to that of Sanders: Gene McCarthy (1968), George McGovern (1972), Jesse Jackson (1980s), Dennis Kucinich (2012). With the exception of the Kucinich campaign, every single one of these created widespread enthusiasm. (Kucinich, who was to the left of Sanders, had the same effect, but not as widely.) But the net effect was to bolster the Democratic Party.

Sanders talks about changing the Democratic Party. That is the same old trap. Changing that party is similar to trying to shape cotton candy. And the more you try, the more it sticks to your hands, thoroughly entangling you.

Socialist Support for Sanders

This is why it was such a huge mistake – more than that, really – for socialists to support Sanders and to call on him to run independently. What this did was to create the illusion that he was somehow different, that he actually might run independently, that this capitalist politician could lead the working class. It helped foster illusions in “the Bern” as an individual instead of helping explain the forces at work.

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