What Bernie’s Big Breakthrough (Really) Means

Does America’s Transformation to Becoming a Functioning Modern Society Finally Begin Here?

This is Bernie’s big breakthrough moment. He’s soaring in the polls, rising to the level of a nominee by majority. That’s an accomplishment that shouldn’t be understated.

And yet the questions that are being asked in response by pundits and what passes for an intellectual class in the failed society called America are predictably, well, spectacularly disappointing, if not outright foolish. Sorry to be blunt, I guess. Let me spend a few seconds discussing how to think clearly and well about Bernie’s rise.

(The first response — and you can skip this part, because I’m going to rant for a second — comes from the hard right. It goes like this. “I’ll choose Trumpism over…over…socialism!! Don’t make me do it!!” LOL. In other words, I’ll choose fascism over quote-unquote socialism.

Let me tell you a secret. Nobody makes people fascists but themselves. It’s their choice. Their decision. They have freedom of thought and action. It is an abuser’s mindset — summed up with perfect precision to say: “If you don’t do what I want, I’ll resort to hate and violence!.” It legitimizes just those things — hate and violence. And in that way, this response is a not-so-subtle threat. If you choose this, I’ll hurt you.

Threats of this kind have no place in the political discourse of a democratic society. Me threatening you with fascism is not something decent, civilized, or remotely democratic. It is what it appears to be: a threat to resort to extreme violence and hate, in order to solve disagreements about the fate of a society. Fascism is inherently undemocratic, and using it as a club to threaten a society with isn’t just ugly, foolish, stupid, and morally weak — most of all, it’s disgraceful, to anyone who calls themselves an intellectual, thinker, or even just a pundit. Now, that brings me to my first real point.)

It’s definitely not the case that “socialists” made American right turn, in desperation — the poor things!! — to fascism and authoritarianism…because there aren’t any socialists in this election. There’s Bernie, sure. But Bernie’s not — contrary to popular belief and his very own…