They came not only from President Trump, who referred to him as a “wacko,” nor the usual bunch of conservative commentators who proposed dozens of variations on the motif “You want Sanders as president? Look at Venezuela today!”
The smears also came from his more centrist Democratic Party opponents. And reading these barbs, one is immediately overwhelmed by a feeling of deja vu. Because we have lived through this situation before, in the time of the Democratic primaries contested between Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Arguably, the Clinton campaign against Sanders reached its lowest point when, campaigning for Hillary, Madeline Albright said: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” (Meaning: females voting for Sanders instead of Clinton.)
Now maybe we should amend this statement: there is a special place in hell for women (and men) who think half a million dead children is an acceptable price for a military intervention that ruins a country (as Albright said in support of the massive bombing of Iraq back in 1996), while wholeheartedly supporting women’s rights and gay rights at home.
Is Albright’s worldview not infinitely more obscene and lewd than all Trump’s sexist banalities? We are not yet there, but we are slowly approaching it.
Strong principles
Liberal attacks on Sanders for his alleged rejection of identity politics returned from the dead again, ignoring that Sanders is doing the exact opposite, insisting on a link between class, race and gender.
One has to support him unconditionally when he rejects identity in itself as a reason to vote for someone: “It is not good enough for somebody to say, I’m a woman, vote for me. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.”
[Abstract. Appeared in RT on March 2nd 2019.]
