Did Bad Bernie Sanders Sell Out?

By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News

17 July 16

 

e’re going to say no to attacks on working families,” said Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire last week with Bernie Sanders by her side. “And no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

Clearly repeating her new-found opposition to TPP, Clinton paid part of the price the grumpy old Democratic Socialist had demanded for endorsing her for president. Will her words keep Donald Trump from looking stronger than she does in opposing the export of American factories and jobs to Asia? Will her promise be enough to keep white working-class voters from flocking to Trump?

As I read the straws in the wind, Bernie’s pressure on Hillary seems likely to have torpedoed Obama’s hope of getting a lame-duck Republican Congress to pass TPP in the days after the November election. But Trump’s opposition to the agreement – and the antipathy to TPP he has stirred up in Republican ranks – probably had even greater impact, especially on GOP lawmakers like House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“Not long ago, approving new trade deals stood as the best chance for a divided Washington to build some kind legislative legacy during President Barack Obama’s last two years,” wrote Politico. “But that was before Trump called TPP a ‘rape’ of the country.”

“Simultaneously, Bernie Sanders offered withering criticism of trade deals, driving Hillary Clinton away from an agreement with Pacific Rim countries she once called the ‘gold standard’ of such agreements,” Politico went on. “That rhetoric has convinced members of Congress that the TPP can’t pass – and it may not even get a vote while Obama is still president.”

Politico’s reporting revealed a conventional media bias toward “free trade.” But what it saw as bad news, progressives should take as extremely promising. The fight is not yet over. The US Chamber of Commerce is still holding out hope. And Hillary can once again change her mind, though at far greater political cost. But, as Politico puts in, the TPP is “on death’s door.”

This could be one of the greatest progressive gains in years, and Bernie Sanders has done far more than almost anyone to bring us this close. Why, then, do so many Marxist fundamentalists, armchair anarchists, and burnt-out Berners planning to vote Green accuse Bernie of selling out?

From the start, he has said that if Hillary won the Democratic Party nomination, he would back her. And he has made clear why he sees Trump as such a threat. Do his left-wing critics deny the threat that Trump poses?

To be fair, Hillary poses enormous threats of her own, whether because of her ties to Wall Street and the multinationals or because of her have-gun, will-travel enthusiasm for taking on the Russians in Syria and intervening militarily from the South China Sea to Libya and Latin American.

Bernie has brilliantly attacked her ties to Big Money. He has sharply called into question her judgment on never-ending regime change. He and his surrogates have courageously condemned her willingness to accept whatever Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu does to the Palestinians.

Where Bernie fell short was on foreign policy. He should have done much more to explain and oppose the imperial foreign policy that she and Obama pursue. Those of us who hope to continue Bernie’s revolution need to make doing that a priority. But make no mistake. Bernie did not sell out. Far from it. His current campaign to bury Trump could be the most significant fight of Bernie’s life – and of ours.

Trump’s positions are notoriously hard to pin down. Against NATO one day, he calls the next for massive intervention, which would have to include NATO forces. But, in my opinion, his erratic behavior and ultra-nationalist hair-trigger make him far more of a nuclear and interventionist threat than Hillary.

In many ways worse, he encourages the most anti-Muslim, anti-woman, racist, nativist, xenophobic, and neo-fascist groups in American society. Many of these people are heavily armed and prone to violence. Some are in police forces around the country. Trump did not create these nasties, but he has brought them into public life, given them increasing legitimacy, and helped them to recruit new members.

He has also brought many white workers into his rat’s nest, especially with his opposition to TTP and other “free trade” agreements. Trump teaches these voters to blame the problems they face on “outsiders,” just as ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists in Europe teach formerly left-wing workers to scapegoat immigrants and Muslims. This is the road to a twenty-first century variant of the fascist 1930s and 1940s.

Bernie stands against this trans-Atlantic threat. Progressives should stand with him.

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A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, Big Money and the Corporate State: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently Break Their Hold.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.