berniesanders

Should Sanders Build a Progressive Movement All the Way to the Convention and Beyond?

Bernie Sanders won 18 more pledged delegates that Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, but still is more than 300 delegates behind her—and that doesn't include the Democratic Party's 467 super-delegates who have lined up behind her, compared to 26 for him.

While Sanders is far from being mathematically eliminated in a contest where 2,383 delegates are needed for the Democratic Party presidentialnomunation, Clinton undeniably has taken a commanding lead in the march toward the White House.

March 21, 2016 | Source: Alternet | by Peter Bloom

Bernie Sanders won 18 more pledged delegates that Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, but still is more than 300 delegates behind her—and that doesn’t include the Democratic Party’s 467 super-delegates who have lined up behind her, compared to 26 for him.

While Sanders is far from being mathematically eliminated in a contest where 2,383 delegates are needed for the Democratic Party presidentialnomunation, Clinton undeniably has taken a commanding lead in the march toward the White House.

As a result, the mainstream media has all but pronounced the Sanders campaign fatally wounded, if not an example of the walking dead. Even for those who are less dismissive, there appears to be unifying logic coalescing around the urgent need for Democrats to now unify in the name of defeating the larger threat of Trump in November. These sentiments were supposedly echoed, though much more privately, by no less than President Obama to donors.

In the wake of these defeats, his supporters and progressives have sought to keep his dream of political revolution alive. They point to the fact that the rest of the election map is highly favorable to Sanders. Fundamentally, they suggest that this dramatic setback could be an opportunity for him to more fully articulate and promote his socialist message.

Yet perhaps the important question is not if Sanders should remain in the race but rather why and for what ultimate ends. There is significantly more than just the presidency at stake—there is a progressive movement to build. The success of Sanders campaign will historically judged not by his own victory but the degree he ushered in an era for the progressive victory of others.

Why Keep Fighting?

According to mainstream Democrats and pundits, Sanders’ demise is imminent. His downfall and Clinton’s triumph is now an inevitability. It is a matter of if not when. Sanders has called these political obituaries “absurd” and has vowed to keep fighting all the way to the convention.

Indeed, without continuing the struggle, the racism and authoritarianism that Trump represents may be temporarily dampened but be far from extinguished. To do so he needs to draw on his surprising success to invest in a progressive movement from the ground up. In this way, to quote one recent commentator, “Bernie Sanders can still lead a political revolution—even if he loses.”