Most Often, Those Who Call for "Revolution" Do Not Actually Wish to Participate in One

[MineralMan]

One of the offshoots of the Sanders campaign in the previous presidential election was an organization called "Our Revolution." A strong word "Revolution" is. However, the "Revolution" named in the title of that organization is considerably different from the American Revolution that set this nation in motion. That organization promotes a revolution of words more than anything else.

It supported "revolutionary" candidates in some House of Representative elections. Most of those candidates did not succeed. Voters are not generally interested in "revolutions," and prefer a slower pathway to change.

Really, few "revolutions" that are called for ever actually occur. When one does occur, it often does produce change, but at the cost of countless lives lost during the inevitable fighting that a real revolution requires. The French and Russian Revolutions are exemplary of that.

What is surprising, though, is that those who initially called for those successful revolutions generally survived all the battles. That is because most calls for revolution are really calls for "Let's You and Him Fight," with those calling for the battle not actually participating in it at a truly dangerous level.

Generally, those who die in real revolutions are people who really wanted nothing to do with any sort of revolution. They wanted to go on living their lives, raising their families, and trying to better their existence. Once the revolution ends, the survivors pick up the pieces and continue on with living their lives and doing those other things. They just do them under a different form of rule.

People, in general, do not wish for revolution, which is why election campaigns by people who call for revolution rarely are successful. If there is a reason for Bernie Sanders' poorer performance in 2020 than in 2016, it is probably due to that cause. The majority of people are rarely enamored of the idea of a revolution. If allowed to vote, they will not choose to vote for a revolution, at least not in sufficient numbers to form a majority.

"Let's You and Him Fight" is a very poor campaign slogan, it seems to me. "Let's Work Together Toward Our Goals" is a better slogan, overall.

[The Magistrate]

1. Quite True, Sir

"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[MineralMan]

2. I was disappointed, Sir, to see a related post in this forum disappear.

[The Magistrate]

6. I Have Gone Through Motions Of Appeal, Sir

But doubt that will matter.

The material presented was what would be read in any textbook discussion of the history of left politics over the last century and a half. People it may have made uncomfortable need to examine their views and actions.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[MineralMan]

7. I Hope for a Successful Outcome.

Sometimes, calling things by their right names will be ill-received.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Bernie's "revolution" is the fever dream of privileged young people,

mostly men and mostly white, and, like so many movements that can exist only in theory, it relies on the absolute certainty of its proponents that they, and only they, are correct. There can be no other way to repair the failures of society than their way. No compromise is permitted; any compromise is incontrovertible evidence that the alleged compromiser has sold out to The Establishment. And The Establishment is anyone other than the revolutionaries themselves. This position has not changed since the '60s, when the Socialist Workers' Party recruited small groups of privileged white boys on college campuses who mostly engaged in pleasuring themselves, ideologically speaking, with Trotskyist slogans. Women were allowed to participate, too, by making coffee and running the mimeograph machine - as long as they stayed quiet and allowed groping. Most of these proto-bros grew up and figured out the bullshit, but Bernie just soldiered on for the ensuing forty years, banging his New Left drum and naming post offices in Vermont. At last a new crop of idealistic, rigid, bubble-dwelling young ideologues has made him their cult leader, and neither can give up the other even though The Revolution still isn't going anywhere.

[MineralMan]

5. Indeed. It also ignores the fact that people can and do vote

in this country. Most often, they will not willingly vote for such disruptive things.

[TwilightZone]

4. They want the benefit without the effort.

Creating a viable coalition takes a huge amount of time, effort, and resources, and Bernie's "revolution", for the most part, wants to skip most of that. They don't want to build a structure that can produce enough viable local, state, and national candidates to actually accomplish anything. They seemingly want to just toss random candidates at a few races and hope for the best, then complain when it doesn't work out like they want it to.

Meanwhile, they alienate people who would otherwise be their allies, making it even more of a challenge.

They also seem to believe that donations and crowd sizes will equate to electoral success, while there's little evidence of that.

[MineralMan]

8. A coalition must be made up of people who share an idea,

and it must be large enough to create a majority in any democratic society. That's a very difficult and tedious pull.

[TwilightZone]

9. Agreed.

It also requires effective messaging and effective messengers. I have often noted that Sanders' campaign undermines his cause as much if not more so than anyone else. The antagonistic attitude is clearly an intentional strategy, but it makes one question if winning was ever a tangible goal or even the intent.

[MineralMan]

10. Senator Sanders has to use that sort of appeal to maintain the

support of would-be "revolutionaries." In doing so, he fails to appeal to the majority. It is not a winning strategy.

And now, with a global pandemic going on here, too, there is even less appeal in revolutionary ideas. People already have more than enough to worry about. The Sanders campaign has less appeal now that it did before, so it is truly doomed.

[KitSileya]

11. Those who call for revolutions are no better than those who wanted to sacrifice granny for stocks

The people who die in revolutions are the marginalized, the women, children, people with disabilities, the abjectly poor. The 'Our Revolution' types have no problems with that - breaking a few eggs to make the omelet, as it were. It is the same mindset as those who want to stop social distancing and get people back to work because they are worried about their stocks.

The great irony? The greatest irony? No welfare state was ever founded on a revolution. I live in one of those countries so touted by these types - Norway. Norway's welfare state was founded, not on armed uprisings or the killing of the 1%, it was founded on trust. The trust the citizens had to each other - that they believed, and believe, that other citizens wouldn't cheat the system. The trust that the citizens had to the system - that it is as fair as we can make it. And most importantly, it is founded on the trust the citizens have to the government. The trust that the politicians, regardless of party label, are all working for the good of society - that while we disagree on the methods, the goal is the same.

Now, apply that to the two major parties of the US. Apply that to the Our Revolution types who hate Democrats more than they hate Trump. Apply that to Senator Sanders, who champions this cause, yet refuses to acknowledge that racism has fundamentally broken American society, and until that is fixed, no welfare program will be possible, because the majority of white Americans would rather go without than let African Americans have acrumble.

[MineralMan]

12. Thank you for adding your cogent thoughts to the thread!

[la-trucker]

13. Yeah ... armchair revolutionaries

who say, "You guys go ahead, I'll be there as soon as you start"

[treestar]

14. Also they happen in response to tyrants

Whatever you want to say about "The Establishment," we do not have a Tsar or a Louis XIV who is the state or the law. We still have elections. A dictator can create a lot of real pain that people might be willing to risk their lives to eradicate. The U.S. present-day doesn't have this feature. The billionaires need us to pay for what they make or they can't be billionaires, and they are diffuse.

[msongs]

15. usually the first wave of revolutionaires end up offed by the second wave nt

[Hekate]

16. For my 60,000th post I was hoping to say something profound (as one does), but...

...I am all out of profound.

Instead I will simply say that there are probably a roomful (ie more than just a handful) of DUers I don't mind riding out this monumental catastrophe with, and several showed up in this very thread.

So thank you all.

[The Magistrate]

17. It Owes To a Common Misreading Of Human Nature, Sir

Working people, and people on the lower rungs of the economic scale generally, the sort of people who have not much but do have a little, these are extremely reluctant to put the little they have at risk, and they know that in the turmoil and tumult of revolutionary change that little will be at risk. They doubt the game will be worth the candle, that any benefit revolution might bring will outweigh the risk to what they do possess already. People value stability, the likelihood tomorrow will be pretty much the same as today, even if today is a pretty shabby deal. The pitch of desperation required to overcome these natural tendencies towards stability is a terrifying thing to be near, let alone to be caught up in.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[LostOne4Ever]

18. Bernie Sanders never met a literal revolution

Rather a metaphoric one.

Kinda like Thomas Jefferson's Revolution of 1800. Not all revolutions require people to kill or die. Sometimes they are meant as an allusion to a major change to how things are done.

But if we are gonna be Pendantic, calling things revolutionary is a reference to Copernicus and his research and theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. If we are going to discuss the problems with "revolutions" then you should also add that nothing Bernie is suggesting involves Astronomy.

[MineralMan]

19. How would one meet a revolution?

I suppose one could meet a revolutionary, but a revolution?

[LostOne4Ever]

20. Good catch

You got me there!



Should have been "meant."