Sanders is making his long goodbye count - By E.J. Dionne Jr. [View all]
Nick Salvatore, the biographer of Eugene V. Debs, wrote that the popularity of the great American Socialist leader in the early decades of the 20th century “rested upon his ability to articulate and symbolize something of the severe dislocation experienced by all Americans in the transformation to industrial capitalism.”
Bernie Sanders’s appeal bears a striking similarity to his political hero’s. Debs gave voice to the unease and unhappiness bred by the disruptions of the industrial period. Sanders speaks forcefully for those dismayed by the inequalities and injustices in this era of deindustrialization.
Like Debs, Sanders failed to achieve victory in a presidential contest. Nonetheless, both democratic socialists spoke for many who neither shared their ideology nor voted for them. Just as Debsian socialism had a powerful impact in preparing the way for the New Deal, so will Sanders have an influence on where American politics moves next.
The free-spirited Brooklyn native from Vermont, however, confronts very different political choices than those faced by Debs, who consciously and proudly worked outside the framework of the two-party system. By contrast, Sanders has a long and complicated relationship with the Democratic Party.
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