The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Truest statement of the week II
Since ending his second bid for the presidency last month, Sanders has carried out an aggressive campaign to browbeat his supporters into backing Biden. Sanders and Biden have gone to great lengths to promote party “unity” under the explosive social and political conditions of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The “unity” campaign started with Sanders’ groveling endorsement of Biden, in which he made no criticisms and placed no demands on the Biden campaign. This was followed by an interview with the Associated Press in which he slandered as “irresponsible” any of his supporters who failed to campaign for Biden. Former top advisors to the Sanders campaign moved quickly to launch a new super PAC, “Future to Believe In,” to direct resources to electing Biden.
Biden and Sanders established phony “task forces” composed of leading members of their respective campaigns to promote party unity ahead of the Democratic convention. This included a friendly agreement over the number of delegates Sanders would be permitted to keep for the convention. The idea was to create the illusion that Sanders supporters had representation and could push the veteran right-wing political operative Biden to the “left.”
Sanders’ silencing of delegates with threats of removal proves all the more clearly the purely ornamental character of the delegate deal and his role more broadly. Sanders is well aware that Biden, who personifies the Democratic Party as a party of Wall Street and the military, has no intention of adopting any of his mildly reformist policies.
When asked in an interview Friday morning if he would “govern as an economic progressive,” Biden evaded the question, saying, “I have a record of over 40 years, and I’m going to be Joe Biden. Look at my record.” Even the most superficial look at Biden’s record reveals a nearly fifty-year history of servitude to big business, including his role in the Wall Street bailout, the expansion of war in the Middle East and austerity against the working class during the Obama administration. If elected, Biden will carry out a pro-corporate domestic policy and a violently militarist foreign policy.
-- Genevieve Leigh, "Bernie Sanders threatens delegates with removal if they criticize Biden" (WSWS).