We’ve (at least in DSA world) been told for the last four or five years that the Sanders movement is responsible for resurgent socialism and that the old direct action movements don’t “build worker power” and other boring social democratic pablum that looks down on direct action.
But then they burned down a police station.

They burned it down.
Sanders lost, and without a clear successor or any hope at a working class party of our own for at least a decade, many people will be turned off by him trying to get people to vote for Biden. Many will see him as another failed politician who promised big but couldn’t deliver.
His movement was important, but the slow degeneration of electoral movements takes its toll, as already there are “socialists” who argue that Sanders lost because he was too inclusive towards intersectionality and other “identity issues.” These people are wrong wrong wrong.
Electoral struggles have some part to play, but when you lose they are demobilizing, they are backbreakingly expensive, and they prioritize elite politics that remove power from the working class. With every loss they lose their revolutionary character.
But then Minneapolis burned down a police station.
That image will be seared into the brain of every American alive now. The cops can be fought, the cops can be driven back. The cops can be beaten.
This alone isn’t enough, but if we are talking about spectacle, if we are talking about raising political consciousness to challenge the capitalist state, last night the working class learned that it had power.
It is our responsibility as socialists to make sure that no one ever forgets that when working people recognize their power, no force on earth can stop them. Socialists must never let anyone forget that the people are more powerful than the state. We can fight. We can win!
We must destroy their infernal system brick by brick, stone by wicked stone. The power is in our hands, not in Washington, not in the statehouse, but in the streets. We can win!
You can follow @roniscoundrel.
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