Forget Sanders and Clinton for a moment. This is a symbolic schism that has been long brewing [View all]

[Armstead]

Sanders and Clinton are both individuals, so I realize they shouldn't be reduced to symbols.

However, each does represent something larger.

So, the context is much more than the personal foibles or attributes of either (any) candidate. Or the "bashing" of supporters of one candidate or the other....and all of the other personalized nonsense that occurs here.

And the stakes involve more than who ultimately becomes the nominee. And to use a geological metaphor, that is an underlying movement of plates that is now being seen and felt on the surface.

Simply stated, it is between the Corporate Democrats the Liberal Populists.

This has been a growing friction since the 1980's, as the DLC/Third Way/Centrist factions of the Establishment has deliberately marginalized economic liberalism and aligned the Democratic Party with the interests of the Corporate Elites and the Oligarchy. Sometimes it's been subtle and duplicitous, hidden behind nice innocuous words. Sometimes it's been more blatent, as attacks on the "professional left" and "fringe elements" and other derogatory terms, and pronouncements like "The Era of Big Government is Over."

In the 1990's, it was present but less obvious, because there was an illusion of economic success, even though the foundations of the economy were being pulled out from under the middle and working class, and the poor were thrown to the wolves. But the "professional left" warned against the crap like excessive deregulation, "free trade globalization" and other policies and messages that had more in common with the GOP than with even moderate liberalism.

In the 90's Bernie Sanders was among those progressives who tried to turn to Titanic more left to the true center. The Clintons were among the Third Wayers who praised Ayn Rand-cultist Alan Greenspan, aligned the government with the banksters and corporate monopolists, and did everything possible to tilt public opinion and political process to the right towards Corporate Empowerment.

Following the Crash of 2008, the results of the GOP CONservatisim, and the Democratic Third Way enabling of that became too obvious to ignore. A lot of people who were not "professional leftists" felt betrayed, angry and desperate as they saw their lifelines being yanked away.

I don't think that even Bernie himself believes we are on the verge of a "Socialist Revolution." But he does represent a real, and growing, movement of people who are sick of the grotesque distortions of the economy under the stewardship of the Status Quo Establishment -- and the social consequences.


And that's one reason IMO, there is so much pent-up anger and enthusiasm and otehr emotions on DU and in the 3D world.