Playtime's Almost Over: What's the Plan if Bernie Gets Cheated Out of the Democratic Nomination?

Playtime is just about over. Bernie Sanders’s campaign is not long for this world, I imagine. 

Whether we’re talking manipulative debate scheduling, bogus corporate media coverage, suspicious coin tosses, or straight-up fraud, one thing should be entirely clear: the US establishment is fed up with Bernie Sanders, and his campaign will be stopped. 

The corporate system's maneuvers are becoming increasingly grave for Sanders and his supporters. The most recent example—a flagrant delegate short-changing in New Hampshire—has set a grim stage for the coming primaries. The openly counter-democratic Superdelegate system is effectively a loophole for raw election jockeying on the part of the DNC—and it’s perfectly legal, according to the fine print of our political system. 

Pay attention. 

You’re about to get a real-time master class in Election Rigging and Phony Democracy as the electoral process advances.

So, what next? 

Resignation? 

Despair? 

No. 

First of all, if you’re passionate about Bernie’s campaign, what he stands for, definitely go out and vote for him. Securing popular vote victories for Sanders would be an excellent start point for what follows.

Next, as some have already done, let’s note that the growing movement behind Sanders’s campaign is, in some ways, a coalescence of various people’s movements that preceded it: Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the US immigrant rights movement, the Fight for $15, and the Baltimore Uprising, among others. Comparatively watered-down as it may be, Sanders’s bid for the Presidency owes its existence, in part, to some of recent history’s most potent social movements. As his campaign is gradually erased by the political establishment, we’ll need to tap back into those roots.

Why?

Because after it’s over—after Sanders is boxed out of the Democratic nomination by our corrupt and money-flush system of corporate rule—it won’t be Sanders leading the charge for redress. That responsibility is going to fall on your shoulders. On our shoulders. Bernie Sanders is, after all, a US Senator. He is a part of the system he seeks to change. This will limit his ability to meaningfully challenge the state once the shit really hits the electoral fan.

So, what is the contingency strategy? What is Plan B?

This is a conversation we need to start having right now, before we’re caught off guard by the very likely outcome of a crushing, fraud-induced end to the Sanders campaign.

Beyond that, I have no clear answers to offer. I do, however, think we should all be closely reviewing the successes and failures of social movements old and new. Now is a good time to study the Black Panther Party (Beyoncé’s got the right idea), the Baltimore Uprising, the US Anti-War Movement, Occupy Wall Street, whatever—any and all people’s movements that have operated with at least some degree of success outside the realm of rigged official channels. Go international even. Read up on the Zapatistas, the Arab Spring, African anti-colonial movements. Check out the works of thinkers like Frantz Fanon, Arundhati Roy, Peter Gelderloos, Francis Fox Piven, John Holloway, David Graeber, and others who’ve dedicated their lives to studying collective action for the ends of real democracy and social justice.

Now is the time.

And whatever we do, let’s refuse to allow our corrupt political system to silence our voices—to kill our aspirations and rob us of our futures. Let's be firm when we say that the end of the Bernie Sanders's campaign will not be the end of our outrage and our desire for real, meaningful change. The stakes couldn’t be any higher. 

I don’t need to tell you that we can’t endure even another four years of social and economic decline under malignant corporate rule. We can’t any longer endure our system of vicious racial apartheid. We can’t endure more poisoned drinking water and the continued use of our tax dollars for mass murder abroad. We just can’t. The moment to draw the line is right now, with or without Bernie Sanders. We're closer to stopping this madness than we've been in a long, long time. Let's see it through.

And remember, the system isn’t actually scared of Bernie Sanders. The people in charge, those who make up the corporate-political establishment, they know they’ll ultimately suppress Bernie. They know they’ll soon derail his campaign for the presidency. They’re not scared of Bernie Sanders, but they are scared of you, the mass movement of angry, righteous people behind his campaign. They're scared of what you might do if you dare to take seriously your commitments to social justice, to authentic democracy, and to building a better world.

Keep that in mind.

Andrew Stefan is a journalist in Washington, DC. He can be reached via email at andrewlstefan@gmail.com.