The New Politics of Hope

[portlander23]

The New Politics of Hope
Ronald Aronson
Boston Review

As we in the United States organize ourselves individually and collectively to respond to a Trump presidency, we must not forget a very different political rupture of 2016, one that in the long run may turn out to be far more consequential: the widespread revival of social hope led by Bernie Sanders.

For three decades we have watched the shrinking of the social amidst the maelstrom of postindustrial capitalism, increasing cynicism, and the privatization of hope ... Under the reign of freewheeling global capitalism, the perils produced by private corporations in a deregulated and delocalized marketplace became the responsibility of individuals to master—by learning more “skills,” becoming more “entrepreneurial,” or exhibiting greater “responsibility.” (Never mind those problems individuals can’t possibly master, such as climate change.) This paradigm finally reached its breaking point in American politics early this year, when U.S. presidential candidates advocating familiar neoliberal nostrums were either shoved aside entirely (in the case of Republicans) or seriously challenged (in the case of Democrats). The dramatic successes of both the Trump and Sanders campaigns dealt a clear blow to the Washington consensus that individuals must handle social problems on their own and the implicit premise that things could not be radically different. Both campaigns created an explosive sense of possibility where none had been on offer in American electoral politics, rising up against the widespread political resignation borne of a neoliberal vacuum and further entrenched by the return of politics-as-usual after the Great Recession. Each campaign demanded vigorous (if very different types of) government action to solve the crises.

This is not to say the two movements are equivalent; of course they diverge in almost every other respect. If Trump’s campaign has restored a kind of hope to members of the white working class, it is not the hope of collective action or forward-looking social progress but its distorting-mirror opposite, a cynical and retrograde faith in the authoritarian strongman: if we can’t change things—more precisely, if we can’t make things the way they were before—maybe he can. Trump supporters came together to get him elected to reverse deindustrialization, not to work together themselves to build a better society. The Sanders campaign, by contrast—transposing the collective energies of Occupy Wall Street to the electoral sphere and extending the moral climate of anti-austerity movements in Spain, Greece, and the United Kingdom—flew in the face of the widespread doubts that collectivities still exist whose action can produce meaningful change.

This kind of hope, so depleted over the past generation, was revived by Occupy, various movements abroad, and then the Sanders campaign. It remains the burgeoning vital force of the left in the United States today. Though it will be more difficult to do so now that Sanders has lost and Trump has won the presidency, it is urgent that we understand and continue to talk about social hope—and that we work to keep its renewal alive. Trump may have the wind in his sails, but this very fact has galvanized organizing around a common enemy. How things turn out will depend on what we do as we act together.

[Dems to Win]

1. Still don't understand why Dem leaders failed to get behind enthusiastic, energized young people

DNC leaders forgot the first rule of politicians: when a parade is forming, run to get in the front of it, become a leader of the movement that is coming together. Democratic leaders saw the enormous crowds of young people at Bernie's rallies, and instead of endorsing Bernie and his movement, they doubled down on supporting their candidate who couldn't draw a crowd of a thousand people. Lots of hope has been crushed.

Gonna take a lot of work to revive hope. A worthwhile endeavor, of course. I have a lot of respect for the people involved with OurRevolution, keeping hope alive.