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When Bernie Sanders Did the Joe Rogan Show

From actively spurning big donors to calling out corporate malefactors by name, there is much about Bernie Sanders’s political style that separates him from the liberal politicians who dominate the Democratic Party. But among his most heterodox traits is a willingness to bring his arguments to skeptical or even right-leaning audiences: a practice he’s engaged in on more than one occasion.

In 2015, Sanders addressed a crowd at Liberty University — the largest evangelical Christian university in the world. More recently, he participated in a televised town hall hosted by Fox News. Both events, perhaps understandably, elicited controversy from some on the left. Nevertheless, in both cases, Sanders successfully exposed a new audience to his ideas and emerged unscathed, drawing cheers and approval from corners where they might otherwise have been unthinkable. By the end of Fox’s town hall event in April, he actually seemed to have won over the majority of attendees with his arguments for democratic socialism, against oligarchy, and in favor of Medicare For All.

This week, Sanders repeated the strategy by appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience: a hugely popular but decidedly non-left-leaning podcast that features an eclectic buffet of guests ranging from fairly innocuous weirdos to overt reactionaries. In less than twenty-four hours, the episode has already garnered well over two and a half million views and, judging by its reception thus far, Sanders and his arguments proved a hit — even to those accustomed to getting their political bearings from the likes of Sam Harris and other dubious sources.

There is a clear difference between appearing alongside a right-leaning host in order to agree with their right-leaning views and doing so with the goal of persuading their audience. Despite Rogan’s politics, the Vermont senator arguably got a fairer hearing than he typically gets from major cable networks and, with more than an hour at his disposal, he was able to use the interview decisively to his advantage — delivering his key ideas and tying them together near the episode’s end with a pro–working class message contrasting his politics with Trump’s:

By appearing on the show, Sanders successfully exposed Rogan’s audience to left-wing ideas many have probably never encountered before, without the compromising filter usually applied to them by the mainstream media or the typical bad-faith actors on the right.

This becomes clear from even a perfunctory survey of the episode’s comment section, which suggests that Sanders both reached and persuaded listeners who might not regularly encounter his arguments, or who would otherwise be inclined toward hostility.

Linking El Paso Massacre to ICE Raids, Sanders Says Trump’s Campaign of Terror Against Immigrants Must Be Defeated

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday joined rights groups in condemning the racist El Paso massacre and large-scale ICE raids in Mississippi as part of the broad terrorization of immigrant communities that President Donald Trump has unleashed.

“This is evil,” tweeted Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “Days after immigrants were gunned down in El Paso, Trump is continuing the attacks on immigrant families.”

“Our job,” the Vermont senator added, “is to reject Trump’s racist agenda, end the terror inflicted on immigrant communities, and bring families together, not tear them apart.”

Sanders’s tweet came hours after ICE agents raided food processing plans in six Mississippi cities, rounded up suspected undocumented workers, and sent them to a Louisiana detention center.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, the raids—which were reportedly the largest-ever workplace enforcement action in a single state—ripped hundreds of parents away from their children and left loved ones in despair.

How a President Bernie Sanders Could Take on Wall Street

If Bernie wins, his administration will begin governing with the deck severely stacked against it. His democratic socialist administration would inherit the balance of class forces largely as they exist today — one where business has far more power in politics than do working people. Much like left-wing governments in the past, a Sanders administration is likely to confront obstacles to governing that might weaken or derail its program or, at worst, turn it toward austerity. How might Bernie avoid a repeat of failures of the past?

Our best bet is going into it with clear eyes about the risks. All meaningful politics, both within and outside of the state, entail real risk of failure. Politics is a calculated gamble. And for those who aim to upend entrenched power, the odds are not in their favor. That’s why, on day one, a democratic socialist program would need to begin to implement changes that adjust the odds.

Along these lines, we need to develop serious political analyses of how reforms can break with the logic and power of capital. To be strategic about policy, we need to understand the degree to which policy itself can advance class struggle — and render capital less able to wage counterrevolution.

There are huge risks, but it doesn’t follow that because a socialist government will likely be met with counterattacks, the only possible path forward is an insurgent confrontation with the state. I reject this view. Not only is it true that such a confrontation is an unrealistic and unpopular strategy that has never worked in any advanced capitalist democracy, it also rests on an inaccurate view of business power and the state. In the insurgent view, capital has dominant power in capitalist democracies — and that’s the end of the story.

We need to go a step further in our analysis, however, and identify the conditions under which the power of corporations varies. We know business has greater power in capitalist democracies than other constituencies, but what makes the sector stronger or weaker?

Answering this question is critical. Once we understand how the power of business varies in capitalist democracies, we can then develop strategies to undermine and erode it to create greater space for more democratic forms of governance. Unionization, building rank-and-file power, and disruption are the key strategies for socialists outside of the state. But how might state policy work in coordination with this “outside” strategy?

‘Field of Dreams’ to Host Bernie Sanders’ Campaign vs. Media Softball Game
The Presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders will take on members of the media in a softball game at Iowa’s famous ‘Field of Dreams’ baseball diamond.

‘We Won’t Be Intimidated,’ Declare Campaigners After ExxonMobil Accused of Pressuring Witnesses in New York Climate Case

New York state prosecutors last week accused ExxonMobil of trying to discourage witnesses from testifying against the company in a climate fraud case, leading the head of the environmental group 350.org to declare Thursday that “we won’t be intimidated.”

In a statement, May Boeve, the avocacy group’s executive director, also charged that “Exxon is polluting these proceedings just like it has polluted our communities.”

Last October, following a three-year probe and amid growing demands that the dirty energy industry be held accountable for the impacts of its products, then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood sued ExxonMobil for defrauding investors about the financial threat of efforts to combat the climate emergency.

Boeve’s statement came in response to allegations from the current state attorney general’s office Friday that the fossil fuel giant is attempting to intimidate third-party witnesses by demanding they disclose all contact they have had with various experts and environmental groups, including 350.org.

Russia Needs Its Own Bernie Sanders

Can leftist sociologist and columnist Boris Kagarlitsky create room for a new politics in Russia?

Democratic Socialist Lawmaker Persuades Fellow Denver City Council Members to End Contracts With For-Profit Prison Operators

Two for-profit prison operators lost a combined $10.6 million in contracts after a progressive councilwoman convinced her fellow members of the Denver City Council to end the city’s involvement with Core Civic and the GEO Group.

City councilor Candi CdeBaca, who won her seat in June after campaigning on a Democratic Socialist platform, organized community members to speak out Monday against the two companies’ contracts with the city, under which they have long operated six halfway houses in Denver.

The companies also run the majority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) immigration detention centers, where children and adults have been subjected to neglect and abuse under the Trump administration and where at least 24 people have died since President Donald Trump took office.

“We’ve watched these large entities gobble up smaller providers with public dollars and little to no transparency or accountability,” CdeBaca told her fellow council members.

As Ryan Grim reported in The Intercept Thursday, CdeBaca called on members of local groups—including the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, the ACLU, and Black Lives Matter—to speak at the city council’s meeting.

“We’ve got to quit feeding the beast of for-profit in our criminal justice system,” said Denise Maes, policy director for the ACLU of Colorado.

“Will my family end up in one of the GEO and CoreCivic concentration camps that profit off of us?” added community member Alma Urbano, who has DACA status.

After hearing from the advocates, seven of CdeBaca’s 12 colleagues joined her in voting to end the contracts.

UN Report Calls for Transforming Land Practices to Battle Hunger and ‘Suffocating Blanket of Climate Emergency’

A landmark United Nations report released Thursday warns that land worldwide is under mounting pressure from humans—both exacerbated by and contributing to the climate crisis—which underscores the need to urgently enact more sustainable land practices and curb greenhouse gas emissions from all sources to keep the global population fed and ensure a habitable planet in the future.

The Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. body that assesses science related to the climate crisis. The report’s Summary for Policymakers (pdf) was agreed on by world governments at a meeting in Geneva earlier this week and published Thursday.

“Land plays an important role in the climate system,” Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III—which focuses on mitigating climate change—explained in a statement. “Agriculture, forestry, and other types of land use account for 23 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time natural land processes absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to almost a third of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry.”

In other words, when it comes to the human-caused climate emergency land use is part of the problem—and part of the solution.

As Susan Casey-Lefkowitz wrote in a blog post for Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Thursday, the SRCCL signals that “the world must take immediate action to transform the way we use our land—forestry, agriculture, industrial, and urban development—in order to avoid a climate catastrophe.”

The Impractical, Unsophisticated, Very Necessary Long-Shot Campaign to Unseat Nancy Pelosi

“I’m pretty sure,” says the man running to unseat Nancy Pelosi, “I am the only congressional candidate in the history of the republic who has spent time at Burning Man rhyming about the climate crisis and police violence and the role of immigrants in our community.” Shahid Buttar is laughing a little. He knows how it sounds. He knows there are people around the district who think of him as “that guy who goes to Burning Man,” which for the record he considers a space for “profound personal transformation” and “a hot bed for organizing.”

“I get the same thing about my hair,” says Buttar, who wears his salt-and-pepper hair in a top knot. “I’m too hipster for some people, I guess. But you know, I’m running to represent San Francisco, not Texas. And I couldn’t care less about the conservative stylistic sensibilities of a generation that, frankly, we’re trying to overcome.”

He’s talking about Pelosi. One of the premises of Buttar’s long-shot candidacy is that he’s more in tune with the district’s character than the speaker of the House is. Pelosi has spent much of her 17th term squabbling with the left flank of the Democratic Party and avoiding an impeachment showdown with President Donald Trump. Buttar’s proposition is a dubious one—no one gets to a 17th term without knowing something about her district, and in fact Pelosi has quietly shored up her support among the progressives who control the local Democratic Party, closing off one potential access point for an insurgency. If Buttar has a natural constituency right now, it’s not San Franciscans, at least not in the main; it’s the people around the country who see Pelosi as a quisling centrist party boss who’d sell out every refugee in Juarez for a few points in a swing-district Gallup poll. As Buttar puts it, “Her M.O. is creating space for conservative interests while claiming to defend whatever vestige of liberalism she remains committed to.”

Buttar does lay claim to certain distinctly San Francisco traits. The 44-year-old is an activist and a dabbler, and his politics are intertwined with his personal interests in such a way that it’s hard to know where the former end and the latter begin. He is a civil rights attorney and a grassroots organizer; he is a Burner and a Berner and a rapper, too. It’s funny: In a very rough sense he is the person the right wing believes Pelosi to be—the wild-eyed libertine crusader for “San Francisco values.” “I’m a post-colonial, intersectional liberation agent,” he says with a smile but no apparent irony. It’s not a soundbite. You won’t see that on a yard sign. But in a way, this, too, is a premise of Buttar’s bid to take down Pelosi, high priest of the DC cult of the savvy: Maybe it’s time for a little unsavvy.

Black women deserve better from Kamala Harris. Don’t take our vote for granted

when Senator Kamala Harris announced a student loan cancellation plan over the weekend, it was roundly, and justifiably, met with disdain. Convoluted and bloated with caveats, the plan would provide $20,000 of student loan debt relief … for Pell Grant recipients…who also operate a business in a disadvantaged community … for at least three years (sarcastic ellipses mine).

After pushback against her rather niche proposal, Harris clarified that the plan is part of a larger package of entrepreneurship policies, not her education policies.

But a review of both the education and entrepreneurship packages on her campaign website suggests a bigger problem. A Kamala Harris presidency would be ineffectual for the demographic that will probably comprise much of her base: black women.

Black women have more student loan debt than any other graduates in the country. Of college graduates repaying student debt, black women experience more financial difficulty than anyone else in the country. Black women are paid the least of any group of people of both high school graduates and college graduates with a bachelor’s degree.

The causes for these inequalities vary, but research points to wealth disparities generally, differences in family dynamics between young black and white people, and hiring discrimination. According to a report by Demos, 41% of white college-educated families, compared with 13% of black families, get an inheritance. The report adds that “black people are more likely to financially help older family members, preventing wealth accumulation and leaving them more financially vulnerable”. Further, “employers persist in discriminating against black workers in hiring, in assigning more precarious employment prospects to black workers than to white workers, and in requiring more education of black workers for the same job as white workers”.

Revealed: how Monsanto’s ‘intelligence center’ targeted journalists and activists

Monsanto operated a “fusion center” to monitor and discredit journalists and activists, and targeted a reporter who wrote a critical book on the company, documents reveal. The agrochemical corporation also investigated the singer Neil Young and wrote an internal memo on his social media activity and music.

The records reviewed by the Guardian show Monsanto adopted a multi-pronged strategy to target Carey Gillam, a Reuters journalist who investigated the company’s weedkiller and its links to cancer. Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, also monitored a not-for-profit food research organization through its “intelligence fusion center”, a term that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use for operations focused on surveillance and terrorism.

The documents, mostly from 2015 to 2017, were disclosed as part of an ongoing court battle on the health hazards of the company’s Roundup weedkiller. They show:

*Monsanto planned a series of “actions” to attack a book authored by Gillam prior to its release, including writing “talking points” for “third parties” to criticize the book and directing “industry and farmer customers” on how to post negative reviews.
*Monsanto paid Google to promote search results for “Monsanto Glyphosate Carey Gillam” that criticized her work. Monsanto PR staff also internally discussed placing sustained pressure on Reuters, saying they “continue to push back on [Gillam’s] editors very strongly every chance we get”, and that they were hoping “she gets reassigned”.
*Monsanto “fusion center” officials wrote a lengthy report about singer Neil Young’s anti-Monsanto advocacy, monitoring his impact on social media, and at one point considering “legal action”. The fusion center also monitored US Right to Know (USRTK), a not-for-profit, producing weekly reports on the organization’s online activity.
*Monsanto officials were repeatedly worried about the release of documents on their financial relationships with scientists that could support the allegations they were “covering up unflattering research”.

The Democratic Debates Don’t Need to Be This Awful

Progressive Democrats can and should demand deeper and sharper lines of questioning and more diverse moderators.