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Why Bernie And Hillary’s Losses Were The Best Thing That Could Have Happened For The Progressive Revolution

By Caitlin Johnstone
Published on: 21:37 PST, Nov 13, 2016

Good morning, America! Are you finished with your anxiety attacks about President Trump yet?

Some of you? Okay, good enough. We’ve got a lot to talk about, and a lot of work to do. You can catch up the others when they’re done rioting and calling everyone a Nazi.

We are looking at a red House, a red Senate, a red White House and a likely conservative SCOTUS, but the success of America’s progressive awakening has never been more certain than it is right now. I’d like to explain, if you’ll allow me, why this entire presidential election has been the best thing that could have possibly happened to the progressive revolution, including not just Hillary’s loss in the general election, but Bernie’s in the primary as well.

A lot of people have talked about how a Clinton election would have meant an eight-year stagnation of the progressive agenda while starting wars, shoring up corporatist control and passing predatory trade agreements, but I haven’t seen anyone else talk about how a Sanders win would have chained a small island’s worth of inertia to the progressive cause by ensuring the survival of corrupt establishment politics within the Democratic party.

Think about what would have happened if Bernie Sanders had won the primaries. Yes, clearly he would have outperformed Clinton by a mile and handily obliterated Trump, due to the fact that he had so much energy and enthusiasm behind his campaign, wasn’t embroiled in scandal on top of scandal and under multiple FBI investigations, spoke to the zeitgeist of the times and would have been able to use the same “I’m not Trump” campaign tactic Hillary used. And yes, the enthusiasm he brought to the campaign probably would have enabled the Democrats to take the Senate and maybe even the House as well.

But what would have happened after that? The fact is, the public never would have found out how appallingly corrupt the Democratic party and the media are. The emails showing DNC staff conspiring with the Clinton campaign and media outlets to sabotage Bernie’s campaign may never have even been given to WikiLeaks by concerned insiders, and even if they had been the sting wouldn’t have been there. The media already did a horrible job covering the DNC leaks as it was; without any outraged Berners it would’ve gotten next to none. We never would have learned how unfathomably corrupt an establishment Democrat is by reading Hillary’s Wall Street speeches about having a “public position and a private position” and mocking progressives as naive basement dwellers. We never would have learned about the pay-to-play schemes, the bribes from Qatar and Morocco, the fact that her campaign was aware that she was being supported by governments that fund ISIS, or the fact that Obama’s lead cabinet positions were essentially appointed by an executive from Citigroup.

All those massive tentacles of corruption would have remained in the darkness, unseen, unexamined and unopposed, and everyone involved in it would have retained powerful political positions. The progressives would have been placated by getting their guy into office, but Bernie would have had to fight tooth and claw to push highly watered-down versions of his plan through a profoundly corrupt Congress beholden to corporatist interests, and nobody in the general public would have paid much attention. There would be no outrage at the inertia members of the Democratic party were throwing on their goals, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’d likely have been lulled into some complacency trusting Bernie to handle that all. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have been alone.

What do we have now? Outrage. White hot outrage. If you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship before, you’ve likely discovered that pure unadulterated anger is one of the best ways to unhook yourself from your abuser’s manipulations, and the rage progressives are feeling toward their corrupt abusers in the Democratic party will be exactly what we need to purge everything that’s sick about the party that depends on its progressive base to win elections.

Did you notice how the arguments of Hillary supporters got lengthier and lengthier and more and more desperate as the election drew near? It started with them trying to sell the simple idea that their candidate was very similar to Bernie, and by the end there were paragraphs upon paragraphs of text trying to explain why a Hillary presidency might not be quite as horrific as we think and babbling about a super secret global Trump-Putin-WikiLeaks-FBI conspiracy. They were able to con over a bunch of progressives using that schtick, but not quite enough, and their desperation really showed toward the end.

And it never worked on Trump supporters. Progressives would often get suckered in by the lengthy explanations and guilt-based manipulations, but Trump supporters weren’t susceptible to that stuff because they already had the rage. They just bulldozed right over the heady arguments cooked up by establishment political manipulators because they were already quite clear that those people are the enemy.

And now, my fellow progressives, so are we. We know who the enemy is. We know how it moves, where it lives, what makes it tick. We know how the corporate media is used to manipulate us into backing evil candidates who want to betray us for the ruling elites, and we’ll never buy into their lies again. We saw so much this election season, and our anger is only beginning to swell. Once the Hillary voters protesting in the streets clear the cobwebs and realize who their anger should really be directed at, we’ll be a united, unstoppable force.

In 2008, Barack Obama won the presidential primaries largely because he had been a consistently vocal critic of the Iraq invasion, while his opponent Hillary Clinton had supported it. The invasion, which initially enjoyed widespread public support, had become by that time such a widely-reviled military blunder by most Democrats that those who had opposed it were elevated above those who supported it. History has vindicated those who opposed that decision and incriminated those who supported it. To this day a politician’s position on the 2003 invasion is often used as a weapon against their campaign.

The 2016 election cycle will be an even clearer delineation between who the real heroes are, and who needs to be thrown out. The Democratic establishment’s catastrophic decision to back a losing horse will live on forever in the minds of progressives all across the nation, and we will remember who was and was not on the right side of history. The DNC will be purged, the corruption will be expunged, and those who undermined or ignored Bernie Sanders will be replaced by those who we all now know had clear vision.

We are now clear-eyed, we are awake, and we are outraged. And we know right where the enemy is. We will rid ourselves of all corrupt, corporatist inertia that would try to ensnare our revolution, and at our newly-unhindered pace we will take over the U.S. government, branch by branch. Trump should not get too comfortable.

[Featured Image by John Minchillo/AP Images]

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