Bernie's Critics [View all]

But politics is always contextual, and this is the United States, not Europe or Latin America. It is a country with a deep history of anticommunism, of little memory of an organized left politics, of a sustained, unremitting, three-decade-long attack on the working class. And the fact is that today, after decades of retreat by the Left, Sanders’s campaign has resonated with working people all over the country — not in spite of his embrace of the word “socialism,” but because of it. Ponder that for a minute.

Whether he wins tonight’s Iowa caucuses, Bernie Sanders has provided an opening that we can’t squander.
by Nivedita Majumdar 2-1-16

The unthinkable is happening. A self-proclaimed socialist is not only forging ahead in the Democratic primaries, but could actually win.

Yet even as his popularity rises, even as he raises issues no candidate has brought into the public arena in decades, Bernie Sanders faces attacks from all quarters of the Left. He’s accused of not having radical enough economic proposals, of being oblivious to race, of diminishing the chances of electing a woman president, of not being electable and potentially paving the way for Republican victory, and of threatening social movements by herding progressives into the Democratic Party.

There is no doubt that aspects of this criticism are deserved. Sanders doesn’t offer anything close to a comprehensive solution for the myriad problems facing the poor and oppressed, and some parts of his political agenda are genuinely backward. But when we place his candidacy in the context of the challenges the Left faces, the orientation of his political rivals, and the incredible enthusiasm he has generated in a climate of general defeat, the attacks on him from the Left become harder to justify ...

More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/bernie-sanders-socialist-democratic-primary-working-class/