JF

The sort of last hope I was clinging to with Bernie is that he would sweep the general election and then inspire a wave of Ojeda-like candidates that, if not perfectly in-sync with us, would at least move things in a more populist direction by demonstrating the viability of that.

Now I think the activist capture you’ve described has been so effective, even if he wins people will draw all the wrong lessons.

I'm not sure the 'activist capture' is more than an artefact of the primary race. This is all tea leaves, but Bernie rejected this politics for what, 40 years? And gives it only lip service now. If he refuses to break with the radlibs in the general, that's the time to worry.

I don't see the strategy wavering from 'build a workers' party so much as the campaign (falsely imo) projecting a primary electorate that needs to be fed a line about white supremacy to get on board.

He needs to to win the primary. During the general he can do whatever he wants. He doesn’t need AOC campaigning for him. He can go back to saying “open borders is a Koch brothers’ scheme,” he can demur on sex work. At least, that’s the hope.

He doesn’t need those people to win a genera election, but what they can do is completely suck the wind out of the movement that he would ideally be building after election.