Michael Kennedy – RI Future

October 10, 2016October 10, 2016

The failure, and abiding danger, of Trump

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Michael D. Kennedy is a Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs at Brown University:

The candidacy of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States finds daily a new road to Hell, and threatens to drag the nation, and the world, down with it.

I wrote what follows before I watched the debate on October 9. Nothing in that disgusting spectacle changes my sense. I will, however, offer some concluding remarks about how the debate shapes my interpretation of the cultural political landscape in which this spectacle took place.

Trump is in a tailspin.

An Open Letter from Some Angry Women spelled out the list of affronts from Trump’s lips that have defined his campaign. His disgusting 2005 quotation led a number of Republicans to withdraw their endorsement, at last. Republicans are right to worry about the effects of a Presidential Election day debacle for their down ballot contests, and now they scramble to save their own, personal, electoral futures. But more is going down in flames than a few Senate chances.

The defining GOP alliance of evangelicals and free market advocates was already on shaky ground given that Trump is neither devout nor a believer in regulation by market. He believes in strong men being able to rewrite the rules of bankruptcy in order to make a buck and stiff the schmuck. Of course we all know, too, that the famous have the right to assault women according to the Trump holy scriptures.

While limiting reproductive health and rights for women has been a hallmark of many evangelical dispositions, celebrating the assault of their mothers, wives, and daughters has finally trumped the pragmatism motivated by their Supreme Court anxieties. If coherence of principles remains a conservative Christian priority, Evangelist Russell Moore’s op-ed last month will get many more readers as Trump’s lewd barbarism becomes ever more difficult to overlook.

Of course Trump’s destruction of the defining GOP alliance was preceded by the wreckage of its fantasized one.

Trump ruined the hopes of a new broader GOP alliance with his celebration of a wall that Mexico would pay for, but that was only the first of many “strong man” celebrations he would offer. His association with former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of his surviving spokespersons, has moved Trump to continue celebrating the disastrous policies of “stop and frisk”. A smarter proto-fascist would have tried to build his authoritarianism on a broader base, but Trump’s ideology is just too deeply steeped in racism to be electorally triumphant. As one exceptionally well connected progressive friend predicted, Hillary Rodham Clinton should beat Trump in a landslide. The skeptic at that dinner table predicted HRC victory too, but worried about its certainty.

We ought worry, for our nation knows the risk of the October Surprise.

Trump’s tailspin risks us all

Those who leaked Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street only revealed what Bernie Sanders and everyone who embraced his commitment to ending Wall Street influence know: those speeches must have been “damned good” for Madame Secretary to have been paid so well for them. This is of course not really news, for we all know that you don’t earn your keep by offending your hosts. However, it does give those opposed to a Clinton victory the chance to redirect her possible supporters to the Green Party or to the Libertarians. Trump’s campaign is very happy about this release, of course, for those who vote for Stein, or stay home, implicitly keep Trump’s hopes alive. Putin is among his greatest supporters.

I am no cold warrior, but neither am I naïve about Putin’s Russia. I have spent my academic career analyzing Soviet-type societies and then the transformations of post-communist countries. While we ought be focused on how Putin’s regime has redrawn European state boundaries by invading Ukraine (contrary to Trump’s understanding, reflecting something more than his careless language ) and by committing war crimes in Syria, we need be much more cautious about how Putin’s skillful manipulation of democratic public opinion within his adversaries’ nations leads to state breakdown.

Putin, and Trump, have celebrated Brexit – not because they care for globalization’s dispossessed, but because railing against global elites creates room for their brands of militarism and fascism to gain ground. Putin does not stop there, of course – his aim is, ultimately, to weaken both the European Union and NATO, the latter of which Trump has found “obsolete” We ought, therefore, be wary of how Putin will try to maneuver Trump into the White House with his regime’s considerable capacities in information warfare.

In the end, however, I agree with my optimistic friend. Should Clinton manage to mobilize those who justifiably fear a Trump regime’s ruin of US international standing and its promised assault on our existing standards of rights for women, people of color, and others (including the dispossessed white folks who celebrate his promise of a return to greatness), we should see a rout of Trump and those who continue to support him. But that won’t be the end of Trump.

I don’t mean a new season of The Apprentice. Trump has given license to those who, in the name of opposing political correctness, feel free to demean and harm, in speech and in practice, those they consider inferior. He has encouraged his supporters to think that, should he lose, he was robbed of the victory by illegal means. As a former Pennsylvanian myself, I can readily read his racist surmise when he tells his supporters to observe the polls in certain places.

When Trump loses, do you think his supporters will retreat to their private resentments for the erosion of white privilege in America?

The Morning After

I wrote the preceding on the morning before the debate, and now the morning after.

I found Michelle Goldberg’s account of the debate most HRC sympathetic – while the Secretary could not quite hold onto Michelle Obama’s high road all the time, she did pull us back toward rational democratic deliberation despite the menacing hulk looming behind her, despite Trump’s threat to imprison her should he be elected.

Those who declare Trump’s victory in debate can do so only because he has so effectively diminished not only our expectations of what a GOP candidate ought bring. He has helped mobilize the flames of ressentiment so effectively that it overwhelms any politics of respect, whether toward his opponent or toward his Muslim American interlocutor, or towards “the African Americans and the Hispanics”. He advocates a new sense of justice with the rule of law and constitutional integrity as potential casualties. Trump consolidated his base in the debate and in the preceding press conference with such bravado and bullying that he won’t be eclipsed. Those who seek to save the Republican Party will have to go to battle, and not wait for his never-to-come resignation.

Barring some extraordinary October surprise, Trump has not only failed in his campaign, but has destroyed the Republican Party in the process. But he remains dangerous. In fact, without the moderating force of the GOP mainstream, he becomes even more threatening. Trump has fertilized with his lies, grandstanding, and celebrity surmises, with his BS, a measure of white supremacy, bald patriarchy and proto-fascism on American soil I would have never anticipated. Those who embrace that vision will not be quieted with an electoral victory by Hillary Rodham Clinton. I fear, by contrast, they will be incensed.

This last month of campaigning is not just about who wins the White House. It’s about whether the culture of this contest paves the road to Hell or gives us a chance to reroute toward the Promised Land. I pray for the latter, but the sociologist in me fears the former.

Michael D. Kennedy, Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs, Brown University

homepages:

http://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/michael-kennedy

http://watson.brown.edu/people/faculty/kennedy

https://brown.academia.edu/MichaelKennedy

@Prof_Kennedy on twitter

Now Available! Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities and Publics in Transformation. Stanford University Press http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24607

Address: Box 1916 Maxcy Hall Brown University 108 George Street Providence, RI 02912 Fax: (401) 863-3213

July 28, 2016

The politics of progressive identification and the DNC

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Tonight’s speech by Hillary Rodham Clinton is historic. As we all know by now, she will be the first woman ever nominated by a major US political party to be a candidate for President of the United States. That video of the shattered glass ceiling simulates that achievement. Every progressive must applaud this moment.[1] Every human ought applaud it too if gender equality matters.

In combination with the truly dangerous fantasy Trump presents,[2] most of my friends on the left declare that supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton is both historical necessity and a matter of political responsibility.[3] I agree, but, as progressives, we need to appreciate how we get there and what her election means for the future.

Being progressive is not only about outcome. It’s also about process. It’s about living in our daily life the politics we want to see writ large. But before I point out the challenges of progressive identification with HRC, I wish to acknowledge just fears.

If Trump is elected president, one of my gay friends told me, the marital unity he treasures most will be put at risk. We will have as vice -president one of the most fundamentalist religious politicians in the nation whose embrace of extremist anti-LGBTQ politics and anti-choice politics is enough, by itself, to move progressives to mobilize against Trump.[4] The Supreme Court’s composition is too important to allow Republican Party extremists to control those nominations.

If Trump is elected president, the global security system will be put at risk. Already my friends on NATO’s eastern flank express profound worry about how Trump’s professed admiration for Putin and skepticism toward NATO put them at risk. Of course NATO’s embrace is hardly an obvious progressive position, but if you live in a place where Russian imperialism threatens, you must choose which superpower to welcome.

NATO may not be an obvious place where progressives unify, but we must unify in opposition to the ways in which Trump uses religious and racial differences to divide, and puts all the means of violence, including nuclear weapons, on the table. I agree with those progressives who marked their opposition to President Obama’s drone wars and other ethically compromised means of war.

But Trump is worse.

We can go on, but to do so only reinforces a legitimate progressive objection. Our vote is sacred and it is our choice. We want to live in a system more authentic, and less compromised. Katelyn Johnson, delegate for Bernie Sanders, said during an interview on MSNBC on July 27 that she wanted her vote to echo “the system I want to live under.” She doesn’t want to drink “the kool-aid of a system I want to dismantle.” Progressives who fear Trump need to hear her, and so many others like her. We can’t allow our concern for outcomes to drown out the everyday practice that makes progressives different.

And what is that distinction?

We can’t base that distinction on particular substantive issues, even though it is the progressive’s inclination to debate which issue is fundamental. Is it a policy around the Trans Pacific Pipeline or closing GITMO? Perhaps it’s about investing in public goods rather than privatizing them. Like other progressives, I have positions on these and more policy issues. But progressives can, and should, debate these matters based on informed readings of policy consequences and their motivations.

I think we come closer to recognizing that distinction when we look for authenticity. One reason Bernie Sanders mobilized so many people was because he has been consistent over decades in his opposition to the concentration of wealth and its deleterious effects on politics and everyday lives. One reason Joe Biden drew the applause for his speech that he did was because he emits, in everyday life and on stage, a sincerity that is not staged in the ways that so many other politicians look manufactured. While both Bernie and Biden are professional politicians, they are different from most.

Barack and Michelle Obama are in a class by themselves. Their speeches at this convention moved the house not only for their fine deliveries, but also because they could embody the progressive, and human, alternative that we wish our America could be. If their daughters could play outside a White House built by slaves, we feel the progress that has been, that might be.

But here’s the problem.

Privileged progressives in our system like to feel good, and to believe that the place of the Obamas indicates that we live in a post-racial society. We do not. We can debate whether particular statistics mark progress or not, but we cannot diminish the profoundly racist underpinnings of the system in which we live, where violence against people of color, whether by police or through the proliferation of guns, whether through a prison industrial complex or in everyday aggressions and exclusions, define the enduring significance of the color line. When progressives celebrate Tim Kaine’s choice by referring to how well he speaks Spanish, and how he was a missionary in Honduras, many POC ask why not just recruit a Latinx person?

The answer for too many progressives is obvious. We must win, and to win, we must cut into the demographic that supports Trump, that white male working class electorate, perhaps religious, that might find Kaine’s working class roots and enduring Catholic commitments compelling. But that’s the problem for many progressives who recognize racism’s power. Outcome trumps process, and leads too many progressives to adopt that condescending position of knowing better than POC who declare these candidates to be more of the same old racist system, with glass ceiling broken or not. And it gets worse.

I especially appreciate what my friend Justice Gaines shared on Facebook, with wisdom zir friend, Nikkie Ubinas, offered:

If Donald Trump wins, it’s not because not enough people of color chose not to vote for Hillary.

It’s because enough people voted for Donald Trump to make him a candidate. It’s because people elected Donald Trump. It’s because institutions, systems, and people created him. It’s because we have corrupt systems that don’t give a shit about people of color and poor people. It’s because Donald Trump is right in line with our American racist xenophobic and sexist history. It’s because Donald Trump is America’s enduring legacy.

Here’s the issue that so many of my progressive white friends miss, what I miss were I not to listen and learn from Justice and others.

In the panic about defeating Trump, progressives can practice reprehensible politics in everyday life, abandoning their commitment to authenticity, equality, and process on the altar of expediency and outcomes defined by those with privilege.

We ought celebrate breaking a glass ceiling, and I will do what I can to defeat Trump and elect Hillary Rodham Clinton. But that is not because I am with her. I remain committed to political revolution, and its chances are so much greater with Clinton/Kaine in office than Trump/Pence. I am continuing that political revolution when I work for Clinton/Kaine, but a vote does not fulfill my political responsibility as a progressive. That political responsibility means holding Clinton and Kaine accountable to the Democratic Party Platform those leading the political revolution at DNC moved.

When Bernie endorsed Hillary it was not the end of the political revolution. It was just a signal that it is time to refocus down ballot and on civil society, to mobilize and apply pressure to politicians too easily influenced by Wall Street and other lobbies with money. When Katelyn Johnson, Justice Gaines, Nikkie Ubinas, and others signal their distance from politics as usual, I will listen and respect their position for that is the foundation of the political revolution, not the election of a particular presidential candidate.

I also respect Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison much, and he said it right today on Morning Joe:

“Active citizens need to help politicians govern the country, and one way to do that is to let them know how you really feel…”

And it’s not just holding up placards and maybe even disrupting a speech. It’s about holding authorities accountable. This DNC platform is different from all others preceding because it was made with the political revolution in mind. Again, Ellison said as much when he anticipated an election in which Clinton and Kaine win, but face active citizens who will demand that a new administration adhere to the platform’s principles.

Were I to identify the progressive distinction, it’s one in which we respect and recognize one another, being particularly attentive to the ways in which power and violence diminish some and privilege others. Progressives are not defined by the candidates they support, but by the work, in everyday life and in political campaigns and in enduring political struggles, to include everyone in the set of rights and responsibilities that democracy organizes.

Recognition, respect, and maybe even love moves the political revolution, and my identification as progressive.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-glass-ceiling_us_579827fee4b0d3568f85272e

[2] http://www.rifuture.org/ideology-in-the-time-of-trump.html

[3] http://www.publicseminar.org/2016/07/why-i-support-hillary-clinton-for-president-a-letter-to-my-friends-on-the-left/

[4] Note here religious identification is not the issue. The Democratic VP nominee Tim Kaine is a devoted and practicing Catholic, but also supports women’s right to choose and the sanctity of love over homophobia. Rhode Island Bishop Tobin’s take on Kaine https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/local/roman-catholic-bishop-in-rhode-island-criticizes-kaine/2016/07/25/378ad256-529e-11e6-b652-315ae5d4d4dd_story.html has prompted healthy debate within the RI Catholic community http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20160726/thomas-m-hines-bishop-tobins-arrogant-view-of-tim-kaine

July 21, 2016

Ideology in the Time of Trump

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We can no longer distinguish Republican and Democratic parties with conservative and liberal labels. Too many Republicans proud of their conservative pedigree have distanced themselves from the party that Donald Trump now leads. Democrats now prefer the term progressive, but it’s not obvious that all those who supported Bernie Sanders will embrace Hillary Clinton despite his endorsement. Bernie led a political revolution against the 1%; it’s hard to see the former secretary of state, senator, first lady, and Wall Street lecturer in the 99%. But maybe our labels and the methods underlying them are the problem that needs address before we figure our vote and anticipate the post-convention campaigns.

When we reference ideologies, we can mix up political self-understanding with the analytical and critical accounting of communicative action. We ought to debate whether Secretary Clinton is really a progressive if she is part of the 1%; or if you prefer America’s version of Kremlinology, we can wait to see whom she chooses as her vice-presidential candidate to decide whether the progressive or moderate label fits her best. [1] But to focus on Clinton’s self-understanding and the ideological connotations of her policy and personnel choices is to do something similar to what the Republicans themselves do in their politics. By focusing on Hillary Rodham Clinton we miss how ideology works in the Time of Trump.

There is substantial scholarly work identifying the articulation of Trump in the world of ideology and power. A number of scholars of fascism have made a strong case for why the label fits his practice.[2] It’s not just that his language can be vulgar and that he diminishes many in his oratory. The label is compelling because it serves to warn us of a fascist future America has so far avoided.

For some, however, this is not about an unrealized future, but revenge of the past. One of the world’s leading scholars of race and the history of white people, Nell Painter, marks a steady history of violence against people of color and sometimes their white allies; she argues that Trump borrows from an ideology of American white supremacy to express resentment for a black president and all that accompanies Obama’s leadership.[3] Rather than being the force for law and order, then, Trump’s performance helps to stimulate the disorder that demands a strong white man to resolve.

Trump and his defenders can defend his implicit and explicit racist and fascist speech by declaring he stands opposed to political correctness, celebrating that he tells it like it is. They say he expresses the real frustrations of the American people. But in that very declaration, this coterie declares their whiteness and superiority without ever saying, explicitly, that white supremacy is the route to make America great again.

Of course Trump may never declare that he is a fascist or white supremacist, but that is not how ideology works in these times. We live in a time where those who care about truth are eclipsed by those who know how to put on a show, where comedians communicate the truth better than journalists or academics. Trump, while no comedian, is a showman, and knows how to turn any news into useful news. Melania Trump’s presentation with plagiarism, Jeffery Isaac proposes, was

“a perfect representation of Trump and his campaign: all show and no substance, all mendacity and no truth, and all ego and no real concern for anyone else. Say what you want. Do what you want. Vilify others and then steal their words. Get caught and then try to shout down and bully those who notice. This is not an aberration. This is Trumpism.”[4]

In this light, it would be insufficient to articulate Trump’s communicative power by linking it only to ideologies of fascism and white supremacy. His effect is realized through a celebrity culture that not only seeks salvation in the strong man, the superman, the Übermensch; it finds in the fantasy of beautiful blonde adult children and the ex-model wife an escapism that appeals to those who feel abandoned by policy wonks, free traders, movement activists, academics, and conventional politicians. [5] They can escape the world in which women and people of color threaten their imagined place and find themselves in the fantasy Trump embodies. These people, in their alienation from the world that exists, enjoy Trump.

Fantasy is different from the ideologies associated with conservatism, liberalism, or progressivism. It needs neither coherence nor evidence, for it is not designed to reflect or operate on reality. It is designed to constitute a reality that even its believers know is not real, but nonetheless has an effect that satisfies a desire that cannot be expressed openly in public. And it’s even better if that fantasy is somehow denied, for its proponents then can cry injustice and break the rules even more to prove, ultimately, the reality of that fantasy’s power and of their desire. The Republican National Convention is not just about selecting a presidential candidate; it’s the latest performance of a fantasy that derails the relevance of conventional policy and politics.

In order to compete in the fantasy world made in the time of Trump, The Democratic National Convention and ensuing campaign cannot only be an expression of experienced leadership, policy expertise, and progressive and inclusive values. Most American citizens know that the system is in crisis, and desperately wish that the future could be more like the selfie Democrats post rather than what Republicans offer when they picture their interns.[6] But as crises and conflicts accumulate, Americans could become afraid that an ideology that embraces them all will be destroyed by the violence of the few, feeding the fantasy that order demands the return of a real man to power even if they, themselves, are not white supremacists and fascists.

We have seen how this works across the world. Putin blazed the trail, constituting the fantasy of a Great Russia at risk of destruction, finding evidence of that threat in democracy’s spread in Ukraine, and creating a war that demands even more authoritarian leadership at home. Erdogan has followed suit, finding the perfect opportunity in a bungled and possibly planted coup to impose a new order on Turkey, to impose the fantasy of a Turkey unbridled by expectations of western allies and cosmopolitan intellectuals. Trump and his promoters take note and whip up desire by positing threats (immigrants, Muslims, crooked politicians) to an order that might only be fulfilled if a strong man leads. Those who embrace this fantasy find enjoyment not only in hating those threats, but finally being allowed to say it publicly.

Secretary Clinton and her allies may think they are running a convention and campaign against another politician, but they also need to recognize what it means to challenge a fantasy. This 2016 election is not a contest of liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. It is about the communicative powers of fantasy and escapism vs. those of political experience, expertise and solidarity. And if that is the contest, the showman will win.

In the Time of Trump, knowing how the world works is not more compelling than knowing how to declare that others are stupid. That’s not my fantasy, of course; it is my nightmare. And perhaps that is the point around which Secretary Clinton might become president.

It’s not about vision or policy, but it’s about the fear of what Trump has already wrought, and what he might still bring were he to win. To work for the Democrats fulfills an alternative fantasy of salvation, except this time keeping America from descending to fascism and a full throated white supremacist order.

This electoral contest is shaped by the contest between those who resent what they believe has happened under Obama, and those who fear of what might be under Trump.

I don’t know which will win.

[1] http://www.publicseminar.org/2016/02/clinton-vs-sanders-whos-the-real-progressive/#.V4-4AJMrLEY

[2] http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20151209/NEWS/151209270 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/one-expert-says-yes-donald-trump-is-a-fascist-and_us_578d1a56e4b0d4229484d3e0

[3] https://www.facebook.com/historiansondonaldtrump/

[4] http://www.publicseminar.org/2016/07/why-melania-trumps-plagiarism-matters/

[5] http://www.queries-feps.eu/Mag8_NEW.pdf

[6] https://mic.com/articles/149274/this-dem-intern-selfie-is-dramatically-different-from-paul-ryan-s?

April 25, 2016April 25, 2016

Bernie Sanders for Rhode Island

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From the largest political rally in Rhode Island since JFK to the morning talk shows on the day after, I feel whiplash more than I feel the Bern. But that is because most political pundits don’t get the point of the political revolution Bernie Sanders articulates. I need to get the Bern back. And so do the people of Rhode Island, the people of the United States.

Yes it’s about winning the Democracy Party nomination, and yes there is a narrow path to victory which depends on doing exceptionally well in the primaries tomorrow – in Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, my ancestral home in Pennsylvania and my beloved home today in Rhode Island. But the potential for victory tomorrow is only part of the story. It is, as Bob Plain properly emphasized, about moving beyond the status quo. It’s about the long haul and the power of truth.

The truth of Bernie Sanders is not just about his consistency over more than three decades. His message about the injustice of inequality has been the same, unlike other conventional political candidates who move with the political winds.

It’s not just about the fact that he speaks truth to power: his truth has not been shaped by the donations of the people he claims to challenge. His message is funded by donations of millions of everyday people. Political favors are the coin of the realm, but his currency comes in popular support. And that’s the point.

I understand why so many of my friends support Secretary Clinton. Like me, they also see that she is far better than Trump. That’s true. They also believe she can get things done. Certainly, but her pragmatism works within a system that is rigged, that is broken. And that’s more about compromise with the powerful than about the power of truth.

As Bernie said yesterday, as he does in each speech: our nation ought be judged not by our wealth and power but by how we treat those least privileged among us. With 40 percent of Providence’s children living in poverty (and 20% of the children of our state – http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20150121/NEWS/301219986 ), with Pennsylvania and Rhode Island having the greatest percentage of structurally deficient bridges (http://www.governing.com/gov-data/transportation-infrastructure/bridge-data-by-state-inspections-structurally-deficient-totals.html), and the list could go on, we can’t just get things done. We need to make things right.

Bernie is not a typical politician. He will not always say the “politic” thing. The reason everyday people #FeelTheBern is because he says things that you only hear in your sociology classes in university, and in sermons by those activists who are moved by the spirit of liberation theology. I was with two of them yesterday in Roger Williams Park listening to Bernie. They were moved. We were moved. And we are not millennials. But we each have been working for decades to teach about, and to change, the injustice of this system. We have worked with social movements for decades to make a difference. And that difference is on the horizon.

We need to learn from each social movement on which Bernie Sanders has built this political revolution. Here are just a few.

The Civil Rights movement from the 1960s began with civil rights, but continues to build momentum through today to search for political, social and basic human rights too. Black Lives Matter is more than a name for that movement’s expression today. It’s about assuring that the police represent the community they police. It’s about assuring jobs and education, not jail and incarceration, for youth, as Bernie would say. It’s about rights, and it’s about respect.

Respect is all over Bernie’s campaign. His previous work in support of veterans is well known, but not because he is supported by a military industrial complex. As he himself argues, we might differ about when to go to war and when not, but we cannot debate the support our veterans deserve given their service to our country. His support for veterans and for the Black Lives Matter movements, simultaneously, indicates that this is not a conventional campaign. This is a campaign that brings people together in recognition of the injustice that animates.

It’s about the Occupy Movement too. Too many think that movement failed, but they are wrong. Thanks to them, we talk about the inequality and the 1% in politics, nobody more forcefully than Bernie. That movement is no longer apparent in their occupation of city parks, but it is apparent in the heart of a political revolution that marks gross inequality as injustice and health care as a right for all.

That movement, of course, builds on the union movement in this country whose struggle for equality and a decent wage ought grow more vigorous with Bernie as president if history is any guide. Remember that America’s union movement consolidated its gains with that radical Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president.

The environmental movement can readily work within the system, but the dangers of that accommodating view are apparent everyday as compromise leads incrementally toward planetary crisis. Bernie sets his sights differently from Hillary on principle, a difference most evident in their divergent approaches to fracking. Hillary is conditionally for it, but Bernie opposes it. Period.

Evidence of the impact of different iterations of the feminist movement are apparent in Bernie’s campaign, but I see it most fundamentally in his commitment to empowerment. Injustice is not only in the system, but it’s also in the ways inequality is expressed behind closed doors, in ways that some treat as religious or natural. The political revolution is about pushing for equality in everyday life, by everyday people. It’s about empowerment.

Nowhere did Bernie express yesterday that right to everyday equality better than in declaring, simply, that people have the right to love whomever they want. LGBTQ people and their allies have made a revolution in this country already, even if reaction rears its ugly head. But love, in the end, might be too powerful to quash, especially when love and good business climates go together.

Love can make for strange bedfellows, and the image of Pope Francis and Bernie speaking in a hallway following a conference in the Vatican on the moral economy is one of them. But the fact that that seems strange is another sign of a broken and rigged system. Part of love’s power, and why it seems to animate Bernie’s political revolution is because the golden rule – do unto others as one would have them do onto you – is enough for Bernie to express his religious sensibility. And it’s that kind of religiosity that extends solidarity rather than division.

Entrepreneurs might even Feel the Bern. In fact, most entrepreneurs are likely to be in the category that will benefit most from the kind of health care reform Bernie advocates. Instead of putting it on small business, embed those costs, as most advanced industrial nations do, in the government so that that public good does not fall on the shoulders of those who try to innovate. That was Bernie’s message yesterday too.

“Yes, Yes, Yes, “ you can hear Bernie say, “how am I going to pay for it?”. Not only does Bernie propose to tax income more progressively and wealth more aggressively, but he can also tax that part of the economy that has been getting away with money making scott free, or tax free. Why not tax financial transactions? That’s a growing part of the economy, and a source of increasing inequality simultaneously. This IS about class struggle too.

I identify all these social movements that have shaped the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders not only to illustrate that his prospects are based on his embrace of and learning from all sorts of progressive social movements. It’s also because his political revolution is a movement, and not a campaign. His goal is not only to win a nomination and election. His goal is to build a movement that not only changes the Democratic Party platform, but changes the way in which our economy, politics, and society are run.

That’s why I may not be alone in feeling the whiplash. When we enter the movement, we recognize the challenge, but we also feel solidarity and recognize the power of truth , the integrity that comes with naming the inequality and injustice that work to crush the soul of our people. We can feel progress in the movement, because we can feel the spirit of so many people coming together under the banner of a truthfulness that politics dares not speak. But when we listen to the pundits, they only tell us that Bernie cannot win the nomination in July. They miss the point.

This is a political revolution that is not about July or a presidential campaign. It’s about a movement for justice and equality. That can’t be won with an election, but it can be built by voting for Bernie. And that is a small step toward the political revolution that we need in order to make America as it ought to be.

Voting in the Democratic Primary for Bernie Sanders is not about assuring he wins the nomination. It’s about assuring that we have a movement that can make a future we believe in. We need a vision that goes well beyond the status quo that is, fundamentally, unjust. And that’s the truth that may change America. That’s why people #FeelTheBern.