Is America ready for Bernie Sanders’ socialist utopia?

Russell Brand, the English comedian, actor and author-turned-activist, stirred people worldwide when, in late 2013, he emerged as one of the most recognisable faces of the anti-establishment movement. 

It began in October that year when Jeremy Paxman interviewed him on BBC’s “Newsnight”. Aflame with charisma, Brand oscillated between humour and seriousness as he insisted a global egalitarian “revolution” was needed because politicians didn’t serve the people, only big business, resulting in massive wealth disparity, entrenched social ills, environmental destruction and voter despondency. He said he had never voted because of the futility of the act and urged others to follow suit. 

In an edition of British political weekly the New Statesman published the following day and guest-edited by him, the 40-year-old said his homeland required a “total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system” but “not on the ballot”. 

For the next 22 months he was ubiquitous, using his huge reach via the mainstream media and social media to maximum effect as he promulgated his peaceful insurgency mantra. The millions of mostly young people who follow him on Twitter and Facebook lapped it up. So did the millions who have watched his YouTube show “The Trews: True News with Russell Brand”, which was launched during this maelstrom of antipathy.

Naturally, the right savaged him. He was charged with proffering an alternative social paradigm not rooted in reality, and dismissed as a spotlight-craving entertainer looking for a career boost – a clownish multimillionaire ex-drug addict lothario who campaigned for change lathered in hypocrisy given his lifestyle and the benefits he derives from the existing system. Even elements of the left mocked Brand and sought distance from him. He did however spark intense international debate.

US senator Bernie Sanders has taken that debate to the next level with his audacious presidential bid. Initially, his campaign wasn’t taken seriously. He bemoans much of what Brand bemoans, and like the comedian his views are considered ludicrously unrealistic by many. But again like Brand he has galvanised the disenchanted, most of them Millennials, with his anti-establishment rhetoric. 

However if the two-term independent senator from Vermont becomes president would his supporters get a bastardised version of the progressive firebrand they voted for? 

During his 16 years in a Republican-dominated House of Representatives, Sanders, the longest serving independent in the House’s history, adroitly secured legislative amendments that matched his ideology. But the executive branch is a different beast, especially for a democratic socialist. When millions of Americans hear that term they only hear socialist and are thinking, “Dirty commie.” A recent Gallup Poll found that 50 per cent of them wouldn’t vote for a socialist candidate.

For Sanders’ young supporters the word “socialist” doesn’t turn them off – it turns them on. So when the bespectacled 74-year-old with a shock of thinning hoary hair, rolled shoulders and a pugnacious demeanour stood centre stage after his Iowa caucuses opening-salvo triumph on February 2 and proclaimed the “political revolution” had begun, they went wild. With an eye on the New Hampshire primary on February 10, where he trounced Hillary Clinton, he repeated this well worn but fresh message: 

“It is just too late for establishment politics and establishment economics.” “We do not represent the interests of the billionaire class, Wall Street or corporate America. We don’t want their money.” “The American people are saying no to a rigged economy.” “We are going to create an economy that works for working families, not just the billionaire class.”

Two men born of different generations in different countries and who couldn’t be more contrasting in most respects have enraptured the young for the same cause. But what will come of it? Is the world’s richest 1 per cent, who control as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, according to Oxfam, shaking in their Gucci loafers?

In his New Statesman article Brand pondered, “Is utopian revolution possible?” Sanders desires a socialist utopia for the United States, citing Denmark as an example. Are voters ready to embrace his vision of America and send him to the White House? And if elected president could he bring about the change he has promised? For the second question, especially, I’m thinking that Sanders, a Brooklyn Jew, would have a better chance of hailing down a taxi in Palestine.