this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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It sounds like people just didn't understand what made 2016-era Sanders special. People liked 2016-era Sanders because he wasn't a card-carrying Democrat. He was just some dude with a history of progressive politics who only went through the motions of being a DINO in an attempt to steal the Democratic nomination from Clinton in the primaries. That's why people liked Sanders. People said similar things about Trump. That's the whole deal about Trump taking the Republican nomination from the "cuckservatives" like Jeb! and Ted Cruz.
AOC, Mamdani, et al are a regression for the very simple reason that they are sincere members of the Democratic Party. Unlike 2016-era Sanders (or more accurately, people's false impression of Sanders during 2016 when they thought Sanders would form his own party after losing the nomination instead of bending the knee), they are not there to undermine the Democratic Party. Even without getting into how they fall short from a socialist perspective, they don't even challenge the duopoly in any meaningful sense nor do they try to advocate around progressive causes like abolishing the electoral college.
Here's hoping a charismatic person who's totally not affiliated with PSL would crash the 2028 Democratic primaries in order to steal the nomination from Gruesome Newsome.
The fact is running in the Democrat Primary is absolutely an unavoidable tactic that every leftist/socialist must embrace if they want to actually hold officr. Its functionally nothing more than a preliminary runoff election. But after that you must maintain a strong "fuck the DNC" attitude. Do not seek party endorsements. Embrace any "not a real democrat" label. And for the love of all that's holy, do not even think about touching ActBlue or NGPVan. Squat that (D).
That’s such an excellent point and it had completely escaped me but you’re absolutely right.
Bernie Sanders had more of a proven record of antagonizing the Democratic Party establishment than anyone who’s come to represent “the left” since.
My greatest fear is that the momentum of “the left” whatever the fuck that means is captured, redirected and squandered by the Democrats because historically that is just what they do! And now the narrative become ““the left” has been tried and is a dead letter” to a whole generation who come afterwards.
You know how Lenin said how you should only participate in bourgeois elections to the extent where you can show to the working class how much of a sham bourgeois elections are. That was basically Sanders' run in 2016. There was a certain level of audacity, which still make Hilldawg stans seethe to this very day, of some dude who had never once registered as a Democrat strolling up to the Democratic primaries and giving the presumptive career Democrat nominee a run for her money. AOC sucking up to Pelosi look completely pathetic in comparison.
Sanders fucked up/revealed himself to be a sheepdog in disguise by not channeling that anger and outrage over getting ratfucked towards forming his own party. Most post-Sanders electoralists are essentially arguing that Sanders failed because he was an independent instead of a Democrat and that had he been a Democrat, he would've won the primaries against Clinton somehow. In fact, the opposite would be true: had Sanders been a Democrat, he would've ate shit even harder because a lot of people only liked Sanders because he wasn't a loser Democrat like Clinton.
Exactly! The comparison to Trump and Sanders is very important, because at the time they both represented a break from the norms of the existing parties. When Sanders failed to capture the anger after being sandbagged by the Democrats he actually seeded a bunch of voters TO Trump because now HE was proven to be the OUTSIDER who could actually fucking win. There is a whole stratum of people who saw Sanders loose and then Trump scoop the win, who went "Aw hell yeah, Trump is daddy now!".
Had Sanders captured that energy, by announcing a grassroots working class party, god only knows how history would have gone.
My idea is that:
ML parties like PSL will have less members since many people would've joined Sander's party instead.
The DSA would probably be a defunct org since given the choices between Sander's party and more radical parties like the PSL, why would anyone hitch their wagon with the DSA? In many ways, the DSA is (poorly) filling the void that should've been filled by Sander's party.
I think a lot of the current crop of so-called progressives like AOC would either not have political careers or simply run as generic Democrats without any hint of progressivism. What would AOC's political career even look like? Would she join Sander's party or would she just be some generic Democrat? Much of the online arguments and struggle sessions over whether so and so is legit or controlled opposition would not exist or look very different. Perhaps people will accuse alt-history AOCIA or alt-history Mamdani of joining Sander's party to undermine it from within.
Most of the leftist influencer space would have less obnoxious politics since instead of glazing the Democrats and coming up with excuses for their failures, they would be glazing Sander's party (and coming up with excuses for their failures) instead.
Sander's party would be at the crossroads after al-Aqsa Flood when Sander goes completely mask off as an unrepentant Zionist. I do not think Sanders can control the anti-Zionism that almost everyone within the party would believe in, but what happens to the party is anybody's guess. Maybe there would be a mass exodus of members which causes the party to collapse. Maybe Sanders would be expelled from the party for being a Zionist piece of shit. Hell, maybe the bourgeoisie moves to crush the party through the security apparatus.
There's a timeline where Sander's party develops their politics well beyond Sanders to the point of expelling him for being a reactionary and eventually merging with PSL.
i thought mamdani was dsa and ran for the dem primary for new york reasons
The point is that Mamdani's still a registered member of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Sanders went back to being an independent as soon as the primaries ended. The fact that AOC et al are all members of the Democratic Party means that at best, they thought Sanders being an independent was the main reason why he got ratfucked in both 2016 and 2020. But everyone knows that Sanders didn't fail because he had an "I" after his name instead of a "D" on C-Span, so why aren't more of these so-called progressives and socialists following in Sander's footsteps by being third party/independent?
Mamdani being a member of dsa is largely coincidental and arbitrary. He was backed by the Fight initiative like Fetterman and Platner.