According to a recent Washington Post report, over 100,000 people have so far turned out to see Bernie Sanders publicly deliver his populist political message. He's addressed overflow crowds repeatedly while Hillary's largest turnout was around 5,500. According to MSNBC's Alex Seitz-Wald, Bernie's Portland, Oregon turnout of 28,000 in the second week of August is "...by far the largest turnout for any 2016 presidential candidate thus far..." But what does this tremendous early momentum mean? A specter is haunting America; the specter of Bernie Sanders! According to the World Socialist Website (WSWS), which is actually quite hostile to Sanders whom they just dismiss as a "bourgeois politician," has this to say about his current appeal to voters,
There is no question that Sanders’s rise in the polls, as well as the turnout at his rallies, reflects rising anger among working people and youth over deepening social inequality as well as mounting interest in socialism. Sanders attacks “the billionaire class” in nearly every campaign appearance. He told his audience on “Real Time” that over the past 40 years, “there has been a huge transfer of trillions of dollars from working families to the top one-tenth of one percent.”
The income inequality message, which has now been coupled with another one stressing racial justice, has resonated incredibly with voters who have been audibly decrying the decline of the middle class in the US for years. Bernie is the first presidential candidate to hear their cries! And he has called for a political revolution!
Here's what Bernie had to say to a crowd of 3,000 in Minneapolis in late May about the current political situation in the US;
“When I talk about a political revolution, what everybody here has got to understand is that the billionaire class and their representatives in Washington are so powerful that the best president in the world cannot defeat them alone. We need a mass movement of millions of people.”
His populist message about taking back the country and the economy for the 99% resonates so strongly with the voters at this point in the 2016 campaign that record numbers of people in diverse venues from conservative Dallas to liberal Madison are clamoring to hear him bash the billionaire class much the way FDR lambasted the "economic royalists" in the 1930s. What is truly amazing is that this message is enthusiastically received in traditionally conservative places such as Texas. Speaking to crowds of 8,000 in Dallas and over 5,000 in Houston in mid-July, Sanders continued his populist theme as part of "50 state strategy" rather than as part of the traditional politics as usual approach of avoiding enemy territory. Sanders declared at a rally in Dallas;
"One of the problems that exists in American politics today, in my view, is that the Democratic Party has conceded half of the states in the country at the national level, and that's wrong..."If we are serious about change in America, we can't just do it in blue states."
Sanders' message is clearly ideological. His campaign isn't about winning per se, it's about getting people who have been resistant to new political ideas to understand that the party of the billionaires they've been supporting up until now simply doesn't have their interest at heart. It's about breaking the ideological hold of the far right on key parts of the country where some of the worst poverty and unemployment exists. In Houston, which has a large Black community, Sanders stressed that;
"...[the] simple truth is that you cannot be a national political party which claims to represent working families and low-income people and turn your back on some of the poorest states in America...I am here to tell you that today this is a conservative Republican state, but that doesn’t mean it will be conservative Republican tomorrow..."
The fact that people in conservative Texas are now turning out in record numbers to see an elderly Jewish man who openly embraces the "socialist" label is unprecedented and signals a possibly deep shift in peoples' consciousness in America after more than three decades of wealth and income redistribution from the poor to the rich!
The liberal site PoliticsUSA best explains the unexpected reaction to Bernie in Texas in ideological terms pointing out that what was at first expected to be mere town hall events burgeoned into big rallies! The piece explained further why the GOP should fear the first candidate in decades to call for a "political revolution";
Republicans should be terrified of Bernie Sanders’ popularity because Texas is the heart of the Republican Party. The state is demographically changing, but the reason Republicans should be worried about Sanders is that he is demonstrating the power of a liberal populist economic message in red states. Bernie Sanders, the candidate, isn’t what Republicans should be concerned about. The message that Sanders is bringing is what should strike fear into the GOP. Sanders talks about creating jobs, repealing Citizens United, raising wages for working people, equal pay for women. The Sanders message is that it is time to stand up to the billionaires and corporations and return the government back to the people. If this message can find support in red states like Arizona and Texas, it can be successful all across the country. Bernie Sanders is demonstrating that there is and huge demand among red state liberals for their candidates. Democrats and liberals in red states are often unfairly forgotten and lumped in with Republicans. Sen. Sanders is making an effort to campaign in front of these voters and ask for their support. Be afraid Republicans, because Bernie Sanders is showing the country the potential power of liberal populist ideas in red states.
Let the GOP and its billionaire backers tremble at Bernie Sanders' "political revolution!" The American people have only their chains to lose and a world to win!