by SARAH JONES

Occupy Wall Street, which long ago ceased occupying Wall Street, has found a new project in Bernie Sanders. Occupy’s networks are now occupying themselves with a presidential campaign, and its millennial minds are put to good use creating Bernie memes. Or at least this is what ‘People for Bernie’ would have us believe. But why have activists from Occupy, a movement that refused to make specific demands, let alone endorse political candidates, thrown themselves behind a Democrat?

In the lefty websites of the USA you’ll find these critiques of Sanders: his ‘democratic socialism’ isn’t anti-capitalist; he is too loyal to the Democrats; despite that he’ll never be elected; and if he was elected even his democratic-socialist-capitalism would have to be significantly diluted. On the last point, even Sanders agrees:

“…no matter who is elected to be President, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing the working families of our country. They will not be able to succeed because the power of corporate America, the power of Wall Street, the power of campaign donors is so great that no President alone can stand up to them. That is the truth. People may be uncomfortable about hearing it, but that is the reality.”

But he goes on:

“And that is why what this campaign is about is saying loudly and clearly: it is not just about electing Bernie Sanders for President, it is about creating a grassroots political movement in this country”.[i]

It is this argument that seems to have convinced large numbers of the American far left to support his campaign. To give a few examples, Jason Shulman, an editor of New Politics, writes that Sanders’ campaign “has led to a national discussion about the nature of socialism”, which he sees as “the best opportunity to build a much larger socialist movement”[ii]. Michael Hardt argues that Sanders is both “symptom and instrument” of the “post-Occupy atmosphere”, “[opening] up the possibility of […] an political alternative.”[iii] And Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara describes the campaign as “a baby step in the right direction”, arguing: “it could be a way for socialists to regroup, organize together, and articulate the kind of politics that speaks to the needs and aspirations of the vast majority of people. And it could begin to legitimate the word ‘socialist,’ and spark a conversation around it, even if Sanders’s welfare-state socialism doesn’t go far enough.” [iv]

Sanders seems to understand socialism as an odd mix of the New Deal, taxes on Wall Street, Pope Francis, single payer healthcare and Denmark (which has recently made international headlines by confiscating all refugees’ valuables…). But our far left commentators – many of whom also describe themselves as socialists - apparently think that even if the word has been seriously diluted in Sanders’ hands – or maybe precisely because it has? – he has done a good job of re-legitimising it. After all 49% of Democrats now have a “favourable opinion of socialism” [v]. Presumably the argument goes that having said they like socialism they will look it up in the dictionary and realise that Sanders has misunderstood it, which will start a big conversation in which they decide the logical thing to do is to drop Sanders and build a mass movement to destroy capitalism. It’s a good story. But hasn’t history shown us that ‘progressive’ politicians follow struggles and not vice versa?

Many activists who were involved in Occupy Wall Street and now organise People for Bernie claim that Sanders is indeed following rather than leading the change  - he is simply continuing a conversation opened up by them. As one such activist told the Guardian:

“Sanders’ rise in this election season is inconceivable without Occupy Wall Street having elevated the conversation around inequality and the way that the 1% are ravaging this country. You just can’t imagine one without the other.” [vi]

So Sanders’ success can’t be imagined without Occupy’s vast networks of unhappy young people, but neither, it seems, can Occupy Wall Street any longer be imagined without the Senator. If he is indeed a symptom of the ‘post-Occupy’ atmosphere, perhaps we should be putting the emphasis on ‘post’.

Across the USA, Occupy opened up physical spaces in which real conversations could be had, which did not produce platforms or demands, but a continual open-ended debate on how to attack the system, and, in the best cases, practical attempts to do so. However, the discourse of the 99% and the focus on banking and finance failed to recognise either the conflicts within the majority or the relational nature of exploitation. This limited Occupy’s ability to engage with the contradictions between different struggles and to extend the protests beyond the symbolic public spaces of the occupations. And so when the police seized back the squares, what was left but the discourse of the 99% and a lot of redundant activists with social media skills?

Both were a gift to an older generation of lefties trying to conjure up majorities from diverse groups of disaffected people. Politically homeless and fragmented, the ex-occupiers were vulnerable to promises of miracle solutions. So when Bernie Sanders rolls up and offers them a lift with a friendly: “Come inside little children, and we’ll vote capitalism nice again – or at least more like it was when I was little,” the more desperate answer: “Oh OK, socialism was kind of what we meant by the 99% anyway”.

But Sanders enthusiasts should learn from Jeremy Corbyn’s post-campaign hangover. He too reenergised temporarily redundant activists into packed town halls, promising them a ‘new kind of politics’. Far from leading to a multiplication of grassroots struggles, the euphoria has produced a slick looking outfit called ‘Momentum’, which aims to “strengthen the Labour party” and reach out to the “99% of people who are not currently in any political party, spread Labour values and increase Labour party membership.”[vii] And so Momentum suitably understands itself as the “1%” trying to bring “the 99%” into its fold! This isn’t so much an opening up of conversation and debate, as a steering of all debate towards the party.

Back in the USA, an ex-Occupy turned Sanders activist told the Guardian: “When we were in Occupy there was a lot of time arguing over should we vote or not. Now, that debate’s over.”[viii] Does this new faith in voting signal the beginning of a new kind of politics, or the reassertion of an old kind of politics? If Sanders is both symptom and instrument of the post-Occupy atmosphere, is he the symptom of Occupy’s success or of its defeat, is he an instrument of the radical left, or of the Democratic Party?

Unlike Occupy, struggles against police murders of black people are still very much alive across the USA. In August last year, two Black Lives Matter activists stormed Sanders’ speech in Seattle. Describing his supporters as a ‘bunch of screaming white faces’ (to which some of these faces respond: ‘Get off!’ and ‘How dare she call me a racist!’), they demanded four and a half minutes silence in honour of Michael Brown, killed by the police. They managed, at least, to silence Sanders, who cancelled his speech. It is clear from the activists’ statement that they were not there to have conversations about socialism: 

“…we honor Black lives lost by doing the unthinkable, the unapologetic, and the unrespectable. Out of radical love for our Black brothers and sisters, we put our lives and our bodies on the line to testify to their persecution and resilience…There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost. We will ensure this by any means necessary.”[ix]

Their refusal of ‘business as usual’ is a problem for the Democrats. Indeed, when some Black Lives Matters activists did attempt a polite engagement with Hillary Clinton, she pleaded with them to enter into a more sustained conversation with the establishment: 

“In politics, if you can’t explain it and you can’t sell it, it stays on the shelf […] You’re going to have to come together as a movement and say, ‘Here’s what we want done about it’ […] All I’m suggesting is, even for us sinners, find some common ground on agendas that can make a difference right here and now in people’s lives”. [x]

Of course, her fear is not that these issues will stay on the shelf, but that they will keep flying off the shelf and hitting her in the face.

But maybe Sanders could help her out. Citing the campaigns against police violence as an example, Michael Hardt argues that Sanders “functions like a sponge […] Basically his campaign is able to coalesce social forces, even when they express themselves in antagonism to his candidacy.”[xi] Sanders has indeed learnt from these incidents (sensible, too, when black votes matter), and now makes regular references to mass incarceration and police violence. He has gained the support of Erica Garner, whose father was murdered by the police, and who now features in a slick campaign video in which protestors chanting “We can’t breathe!” are overlaid with Sanders’ speeches and rousing music. This video implies the movement has common ground with the Democrats and assures us that Bernie is “a protestor” too.[xii] But should this excite us? Does Sanders’ sponginess lay the basis for a new kind of anti-capitalist politics? Or is it being used to clean unapologetic anger into polite votes, turning unrespectable struggles into dead end agendas, so that they can be put neatly back on the shelf?

In the last ten years, protests have been multiplying across the USA, not just in the struggles against police violence, but in strikes by oil workers, fast food workers and care workers, mass protests by migrants against immigration reform, occupations of buildings by teachers and students, hunger strikes in prisons, demonstrations against water contamination in Flint, struggles against evictions across the country… etc. etc. etc. By putting too much faith in politicians and their apparently unifying rhetoric, the far left risks ignoring the complexities and conflicts of these real struggles, and the real challenges involved in sustaining and relating them. If another kind of politics becomes possible, it won’t be because some politician said he was a socialist, but through practical action that engages with our internal contradictions and conflicts, forging real links between and through our different struggles. This is long and messy work. Not a job for Senator Sanders and his sponge.