“Our Revolution” brims with
the same righteous indignation and relentless optimism that drew bigger and
bigger crowds to his rallies.
Bernie Sanders’ segue from
presidential candidate to barnstorming author was seamless. In between the
Democratic National Convention in July and hitting the stump this fall to boost
Hillary Clinton’s stock in battleground states, Sanders cranked out a 450-page
book, which hit bookstores November 15. The author was not far behind, with
sold-out appearances from Boston to San Francisco.
Often, quickie books from
trade publishers hoping to capitalize on an author’s newly-achieved celebrity
are nothing more than ghost-written schlock. Campaign memoirs—like the
authorized biographies or ghosted autobiographies of presidential
hopefuls—aren’t often memorable either, even when they display some evidence of
real candidate involvement or reflection. But like Sanders’ 2016 campaign, his
book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, greatly exceeds expectations.
In the first third of the
book, we get an insider account of his plunge into presidential politics when
few in the corporate media, the Democratic Party or the AFL-CIO
took his democratic socialist “fringe” candidacy seriously. Sanders also
recounts his early life in Brooklyn, his activism at the University of Chicago
during the 1960s and his four-decade career in Vermont public life.
The author’s description of
the grassroots struggle to transform municipal government during his eight
years as Burlington mayor is particularly instructive for progressives thinking
about running for local office. As Sanders proudly writes, the electoral
coalition “formed in 1982, became the foundation for progressive third party
politics in Vermont. Not only has it continued in Burlington to this day,
electing two progressive mayors after me, it has spread statewide.”
With representation in both
houses of the Vermont legislature, the Vermont
Progressive Party (VPP) has, according to Sanders, become “one of the most
successful and long-standing third parties in America.” Its singular status was
further confirmed on November 8, when Sanders-backed David Zuckerman, a VPP state senator
and working-class oriented organic farmer, got elected lieutenant
governor—marking the first time a progressive, other than Sanders, has
succeeded in a Vermont-wide race.
A post-campaign agenda
In the remaining two-thirds of
Our Revolution, Sanders outlines his agenda for the country and talks about
what it will take to achieve it. His substantive proposals will be familiar to
the millions of people who voted for him, and include recommendations on
everything from health care, criminal justice reform, trade, Wall Street
regulation, bank restructuring and free public higher education to combatting
climate change, creating clean energy jobs, overhauling “our broken immigration
system” and getting big money out of politics.
Not surprisingly—for someone
from a state with large rural areas and relatively few homicides—Sanders’
agenda does not emphasize gun control, although he does confess to having
mishandled that issue on the national debate stage.
In a well-documented chapter
called “Corporate Media and the Threat to Our Democracy,” Sanders updates his
long-time critique of the handful of multinational corporations that own a lot
of the media and have an outsized influence on what people see and hear.
Sanders himself was, of course, a case study in hostile or non-existent
coverage by major newspapers and TV networks for much of his campaign.
Both as a campaign history and
progressive policy guide, Our Revolution brims with the same righteous
indignation and relentless optimism that drew bigger and bigger crowds to
Sanders’ rallies. It concludes with the author’s oft-repeated call for
follow-up activity now at the local level:
“Run for the school board,
city council, state legislature. Run for governor. Run for Congress. Run for
the Senate. Run for president. Hold your elected officials accountable. Know
what they’re doing and how they’re voting and tell your neighbors.”
Going local with “Our
Revolution”
Sanders’ encouragement and
support for like-minded candidates began during his own “testing the waters”
tour of the country, as a not-yet-declared contender for the White House. He
was invited to Richmond, California, in 2014 by Green mayor Gayle McLaughlin
and other progressive city council candidates facing an avalanche of corporate
spending against them by Chevron, the largest employer in town.
Sanders writes that his town
hall meeting “turned out to be one of the largest and loudest audiences that I
had spoken to since I began traveling around the country.” In Richmond, four
candidates he backed two years ago won their elections, as did two more members
of the Richmond
Progressive Alliance this fall. This time, they were endorsed by Our Revolution, the post-campaign
organization created by former campaign staff and Sanders volunteers. Richmond’s
top vote getter was 26-year-old Melvin Willis, an African-American Bernie fan,
rent control advocate and local organizer for the Alliance of Californians for
Community Empowerment. Elsewhere in Northern California, Our
Revolution-assisted candidates won mayoral races in Berkeley and Stockton.
Nationwide, Our Revolution
endorsed 106 local, state, and federal candidates and 34 ballot initiatives.
Fifty-eight of those candidates were successful; twenty-three of the ballot
measures succeeded, including several dealing with campaign finance reform.
Among those backed by Our Revolution was Mike
Connolly, a lawyer and community activist in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Like Zuckerman in Vermont,
Connolly competed in the Democratic primary to clear the field. He narrowly
defeated a 12-term Democratic incumbent backed by most Bay State unions and
nearly all his Beacon Hill colleagues. On November 8, Connolly won the seat,
running unopposed in the general election. Three other Our Revolution-backed
legislative candidates in Massachusetts, all incumbents, also won their primary
battles and/or general election campaigns as well. They were state
Sens. Pat Jehlen and Jamie Eldridge and state Rep. Mary Keefe.
Connolly is now working with
Our Revolution supporters to build a new state structure that better links
issue-oriented campaigns with electoral politics.
“We need to push the
Democratic Party to once again be the party of the people,” he says. “We need
to turn politics around so that it is movement-centered and driven by the
grassroots.”
At a Boston book tour stop in
late November, Sanders stressed similar goals in his talk to an estimated 1,000
people. Bernie's mostly young fans paid $33 to attend and got a copy of Our
Revolution. The author was in fine form, sharing clear, concise, and
useful insights into the lessons of his campaign and the challenges under
President-elect Donald Trump. During the question period, a young Latina woman
who was thinking of running for office herself, asked for Sanders' advice.
“It’s not good enough for
someone to say: ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” he told her. “No, that’s not good
enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to
the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.”
The crowd chanted “Bernie,
Bernie” but the future clearly belonged to Sanders-inspired candidates of the
sort he described, following in his footsteps and getting involved in politics
at the local, state and national levels.
