As we prepare for today’s corporate media “reporting” on behalf of the establishment’s chosen democratic candidate, let’s take a moment to reflect. How did we get here? Where are we going?

I’ve grown accustom to political disappointments amongst groups far less class-heterogeneous than that of the U.S. electoral left. It’s not exactly as if I didn’t see this coming. As a Sanders supporter, I’ve been criticized by fellow revolutionary leftists for having “sold out” or, perhaps in the best of cases, deluding myself. Even amongst other supporters, I’ve been called a “splitter,” for having the gall to say the Democratic party could not be reformed.

The daily calls by many within those ranks to “unite blue” and “hold your nose and vote for her” are a constant reminder of the subservient mentality which has engulfed the U.S. electorate. Don’t push back too hard! You might alienate the Clinton supporter. Or worse… you might make Bernie look bad.

Just recently, I’ve been told by the very same people I’m not supposed to alienate that I have a pathological hatred for a female leader. As the son of a working-class mother who sacrificed any potential moment of relaxation to the benefit of my own success, I’ve also been informed that the organized efforts of her sisters in the medical profession are on par with the disgusting corporate influence of Goldman Sachs executives and “dark money.” Of course, neither of the aforementioned stories will receive the same level of coverage as the one we’re about to see.

Bernie’s suggesting that there’s an establishment nature to Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign, despite his steadfast defense of their organizations and their causes, cannot stand.

Why? Because unlike the statements from the Hillary camp, Bernie’s statement shines a light on the political character of the system itself.

You see, dividing people by sex and gender doesn’t threaten the system. While it may be encouraged or discouraged to win political points amongst various warring factions of the billionaire class, by and large it ensures people are too distracted to fight the broader oppression they suffer. Similarly, by equating the political organization of the working class to the political organization of the capitalist class, particularly in the way of money, we see a reinforcement, not a weakening, of the narrative formalized under Citizens United.

It’s perfectly fine for Human Rights Campaign to draw attention to its own corporate sponsorship in order to flaunt its connections. It’s not OK, however, for anyone else to point it out and especially not OK when the follow-up question is going to be, “how does that influence your organization?” Additionally, while Republican law-makers are delighted with trying to strip public funding for Planned Parenthood, they wouldn’t think to cut off government subsidies to its private funders.

It doesn’t matter that in both instances Planned Parenthood receives funding. Ted Cruz doesn’t actually give a shit about women having abortions one way or the other. What matters is the mechanisms by which they receive funding. Only some of those mechanisms enable the dependency on those institutions which meet the approval of the ruling class. Truly democratic governance and working class organizations like unions are not those mechanisms.

In short, anything which attacks the political power of a united working people and their political organs is not only acceptable, but largely encouraged. Anything which attacks the political power of the ruling class and its political organs must be suppressed thoroughly and with a sense of immediacy. This is true whether or not this or that would-be universal reformer takes aim at Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

For those of you that pay enough attention, it will be rather quite clear that despite some differences in form, they fight for the same team. This is, of course, not just true of individual politicians, but of the two major political parties themselves.

United We Rise; Divided We Fall

The problem with oversimplifying language is that inevitably two sides become convinced that they’re both representing the “true meaning,” yet somehow directly contradicting one another.

When the socialist left calls for unity, we’re not talking about some feel good unity of political ideology. We are talking about a unity of action amongst members with an already unifying class interest, one that is conscious to the economic divisions and one that is largely un-distracted by the purely political.

It should be clear to any class conscious worker the severity of Hillary’s statements towards the National Nurses United, compared to Bernie’s statements towards Planned Parenthood.

The conflict between the two is not a division of anything other than two very distinct class interests which are already and have always been divided. There is no way to unify the interests of corporate billionaires and the working class. We cannot reconcile the unreconcilable. This is not a call for new division, but a call for everyone to recognize the division which already exists, and to call a spade a spade.

We cannot win by trying to equate small dues-based contributions of hundreds of thousands of nurses with the contributions of a handful of CEOs who have inflated their own salaries at the expense of workers; nor can we win by supporting a candidate who is willing to make such an equivocation. Planned Parenthood and HRC are not made stronger, but weaker, when we try to ignore their corporate sponsorship and instead believe our only defense is to fight our fellow workers on the other side of the political aisle; we will not be stronger by electing someone who perpetuates that ignorance and inflames that division.

We are not the beneficiaries of Saudi money and weapons deals or the death and destruction they impart on fellow Yemeni workers. We do not help our Hatian brothers and sisters by turning a myopic eye towards our own political landscape thereby foresaking theirs. We do not achieve our own political and economic sovereignty by destroying that of others in order to forward personal business interests.

We are workers, the 99%, whatever phrase you wish to use, and our interests cannot be unified with the interests of the 1%. We do not need a unified ideology to resolve the differences among us, but a unified action to enable our differences to be our own so that we can seek to resolve them unencumbered by the institutional norms of our political and economic masters.

Wither the Political Revolution

As we rapidly approach the first contests of the presidential primaries, we will continue to receive calls for civility where none has been afforded to us. We will have defined for us what is and isn’t politically acceptable by people who accept a different political reality, namely, one where they have power and we don’t. Every victory they will claim to have achieved for us will be followed by an incessant call that we help them to achieve theirs.

Many of us will oblige.

With those of us that do not oblige, they will feign outrage and offense until those that have begin to turn against us. We will mistake the clarity of the ruling political ideology for honesty and convince ourselves we’re all fighting for the same thing in an attempt to restore our strength, but we will not be stronger. We will be weaker and in being so will have served only to strengthen the establishment which we so reviled.

We will abide and we will do so convinced that we have won.

I do not intend to convince those unwilling of revolution to defend Sanders against such attacks, but I would say that if you were to happen to mistakenly take part in one then it would look a lot more like defending yourself and one another.