Stanford Politics

Ever since Bernie Sanders first announced his candidacy for president last May, he has captivated millions with his calls for a “political revolution.” This proposed revolution would “transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally.” To his supporters, the revolution is what makes his anti-establishment campaign so important and necessary, but to his opponents, the revolution is what makes his campaign so laughable.

Sanders did win the New Hampshire primary by a whopping 22 percent, and recent polls show that, when pinned against the leading Republican nominees in general election, Sanders actually fares better than Clinton. While there are many reasons to be skeptical of these polls, they do evidence a level of popularity even Sanders probably didn’t foresee a year ago. Sanders’ revolution requires more than just personal popularity, however. Currently, Sanders’ lack of congressional support would prevent the revolution from ever taking place even if he were elected President. So, if Sanders is really serious about this revolution, he must start mobilizing his base and getting a real coalition of lawmakers behind him.

Where are all the voters?

Much of Bernie’s campaign is based on getting a “silent majority” of Americans who are dissatisfied with the current political system to the polls. Thus, the relatively low turnout rates of the Democratic primaries thus far are a serious problem for him and his revolution. The political revolution is first and foremost about engaging more Americans in the political process. By bringing an unprecedented number of disaffected Americans to the polls in November, Bernie hopes to successfully upend the political elite and the big money that backs them. Unfortunately for Bernie, the “silent majority” has thus far remained quite silent.

The Democratic Iowa Caucuses saw 30 percent less people come out in 2016 than in 2008. Similarly, despite Sanders’ claim that the turnout in the New Hampshire primary was “yuge,” the turnout was actually down 10 percent from 2008. More recently, in Nevada, turnout was also down; this year’s caucus goers amounted to about ⅔ of those caucused in 2008. And most recently, in South Carolina, Democratic turnout was 16 percent less than it was in 2008. All of these numbers are in stark contrast to the GOP’s record-shattering turnout in all four early states of 2016. For Sanders to even begin realizing his political revolution, he’s going to need to start motivating more Democrats to vote.

However, even if Bernie does get these people to the polls, he’s going to need them to vote for more than just himself. Even if Sanders does win the the White House in November, the only way he would be able to push any actual policy through is if the Democrats also win majorities in both the House and the Senate. As of yet Bernie has done little to translate the support he’s received at the national level into support for Democratic congressional candidates.

The Need for Congressional Support

By and large, foreign policy is where the president has the most individual discretion to do what he or she wants. However, there are almost no aspects of Sanders’ political revolution that deal with foreign policy. In fact, this is an area of policy that Sanders has somewhat concerningly avoided discussing.

Most of the policy aspects of the revolution involve domestic issues such as campaign finance reform, income inequality, and banking regulations. To achieve such transformative reform on these issues, Sanders would have to introduce legislation into either the House or the Senate that survives the legislative process. As it stands, the Democrats hold majorities in neither the House nor the Senate. But even if the party were to regain majorities in the two chambers, that’s still no guarantee that Sanders would receive the support he needs to push through his policies.

Currently, only four congress-people have endorsed Bernie as the Democratic nominee (including, most recently, the former Vice Chairman of the DNC). Hillary Clinton has received 198 such endorsements. Given this reality, there is no way to ensure that current Congressional Democrats would automatically support policy changes as sweeping as those Bernie desires. As a result, Sanders could watch his political revolution crumble before his eyes unless he begins taking measures now to ensure he’ll have support in the House and Senate.

Unlikely Role Models

In order to really make this revolution a reality, Bernie needs to properly mobilize the support he claims he has to assemble a coalition of congressional candidates that would help him push through his policy goals if elected to office. Ironically, Bernie could learn from both the Tea Party Movement and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, as each was quite successful at turning voters out and building House majorities.

In many ways, the Tea Party’s rise to power in 2009 is the conservative equivalent of Sanders’ political revolution. The people the Tea Party mobilized were very similar to the ones that Sanders is trying to turnout: those disenchanted by the political process and angry at their respective party elites. What is most noteworthy for the Sanders campaign is the way the Tea Party successfully engaged in grassroots organizing. People all around the country formed hundreds of local Tea Parties that would organize various protests against the Obama administration and its policies. Somewhat surprisingly, it all worked, as these local organizations were able to both put pressure on GOP candidates during the primaries, and run successful Tea Party candidates that defeated Democrats and Republicans alike. In short order, the Tea Party won a significant amount of House seats and became a force to be reckoned with at the federal level. The Sanders campaign should study the Tea Party closely to figure out how they were able to build up these local organizations and how those organizations were able to get their members to be politically active.

But mobilizing this support is only the first step to revolution realization; Sanders would still need to get a fair amount of congress-people behind him, and this is where Gingrich comes in. In 1994, Newt Gingrich co-authored a document that outlined the Republican Party’s specific policy goals for the country if it were to take back the House of Representatives. Six weeks before election day, 367 Republican Candidates from all across the nation gathered on the steps of the Capitol Building and signed the Contract with America. The GOP went on to gain 54 House seats and 9 Senate seats in the election, giving them majorities in both chambers for the first time since 1953, with Gingrich himself becoming the new Speaker of the House. While whether or not the Contract had a significant impact on the elections could be disputed — since the document was introduced only six weeks before the election — the fact of the matter is that it standardized and nationalized congressional campaigns like never before. Every candidate could rally around specific policy proposals, and they could appear united in their efforts. They had effectively built a winning coalition in Congress before any of them even got elected.

Bernie’s Contract with America

If he wants to impact Congressional elections and get legislators on his side, Bernie should begin working on his own Contract with America. For him, that would mean really fleshing out the specific goals of his first hundred days in office. Creating an easy-to-digest manifesto that other progressive candidates can get behind could help a great deal in building Bernie’s progressive coalition that would aid him in passing legislation in Congress. Furthermore, the revolution doesn’t need to end if Sanders fails to win the nomination or the presidency. Continuing to push for a group of “democratic socialists” to run for office at different levels of government could ensure the survival of the revolution.

To be clear, Sanders has his hands full just trying to win the Democratic nomination. But if the political revolution is to ever amount to more than just another campaign line, he needs to start thinking more about how he can convert ideas into actions. There is some very real excitement and energy surrounding this campaign that has been recently missing from American politics, but it will matter very little if it’s not translated into tangible change.

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Lucas Rodriguez, a freshman studying economics, is a staff writer at Stanford Political Journal.