I sympathize with your position here, but I would add that some observable benefit has been had in his orbit. Using myself as an example, some of the grassroots energy and political education that came from people who supported his campaign, or who saw some kind of value in it even if they thought it was a lost cause, helped lead me to the views I have now. We shouldn’t underestimate the value of seizing upon working class movements to educate, provided it’s not faux working class reactionary stuff. And in saying this, we don’t have to give Bernie himself credit for it, of course. My point is just that we shouldn’t let the disgust with the situation deprive us of leveraging opportunities to fight against the indoctrination. This next election may contain such opportunities too, where we’ll encounter people who stubbornly want to do “fix it from within,” but may be easier to get through to when combining the knowledge we can present with certain campaign messaging that is getting them to think about things they’d otherwise have ignored.
I sympathize with your position here, but I would add that some observable benefit has been had in his orbit. Using myself as an example, some of the grassroots energy and political education that came from people who supported his campaign, or who saw some kind of value in it even if they thought it was a lost cause, helped lead me to the views I have now. We shouldn’t underestimate the value of seizing upon working class movements to educate, provided it’s not faux working class reactionary stuff. And in saying this, we don’t have to give Bernie himself credit for it, of course. My point is just that we shouldn’t let the disgust with the situation deprive us of leveraging opportunities to fight against the indoctrination. This next election may contain such opportunities too, where we’ll encounter people who stubbornly want to do “fix it from within,” but may be easier to get through to when combining the knowledge we can present with certain campaign messaging that is getting them to think about things they’d otherwise have ignored.