https://portside.org/2016-05-06/why-bernieorbust-dead-end

“Short cuts usually end in detours which lead to dead ends.”
Ross Sr., Fred, Axioms for Organizers. Neighbor to Neighbor, 1989.

I could not be more excited about the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. For the first time in my life, there is an explicit and unapologetic conversation at the national level about social-democratic approaches to governance, both in domestic and foreign policy. And, most excitingly, his campaign has proven there is a hunger for this conversation among the base of the Democratic Party and its periphery (independents who tend to vote for Democrats), with polls consistently showing over 40% of Democrats nationwide favoring Sanders, and similar percentages of Democrats being willing to openly identify as “socialist” (even if that term remains underdefined).

And yet it appears there is a growing movement by a small fraction of Bernie’s most passionate supporters to throw all that away. I’m talking about #BernieorBust (a.k.a. BoB), and we progressives need to have a serious conversation about this.

First, a few caveats, because there are different definitions, or perhaps degrees, of #BernieorBust:

1. For some, it means pushing back against calls for Sanders to drop out and endorse Hillary before the convention. That is a form of BoB I can get behind. Frankly, it is arrogant and disrespectful for Clinton supporters to ask Sanders to drop out before all the states have voted, and before the Convention, no matter what the math is. I am proudly #StillSanders.
2. For others, it means supporting Sanders all the way through to the end of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and perhaps even refusing to give Clinton the courtesy of a “nomination by acclamation” if/when it is apparent she has the votes to secure the nomination. Here I start to part ways a little with the #BernieorBust crowd, but not enough to really lose sleep. I support there being an actual contested convention in which both of them campaign for the nomination on the floor, and a roll call vote is held to determine the winner, and in which the much-maligned Super Delegates go on the record as to whom each of them backs. But once there is a nominee (likely her), I would hope that a motion for reconsideration is made so that the Convention has the opportunity to name a nominee by acclamation and signal our unity going into the General Election. However, if that is too much to ask for while the wounds of a vigorous primary battle are still fresh, I would not be surprised and would not make too much of that.
3. The version of #BernieorBust that I want us to focus on, though, is the one in which people declare they will write him in if he’s not on the ballot in November, or they say they will vote for Jill Stein or just not vote. That is the dead end I am talking about.

You will not hear me argue that it is imperative to vote for Hillary in November if she is the nominee, because of how bat-shit crazy any Republican would be who gets the GOP nomination. That is an argument that usually emanates from Clinton supporters (often accompanying by a patronizing lecture on how doing anything else is a sign of one’s own privilege), and I find it not only unpersuasive, but counter-productive. Most Sandernistas are drawn to Bernie’s candidacy out of a desire to vote FOR something, rather than against something. So making what comes across as a “lesser evil” evil argument for Hillary is likely going to fall flat. And, worse, that type of argument reinforces a perception that Hillary and her backers are engaged in a cynical form of politics, focused on triangulation and “Sista Souljah” moments, which the very existence of the Sanders candidacy implicitly repudiates. None of that is to say that I disagree with the twin claims that the GOP is dangerous or that Hillary would be better than any Republican (something that Bernie has repeatedly said as well). I just think that a campaign slogan of “I’m better that the GOP” is pretty weak tea. We should strive to be more than the cream of the crap.

The reason #BernieorBust is, to borrow the axiom coined by Cesar Chavez’s mentor, Fred Ross Sr., a shortcut which takes us on a detour that results in a dead end, is because it risks squandering everything that the Sanders campaign has won in this improbable and historic race. We have fought the neo-liberal technocrats to a near-draw in a political party which, for all intents and purposes, they have controlled for a quarter century. In so doing, we have opened up a YUUUGE space for an authentic social-democratic wing inside the Democratic Party. We have the support of potentially thousands of Democratic elected officials (at least one Senator, many members of Congress, hundreds of state legislators, and countless local elected officials). We have the opportunity to consolidate this social-democratic wing and contend for control of the Democratic Party, most immediately at the local and state levels, but potentially even at the national level. But all that will be for naught if Bernie’s supporters quit the Democratic Party after the Convention. It is impossible to transform the Party from the sidelines.

But what of the argument that the Democratic Party will not allow such a rectification campaign to take place, and that we are fooling ourselves by staying in the Party? To me, this view relies on a mistaken understanding of what the Democratic Party is. The truth is, there is no one monolithic “Party.” The Democratic Party is very diffuse and, as a rule, tends to be organizationally weak. As an organization the Party is made up of various layers, which means there are many mechanisms for grassroots activists to influence the Party, and few mechanisms for the “Party Structure” (whatever that is) to shut down dissent. Let me take a stab at explaining the Party structure in California to illustrate this point.

• The most grassroots layer is made up of local clubs like Young Democrats, Democratic Women’s Clubs, Democrats for Equality/Stonewall Democrats, and geographically based clubs. These clubs serve an important function in recruiting and vetting candidates for local office, marshalling campaign volunteers, and helping to determine Party endorsements in partisan races.
• Another layer is made up of members of the Democratic State Central Committee (which is just the fancy name for delegates to the annual California Democratic Party Convention). These delegates are responsible for adopting the State Party’s platform, electing the State Party leaders, and determining Party endorsements in partisan races. There are roughly 3,000 state party delegates, over 1,000 of which are elected directly by the grassroots of the Party, during the Assembly District Election Meetings (ADEMs) held in January of every odd-numbered year. My first involvement in the Democratic Party, over 20 years ago, consisted of running a progressive slate of candidates which swept the ADEM elections for delegates from what was then the 27th Assembly District, replacing a conservative and compromised faction of the Party in our geographic area.
• There is also the County Central Committees, which are elected by voters during the primary elections every Presidential Election year. The Central Committee is generally seen as THE voice of the Party at the local level, and is responsible for determining Party endorsements in local non-partisan races, as well as coordinating and staffing the United Democratic Campaign office(s) each November.

Of course, the Party is more than just those organizational structures. It is also a brand?—?a “seal of approval” which can be bestowed upon candidates who have the support of the organizational structures. It is also a self-identity and a voting pattern (some people consider themselves Democrats regardless of how they actually vote, some vote a straight Democratic ticket regardless of how they are registered to vote, and some people consider themselves independents but often vote for Democrats). And it is a series of semi-autonomous legislative caucuses or conferences in statehouses and Congress?—?which means that since Sanders has caucused with the Democrats in Congress since he got elected, he is a member of the “Party” in Congress (even if he has up until now chosen to self-identify as an independent). And, finally, the Party is also a series of funders which are not accountable to the Party structures?—?and it is typically this version of the Party which the BoB crowd has in mind when it denounces the “Party” as a whole. Look, I agree that the amount of money in politics is obscene, and I am troubled by the nonchalant response of the Clinton camp to the criticisms of her deep pocket backers. The fact is, a lot of grassroots Democrats active in the Party agree (something that the #BernieorBust folks tend to overlook). But if there is one thing that the Sanders campaign has demonstrated this political season, it is that Democrats need not be beholden to the deep pockets, and that a viable campaign can be run with average donations of $27. So I, for one, will not let the potential opposition of unaccountable party funders dissuade me from fighting for social-democratic policies within the Democratic Party. Seen this way, the cry of #BernieorBust is fundamentally pessimistic and defeatist?—?it assumes that the success of the Sanders campaign can never again be replicated within the Party, and that any efforts in that direction will be crushed by major party funders. Sanders proved that was false at the Presidential campaign level, and there’s no reason to believe it is any more true at the local and statewide levels.

The final argument which I hear from BoB advocates is that if Bernie fails to win the nomination, we should break from the technocratic, neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party and start a new political party on the basis of all the support which Bernie has won. Once again, this completely ignores some of the reasons for Sanders’ success in the Presidential race. Does anybody truly believe that, had Sanders run as an independent, he would have made such a large political impact on this race? By running as a Democrat, Sanders has advanced progressive politics at the national level far more effectively than has Jill Stein, or even Ralph Nader. There is a lesson there. We probably will lose more races than we win by fighting within the Democratic Party, but if we quit the Party and run for office from the outside, we are relegating ourselves to obscurity and are guaranteeing our ineffectiveness. The truth is that the Democratic Party is not going to crumble any time soon (the GOP might, but that’s another story). Sure, a few thousand people that voted for Sanders may walk out and try to create another political groupuscule. But somewhere around 10 million will stay in the Democratic Party. Just to take one example, the labor unions which endorsed Sanders (such as the American Postal Workers Union, the Communication Workers of America, National Nurses United, and various local unions) are not going to walk away from the Sanders coalition to follow the BoB crowd into the wilderness. The only practical effect of people declaring #BernieorBust following through on that threat would be to weaken the political power of the millions of Sanders Democrats who will choose to stay and fight, both by reducing our numbers and by giving the neo-liberal technocrats a rhetorical cudgel with which to discredit us as splitters and not “real” Democrats.

So yes, let’s declare we are #StillSanders, and let’s commit to fight all the way to, and during, the Convention. But let’s go further and commit to continue that fight after the Convention for the political vision which has rallied millions to Bernie’s banner by getting further involved in the Democratic Party rather than quitting in a huff and squandering all the potential we have built up.

Ricardo Ochoa is a union-side labor lawyer and progressive Democratic Party activist in San Diego, California.