Corbyn, Bernie and Movements

Now that Bernie had to sort of vaguely endorse Biden ( "He's a decent man") The Jacobin/ DSA Left is left holding a bag of soggy, poorly theorized and imagined tuna fish sandwiches. The consolation prize is that "we won the war of ideas" and that the movement will continue. Naomi Klein and others keep talking about "the movements" as though they had some objective form and content, but I just see an amorphous cellophane wrapper under which you might see "the climate movement", or "the fight for fifteen" or "immigrant justice" or "medicare for all". An amalgam of non-profits and advocacy groups and aging hippies and whatnot. The "movement of movements" that is supposed to somehow distinguish between bullshit reform and radical reform. Whatever the fuck that means.

One narrative has it that Bernie was done in by older voters but we shouldn't forget that it was really southern black voters who turned the tide. When Biden was endorsed by Cliburn and lots of baptist preachers fell in line, everything changed. We'll see how that works out for them.Jacobin still wants us to believe it was the "Democratic Establishment" pulling back room strings. I think the crazier shit gets, the more people just want "normal" as they imagine it (always better than the real status quo).

Thinking again about predicting in a crisis,it really is what links investors, modelers and journalists. Investors are trying to read tea leaves so they can make money through speculation, buy low sell high. Modelers are now being blamed by the Right for over-stating the risk of the virus and hurting the economy ( unnecessarily keeping surplus from Capital). Watch for this to intensify. Journalists can only create copy by speculating on possible outcomes, likely scenarios, etc.. and ALL of it is based on assumptions. Guess right and come out a winner, guess wrong and you're a goat for a brief moment. Then it all disappears down the memory hole.