Happy Slave-owners revolt day, everyone. Remember, the British Empire abolished slavery in 1831, 34 years before the U. S. All other things being equal (a large caveat), had the American Revolution failed, slavery would have ended 34 years sooner.

I’ve skipped a couple of weeks in my weekly blog because after Orlando and slogging through the acrimonious divisions in the Sanders movement, I didn’t know what to say. I was discouraged, I suppose also because I kept holding out the hope that Bernie could win the nomination.

But discouragement is one of those weapons the ruling class uses to keep us oppressed. All it means is the revolution isn’t happening as quickly as we wish it would. But, comrades, look how far we’ve come! Our movement has profoundly shifted the political dialogue in this country to the left, but not just to the left, more like away from oligarchy toward democracy. We won’t win everything, they’ll be some painful losses, but the Democratic Party Platform will be the most progressive since the 1930s. But the platform is always ignored, I hear you saying. It usually is, but it doesn’t have to be. The continuously mobilized Sanders movement can rally the people around the most important of those planks.

Moving the political dialogue to the left was what Bernie set out to do. In his years of activist experience, he (finally) figured out that the Democratic Party is where the action is, where the power is. Our movement is now in a position to take over leadership of the Democratic Party within 4 years, the largest organization of any kind in the U. S. Again, this was clearly Bernie’s objective from the beginning.

It’s difficult to watch the ultraleft dogma of the Bernie or Bust movement attempt to destroy the powerful unity that Bernie inspired. I know, I’ve been there. It happens in every movement, we get to a certain point and then we turn inward and self-destruct. I was a part of this phenomenon as the anti-war movement imploded into warring factions of self-righteous sects with no support from the people. I was at the SDS convention in 1969 in Chicago when the splits exploded on the movement. I’ve seen this happen too many times. In France, it was called the Thermadorian Reaction.  

So I look you in the eyes, Bernie or Bust, and I say: stop it!

I don’t care who you vote for. A single vote is insignificant. In California, New York, and other deep blue states, for example, it might make perfect sense to vote for Jill Stein and help the Greens develop a serious presence on the political landscape. But Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada? Don’t be stupid. You don’t vote for the lesser of evils. You vote for the party with a chance of winning that will interfere the least with our efforts to organize the working class for our revolution.

Trump will inspire goon squads of white supremacists to use the border and Black Lives Matter demonstrations as target practice. Trump will decry the violence but offer the perpetrators support for their legal fees, which they won’t need because the cops, being a major part of the movement, will not arrest anyone. Is that what you want?

The strategy is not to abandon the Democratic Party to the neoliberals, but to take it over and throw the neoliberals out of leadership. This development is within our grasp. As we move toward our takeover, we must be ready to pivot toward organizing a new anti-war movement. All those progressive Hillary supporters are crossing their fingers in hopes she won’t invade Syria, but chances are she will try. We can stop her and then challenge her in 2020, having meanwhile interpenetrated ourselves in the county and state organizations of the Party. We need only focus on staying united.