Sanders, a socialist, seeks to rescue the U.S. from ‘the billionaire class’

NEW YORK — Could a socialist make his way into the White House? Until very recently, it didn’t occur to anyone to ask that question and the possibility wasn’t even contemplated among the dreams of the U.S. left.

But independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic hopeful who defines himself as a “democratic socialist,” summons what he calls “a political revolution in the United States” to “rescue” this democracy from the “millionaire and billionaire classes,” i.e., the famous wealthiest 1 percent, and put it back in the hands of the people.

He has encountered a popular response that was unforeseen by the political and economic ruling circles and their experts, who at first dismissed his campaign as something marginal. No longer.

Although so far the focus (if not the obsession) of the political class, the expert analysts and the media has been on Donald Trump, the Republican candidate with fascist hues, for maintaining his unexpected  position at the head of his party’s contest, it turns out that Sanders enjoys greater support than Trump.

In the surveys that gauge the level of support in each party, Trump continues to have the highest index of support (an average of 35.3 percent in the main polls analyzed by Real Clear Politics) among Republicans and those who lean toward that party, nationwide.

But although Sanders enjoys an average of 32 percent support among Democrats and progressives, the universe of the Democratic vote is greater than the Republican’s. Therefore, Sanders attracts greater popular sympathy than Trump, both in percentage and absolute numbers, analysts say.

And although the Democratic Party’s queen, Hillary Clinton, maintains a wide lead over Sanders among their party’s voters (an average of 53.3 percent), the dynamics of Sanders’ campaign worry Clinton’s staff.

There are reasons. Sanders has just beat the record of Barack Obama’s campaign, set in 2011, by exceeding the number of Obama’s small campaign contributions (an average of $27) from citizens, with $2.5 million from more than a million supporters.

By so doing, he amassed an extraordinary $33 million in the last three months of 2015, only $4 million less than Clinton’s massive machinery — and she has a much smaller universe of individual contributors, because she depends more on professional fund-raisers and donations from wealthy individuals.

Furthermore, as the first two state elections in the marathon of primaries approach in February — in Iowa and New Hampshire — Sanders continues to enjoy an advantage in New Hampshire and is growing closer to Clinton in Iowa, much to her discomfiture.

Few of the professionals who claim to know about these things dare to bet that Sanders will manage to defeat the favorite in the apex of her party, given the huge political machine she controls, along with the support of most of the country’s top economic circles.

But Clinton’s team still has nightmares about the 2008 presidential campaign against an almost raw politician (a first-term senator) who was relatively unknown, with a talent that many recognized but almost everyone discounted as a possible challenger to the almost predetermined coronation of Clinton as her party’s presidential candidate. His name was Barack Obama.

Sanders has begun to awaken what might be the heretofore sleeping giant that was key in Obama’s triumph: youth. If he manages to awaken it, along with sectors of workers who feel deceived and unprotected in a system where the rich have grown richer while broad majorities have bogged down and millions are in bad shape, this contest could become increasingly hard to predict.

Some experts indicate that, until now, the clearest feeling of the electorate is against the established political cupolas and in favor of the “insurgents.” This feeds the candidacies of both Trump and Sanders, because they are perceived as figures who are not tied to the interests of that permanent political class, i.e., exactly what Clinton or Jeb Bush represent.

Of course, Sanders has indicated that he could attract part of Trump’s supporters, since they are working-class people who have seen their quality of life vanish and whose anger has been channeled by Trump, who uses Mexicans and Muslims as scapegoats for the problems of Americans.

“We can make the case that if we really want to address the issues that people are concerned about […] we need policies that bring us together that take on the greed of Wall Street, the greed of corporate America, and create a middle class that works for all of us rather than an economy that works just for a few,” Sanders said in a recent interview with CBS News.

In fact, as surveys indicate, the figure who dares to declare himself “socialist” is right now surpassing in support the xenophobe who’s practicing far-right populism.

Of course, in the hypothetical confrontations between possible candidates in the November election, Sanders is beating Trump with a wider margin than Clinton (the fact that both of them are beating Trump is a source of relief). In a recent survey, Sanders would beat Trump 51-38 percent in a general election; Clinton’s margin would be only 47-40 percent.

No doubt, Sanders’ chances to reach the White House are somehow remote, but he is a candidate who, in a way, has won even before the election by placing the issues of economic inequality and the concentration of power at the center of the national political debate.

“The greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the very fabric of our nation,” he said in a speech in New York (video at the bottom) this week. “The reality is that fraud is the business model of Wall Street. “It is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule.”

He affirmed that “the reality is that Congress does not regulate Wall Street. Wall Street and its lobbyists regulate Congress. We must change that reality and, as president, I will.”

Sanders’ impact is manifested not only in a growing movement of support nationwide but also in the vocabulary of the great national debate. According to the website of the Merriam-Webster publishing company, the word most searched in 2015 was “socialism.”

(From the Mexican newspaper La Jornada)

https://youtu.be/eL0uV-qJvYM