The doomsayers who have been counting Bernie Sanders out of the Democratic primary race all along are doing it again. The pundits are asking, “what’s next?”

Marchers for Bernie

What’s Next?

There’s no “next” until Senator Sanders concedes the primary race, and he’s not conceding. But even if he did, would he go the way of previous candidates, including President Obama, who said they would keep the movement alive, but didn’t? The answer is no.

Sanders has already started picking down-ballot races to boost, even as far down the ballot as some state legislators. Some of his supporters are already working on a movement called “Brand New Congress” to carry the momentum for progress forward whether it’s in the presidential race or anywhere else.

Is Bernie Pure Enough?

Of course, there are activists who never actually supported Bernie and still don’t. He wasn’t pure enough for them. For some people, if V.I. Lenin’s stuffed body doesn’t reanimate and walk out of the Kremlin to lead them, nobody is good enough.

Those people don’t see all of politics as processes. Nothing stays the same, everything is changing. The Bernie Sanders campaign has already, and still is, moving America and the world toward real change. It’s true that he’s a social democrat and by definition not a revolutionary. It’s true that his program of electoral reform and restraining Wall Street wouldn’t, by itself, result in permanent gains. The workers will never make permanent gains as long as the bosses are in power, and Senator Sanders has only said he wants to restrain them, not dis-empower them.

But he has started and amplified a wonderful trend in American politics!

Look What’s Already Been Accomplished!

Millions of Americans have realized that the two-party system, neither half of it, is really democratic. Millions have become conscious of the amazing power that big money exerts over the electoral system. Millions have begun seeking real solutions, and I don’t mean they were sitting in their easy chairs and daydreaming about it. Millions are in movement! Millions are experimenting. Millions are working together. That’s amazing accomplishment!

What’s Next?

This movement is going to continue. The youth of America, already smarter and more capable than the rest of us, are taking this movement forward. This isn’t a flash-in-the-pan new trick like the Occupy movement. This is millions of young people joining together to seek fundamental change. They don’t even need the older Americans. They don’t even need Bernie. If they needed to, they could just outlast us older people. But they don’t need to, and they won’t.

The movement identified today with the Bernie Sanders election campaign is going to go on far beyond electoral politics, and it’s going to win!

–Gene Lantz