Book Review: Our Revolution

By Bernie Sanders

Before the Democratic primary for the 2016 presidential election had even begun, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was widely considered to be the anointed nominee of the party. Secretary Clinton had laboriously amassed a formidable political machine and went on to receive the endorsements of almost every democratic lawmaker of note. Taking on the most powerful political machine in the country was probably a frightening prospect for many, but not for Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats.  On April 30^th 2015, he announced he was running for president, standing behind a wobbly podium hastily erected on the lawn in front of the capitol. “Let me just make a brief comment, be happy to take a few questions, we don’t have an endless amount of time, I’ve gotta get back” He declared matter-of-factly to the assembled press, jerking his thumb towards the capitol before launching into a brief description of the policies his campaign would be supporting. Late-night talk show comedians later joked that Sanders distaste of conventional politics was so great he didn’t even take the time to comb his hair before launching the campaign, but what he lacked in polish he more than made up for with a detailed policy prescription for fixing the country’s problems.    

In Our Revolution, Sanders tells the tale of how his run for president, dismissed as a “fringe campaign” by pundits in Washington, won eighteen million votes as well as eighteen states before being narrowly defeated by Secretary Clinton. The latter half of the book briefly touches upon the wrangling ahead of the convention that resulted in a reasonably progressive Democratic Party platform, before Sanders lays out his policy agenda in detail with the help of charts and graphs.

For those interested in a detailed account of the history of the Democratic Party, I would recommend reading Thomas Frank’s excellent Listen, Liberal, previously reviewed on this blog. In order to understand the magnitude of Bernie Sander’s success on the campaign trail, one needs to be aware of the rightwards shift of the democratic party for the last forty years or so. Far from being an extreme left-winger, Bernie Sanders political views largely reflects what mainstream democrats used to stand for before the Bill Clinton era of triangulation and neoliberalism. Popular policy positions supported by Bernie Sanders, like expanding Medicare and Social Security, making public colleges tuition-free and switching to a single payer healthcare system as well as strong support for organized labor used to be mainstream positions inside the Democratic Party before the age of Bill Clinton. Bernie Sanders, dismissed as a leftie without a comb by many conservative democrats, was unfashionable enough to stand up for what he believed in and lean against the wind during a time when many democrats abandoned the party’s principles as laid down by Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. As in fashion as in politics, it turned out, as growing unrest and inequality meant that his message came to resonate with a great many voters, including independents and republicans, during the 2016 election.  

Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign harnessed the potential of social media and the online community to solicit donations and turn out voters. During the 2016 election cycle, the Sanders campaign was largely ignored by the press, and was forced to go online in order to gain traction and get their message out. The mainstream media didn’t spend that much time talking about policy substance, instead they choose the focus on the horse-race aspect of the campaign and the contentious republican field. When Bernie Sander’s campaign managed to amass an incredible war chest, financed entirely by small donations by ordinary people instead of billionaires and large corporations, the media was grudgingly forced to cover the campaign.

It is painful to think back on how poorly and unfairly the Sanders Campaign was treated by the media. In Our Revolution, Sanders recalls sitting sown for an hour-long interview with a major newspaper and laying out his policy in great detail, before being asked to comment on something Secretary Clinton had said. The next day that was the headline and all talk of policy substance was forgotten. This was often the case when Sanders appeared on television, he often had to answer questions about the statements of Hillary Clinton and other candidates and was seldom asked about policy or anything even remotely concerned with the lives of ordinary Americans.

Having followed the Sanders campaign with great interest, I’m already familiar with the policy positions he lays out in Our Revolution, most of them are well thought out and reasonable. I would, however, object to his insistence on a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage. The cost of living varies greatly depending on in which state of the country you live. Surely it would be better to calculate what is a living wage in each state and then index that sum to inflation? In rural Montana, for example, a living wage might be ten dollars an hour, among the glittering skyscrapers of New York it might be twenty-five. His support for a single payer Medicare-for-all healthcare system is especially relevant today. As I write this review, republican congressmen and senators have had to face hostile crowds at several town halls, their constituents worried about what’s going to happen with their healthcare now that the GOP has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act without specifying what it will be replaced with.

Reading Our Revolution brings back all the excitement of the 2016 Presidential Campaign. It’s undeniably sad when you look at Bernie’s spirited campaign and think about what might have been, but ultimately Bernie Sanders has managed to awaken a great many young people from the millennial generation who were previously unengaged with the political process, and turn them into citizens taking an active part in their democracy. It’s hard for a presidential campaign to get higher praise then that. Elections come and go, but democracy requires constant participation at the state and local level.