I think Sanders is a work in progress whose impact could go either way, i.e., towards the center, and thereby to confirm austerity, or toward genuine democratic socialism. It will depend on what the movement he is always pointing up (“not me, us”) does with his encouragement, how it articulates its possibilities independently of his more politic tacking, e.g., by being against imperialism, but only by objecting to the war in Yemen on technical, constitutional grounds; or only vaguely and not yet very reliably finding fault with the military budget or the war economy, or even supporting such monstrosities as drone attacks in the territories of other countries in blatant violation of their sovereignty and human rights. If nothing else (it’s everything else), that’s where the money is; the least timidity with respect to the Pentagon, war propaganda, and the impoverished outlook on the world that they and the media underwrite will lead the aspirations that Sanders has inspired down the drain, reconfirming the adage that the Democratic Party is the graveyard of all social movements. I have my doubts about whether Sanders is really going to go after that money, and the “even spiritual” (Eisenhower) mass psychosis induced in all of us by the military-industrial complex these many decades, unless he is massively pushed to the left by an articulate, anti-war force which is difficult to imagine (though admittedly less difficult recently). I hope these doubts are unfounded.
Meanwhile, because Sanders has the pulpit as a public intellectual and seems bent on rehabilitating the Democratic Party, while not yet sufficiently denouncing war and the dishonesty of the “war on terror” (maybe he’s waiting till he feels more comfortable taking that one on like he can take on health care?), it would be irresponsible to dismiss notions that he’s a “sheepdog” candidate (to quote the late, great Bruce Dixon of the Black Agenda Report), and the baleful prospect which this presents for an international outlook, solidarity, etc.
