Editor’s note: If you were a supporter of Bernie Sanders, watching the presidential debates has probably left you feeling angry or, at the very least, frustrated about the choice of presidential candidates on the ballot this November. Donald Trump is so awful he can make a neoliberal Wall Street Democrat like Hillary Clinton look good. But we know that Clinton will not aggressively champion the progressive solutions that are so needed in this time of crisis.

by Tobita Chow, Chair of The People’s Lobby

Now this is a little ironic because my task is to share some reflections on the election. And the election is not our prize.

This past week was a big day for election news. We had dueling leaks from the two campaigns. We finally saw excerpts from the speeches that Clinton delivered to Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street, and found out that she supports cutting Social Security, supports neoliberal free trade, and thinks that we should let Wall Street regulate itself. Meanwhile, the remarks from Trump suggest that he has used his celebrity and his power to repeatedly sexually harass women.

But none of this is a surprise! We already knew this about both of them. We knew that Clinton is a Wall Street-friendly pro-corporate Democrat. And we knew that Trump is a misogynistic monster.

For Reclaim Chicago and our allies, this election tends to function as a distraction. For one thing, because we’re in Illinois, our votes aren’t that critical in the general election at the Presidential level. We are such a blue state that if Trump wins here it means he’s already won 40 states. That’s unfortunate, but it’s the way the electoral college is set up. So for a moment, set aside that the election is happening.

Instead, keep your eyes on the prize.

Watch a recording of this reflection:

What are the issues that we need to win? What do we need to fix? Take a moment to share with a neighbor (ideally someone you don’t know very well) one issue that you care about, and why.

Now let’s share some of these.

• Minimum wage
• Mass incarceration
• Police accountability
• Money in politics
• Medicare for all
• Climate change
• Student debt
• Parental leave
• Global inequality
• Progressive taxation
• Affordable housing
• Nationalize the banks
• Infrastructure

No matter who wins the election, it’s not a victory for us or for our issues. Does everyone see this? Even if Clinton wins, we don’t get any of the things we want.

The election tho

But, strategically, we want Clinton to win. I’m not saying that because of what the Democratic Party is telling us. No: we need Clinton to win so that we can destroy that mainstream, neoliberal brand of politics.

What I mean is that it’s easier for us to organize and build a movement with a neoliberal Democrat in power. We need to stake out a clear position to the left of mainstream Democrats. And if it’s a mainstream Democrat in power, that’s very easy for us to do. But if we’re fighting an awful Republican, it’s too easy for us to get confused with the Democratic opposition, or get swallowed up by the Democratic opposition.

This is what happened with the 2011 Wisconsin uprising. People rose up in opposition to the awful Republicans. They occupied the Capitol building. It was a huge and inspiring. And a lot of people came together around radical progressive ideas. But how did it end? Everything got absorbed into the boring Democratic Party’s boring recall campaign. And the uprising fizzled.

And if a Republican had been President, then the same thing could easily have happened to Occupy. There would have been a boring Democratic opposition, and Occupy could have been swallowed up by the Democrats. And then it wouldn’t have transformed the political conversation in the way that it did.

So we want Clinton to win, for these strategic reasons.

And if Trump wins? I think this is very unlikely. But we should spend a bit more time as a movement figuring out what the strategic implications are for us. A lot of people think this would result in terrible scenarios, like concentration camps. We can’t rule that out. But there are a lot of signs that Trump really doesn’t want to govern. Just like he doesn’t want to run his own campaign. He’s a blowhard. He wants to spout off on TV and social media, but the last thing he wants to do is actually work. I think it’s very likely that Pence would take over if Trump won. And that would be awful! But a familiar kind of awful.

In any case, again, there’s not much we can do about this in Illinois.

The big picture

And we need to keep in mind why Trump is such a threat, even though he’s running one of the most incompetent presidential campaigns in US history.

It’s because the neoliberal status quo is crumbling. The system is not working anymore. The economy is garbage, in the US and worldwide. As a result, the promises that the system has made to people are turning out to be empty. This is why our student organizing is so powerful: society made a bunch of promises to you when you were children, and now you’re seeing that these promises are being systematically broken.

So the elites are losing their legitimacy. Populism is on the rise on the left and on the right. We’re seeing this in countries around the world.

And, unfortunately, the rightwing populists are in the lead, globally. We’re seeing movements powered by nationalism and xenophobia rising quickly in multiple countries. Here are some examples: In the last year we’ve seen gains for Front National in France, and for AfD in recent elections in Germany. Theresa May, the new Prime Minister in the UK, has made a hard turn to nationalism: her administration has proposed forcing companies to publicly disclose how many foreigners are working for them. President Duterte in the Philippines has murdered thousands of people in extrajudicial executions, including a number of labor leaders and community organizers.

This wave of nationalism points to a future of increasingly violent attacks on immigrants, and increasing conflict between countries. Trump is part of this trend.

The failure of neoliberalism underlies the rise of these nationalists, including Trump. Trump is part of a global trend, driven by dissatisfaction with the neoliberal status quo. These sentiments is not going away—neoliberalism’s failures will keep producing them. The only solution is to end this system.

So we need to overcome neoliberalism in order win our issues. And in order to eradicate the nationalist and xenophobic threat.

The movement is the prize

So keep your eyes on the prize.

However the election turns out, our goal remains the same: to build a movement on the left that can take power, move beyond neoliberalism, and create a more just and sustainable world.

Movements are coming that will change the course of history. The question is whether this will take us left or right. Our job is to make sure that the most powerful movements are on the left, and to make sure we’re at the center of this movement moment. Then we will multiply our leadership and be at the head of radical social change.

This what we are doing. How is our organizing preparing us to be at the center of a new movement on the left?

• Base-building in a variety of different constituencies
  • Student, church
  • Suburb, city; north, northwest, south, southeast
  • Moving into collar counties
• Working on a variety of issues, including demands for structural change which push the boundaries of the politically possible, including for global economic justice
• Transformational leadership development
• Narrative: fighting the war of big ideas
• Strategy, analysis, political education, including with allied elected officials
• The best progressive grassroots electoral operation in the country
• One of the best direct action programs in the country
• Deep coalition building

We’re on the right path. Let’s keep building. Keep your eyes on the prize.