this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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I could not disagree more, I think Bernie is the rare movement leader who understands that as egoecentric as they are (must be to be a politician?) that in terms of raw power, time you spend stoking a movement based on ideas and desired results pays back in future gains FAR MORE vs. focusing on cultivating the strength, charisma and cultural relevancy of certain political leaders to make them into the superheroes we need to save us....
...most people in the U.S are ready to vote for anybody but Trump so long as they don't perceive that figure is part of an ossified Democratic establishment that is barely better than Republicans at times.
In this environment, Bernie's strategy of always emphasizing his ideas and policy visions over his specific character or genius was wise or perhaps really the only realistic play given the political realities somewhat leftist figures like Bernie Sanders face at the national level in the U.S.
It is the opposite of the Trump strategy of trying to forge cultural figures that motivate people based on who they are as characters in a cultural landscape of grievances or perceived threats.
For this reason conservatism has utterly failed to do anything other than motivate ignorant people into violent beliefs while progressivism has radically reshaped what is possible in political conversation in the U.S., what younger people believe is possible for our future in the U.S., and brought legions of semi-informed voters into a practice of focusing on, critiquing and discussing policy as if they were working in politics and knew all of the specifics because they had to.
So here's the thing: Leaders and agitators are different. Bernie is an agitator; he helps radicalize people and show them the light, so to speak. That's one thing, but it's not leadership; it completely ignores the people who already see the light and want to reach it, because to those people Bernie only says "ask politely but firmly for it to come to you". An effective leader will turn to those people and say something along the lines of "walk" or "run". Note that the leader doesn't need to be one person, but something resembling executive leadership needs to exist. I'll also add that you say "future gains," but at this rate by the time those future gains come back America will be fully fascist and it'll be too late. Action needs to be taken now, alongside agitation efforts. There's more than enough energy for this already, and that energy needs to be harnessed before it dissipates into willfully ignorant apathy, because that's what happens when a movement is concerned too much with lofty ideals and too little with concrete action and material results.
Leaders don't start movements, they might think they do, but it is agitators that start movements. The leaders come later and though a good or bad leader can determine the fate of a movement, it is never the leaders that inject power and broad appeal into a movement. It is the agitators that do.
To put it another way, leaders are what you need in a struggle against a political near-peer opponent to win. However when in an environment where your political opponent is far more powerful, one might say catastrophically more powerful, the best strategy is different. Agitators are what you need in a resistance, preferably those agitators are just everyday people everywhere getting into conversations with people around them about how things could be different and how being exasperated is actually very sensible right now.
Interestingly, I think this is actually the precise moment that Bernie Sanders and AOC are with their tour of massive public speeches attempting to transition from a resistance strategy to a more peer-to-peer strategy of directly challenging power and building broad based appeal and consensus to stage a legitimate claim for physical and ideological leadership of the democratic party or at least whatever party will ultimately dismantle it. Yes I know this is literally just agitating, but it is the kind of agitating you do when you are getting people ready to change the status quo and you want to establish broad based support and desire for it so that people are DEMANDING on the streets the policies future Bernie Sanders and AOC like politicians will be advocating for in the halls of power.
Maybe it is too little too late, I am not arguing that, but I Bernie and AOC are making moves like they understand at least now how desperate the situation is for democracy and future and current quality of life for people in the US and globally for that matter.
Oh definitely. However, leaders appear because they're necessary for a movement to succeed.
I'd say it takes two to tango there. Agitators disseminate ideas and give the people the ideas and intellectual tools they need to resist, while leaders and organizations provide the material support, numbers and organizational power they need to resist. Leaders also, by virtue of being the side that does things (as seen from an independent observer), give movements legitimacy by showing that the movement exists (it's not just lofty ideals) and is capable of effecting change. For an extreme example, under a military dictatorship it can be assumed that most of the population is already agitated and "radicalized," yet nothing happens because there's no credible leadership for the agitated population to rally around.
Completely true.
Now you lost me. There are two kinds of power: Institutional power and popular power, and the core objective of a resistance movement is to gain the latter and then convert it to the former. I'd argue that the American resistance/progressive movement has more than enough steam to be a superior force to the Trump regime in terms of popular power. Therefore it's now necessary to use that popular power to seize institutional power, which requires leaders. The leaders don't need to be politicians running for office; they can be everyday people organizing protests, strikes and other resistance activities, and I think this latter kind is what America needs and sorely lacks right now.
If this ends up being true then I'll have to admit I'm wrong, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. That said, someone still needs to be in the streets protecting the right to free and fair elections so those Bernie and AOC-like politicians can actually win after gaining popular support.