What’s the Future of Bernie Sanders’ Political Revolution?
For Cho, holding today’s politicians accountable is a key part of the democratic process. Just as important, she contends, is to support insurgent ones. “Movements will be movements, and parties will be parties,” Cho says. “We need a movement party that’s decentralized, that many people can identify with, organizationally and individually.” She likens such a formation to the Tea Party — not in its Koch Brothers funding or Fox News cheerleaders, but in the more than 900 local chapters that led a values-driven transformation of the Republican Party from town halls and church basements.
“Anyone across the country can identify with the Tea Party,” Cho says. “The open-source nature of it … that’s something our movements already are. We need to actualize that in a party structure.”
While the politics of this new party would differ significantly from the Tea Party, debates remain as to exactly what form “independent political power” might take: Who is involved? What are its hallmark values and policy platforms? Is it a third party, a DNC insurgency, or something else entirely? These questions are bubbling in movement spaces across issues, constituting more of an ecosystem than a consensus. All see this year’s groundswell of ire at the political establishment — on both sides of the aisle — as fertile ground for electoral outsiders.
“We’re not thinking about this in response for any one candidate,” says Maurice Mitchell, a member of the movement for black lives and a main organizer behind its first national convening last summer. He is also the co-founder of Blackbird, a group focused on racial justice, technology and civic engagement.
“This is the natural progression of where we are as a movement,” Mitchell says. “These conversations are not new, but there’s now a sense of real possibility.” The movement for black lives, he points out, has created an unprecedented national conversation about systemic racism with disruptive tactics, like shutting down bridges, highways and public transit. For Democratic candidates, then, proclaiming that “black lives matter” became critical on the campaign trail to stay politically relevant.