The Bernie Effect — A Third Party Perspective

by Callum W.

The world is going through a radical transformation. The rise of far right candidates across the world; La Pen’s National Front in France, Jobbik in Hungary, The Swedish Democrats, Golden Dawn in Greece or even Trump in the USA. These far right ideologies have all been mirrored by the return of not far left wing parties, just standard left wing ideologies in terms of where the political spectrum was forty years ago; Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Jeremy Corbyn in my country and of course Bernie. The political spectrum has been pulled so far to the right that what was traditionally standard left wing political policies now come across as far left wing ideas.

What we have had over the last thirty to forty years has been government by Neos-libs and Neo-cons who have demonised taxes and politicians, who believe that the best government is the one that governs least, that it’s every man for himself, that nothing should be solid and must be thrown up in the air for the free market to determine the quality of life you lead in terms of housing, income, and healthcare.

How can a country in this global political climate begin to move forward? Bernie realizes the most important thing that America should do.

While powerful, America isn’t an island unto itself and it’s about time that both America and my own country, the United Kingdom, start leading a “global” way of thinking. It was Ronald Reagan, of all people, that said that America should be more sensitive to its own strength and if the UN means anything anymore after the Iraq war then America must work with the other nations in the world and stop defacing the reputation of the international community. Bernie says this when he speaks about America working with other countries to stabilize the Middle East. The greatest strength a leader can show is to ignore the drums of war, all of which are coming from the Republicans and the right wing media, and to sort things out diplomatically.

Bernie is reinvigorating the political masses; the last two congressional elections were not won by the Republicans, they were lost by the Democrats. People had no enthusiasm for the Dems, they saw them as blue Republicans and so they stayed at home and refused to vote. If the Democrats offered to relieve the public of their healthcare worries, if they offered to give thousands of undocumented immigrants a path toward citizenship, if they offered to decriminalize weed, and reform the justice system so African Americans would receive justice for the next act of police brutality (as these are all things that Bernie champions) then people will vote for them, they will campaign for them, they will donate money and time for them, they will convince their families, their neighbours and friends to vote for them. And in the end, regardless of the gerrymandered districts you will have a political upset that resembles one I’ve witnessed in my own country recently and congress and the senate will be representative of the people that voted; a democratic dominated congress and senate.

This is why I believe Bernie should be President. No more cow-towing to far right wing ideologies, stop pushing the spectrum even more to the right and bring it back to the left where people can find some balance in choice. It’s not between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb anymore, and if anything Bernie proves that things in America will never be the same again.