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Systems, whether they be strictly social or political try to maintain a equilibrium, and to threaten that equilibrium results a great deal of unrest and turbulence as one of the first priorities of any system is the preservation of said system.  The tenor of so many articles in the American counter-culture media are about the obstacles Bernie Sanders faces, not only from his political opponents, but from his own ‘team’ and the supposedly friendly liberal media.  This excerpt from Counterpunch laments the multi-pronged attack Sanders faces, not only from his formal political opponents, but also from within.

The push-back Sanders gets from the liberal establishment is indicative that the policies Sanders stands for will upset the apple cart so to speak, and directly affect the status quo.  The fact that the current status quo in the US is geared to serve a the minority of the population is seemingly irrelevant.

Threats to the status quo are all consuming and most be defended against at any cost.  The Democratic primaries of 2016 would seem to bear witness to this as the DNC chose a candidate that was less likely to beat the republican candidate in an election, but if elected would have maintained the system as is.  The defeatist calculus was that it was better to lose to false populist cretin than have a president that would change the rules of the game toward a more people-centric political polity.

That same battle is being played out again with Sanders as not only must he contend with his actual political opponents, but he must fend off defenders of the status quo that are attacking him from within.

“Finally, Sanders is a “radical,” they tell us, when only a “Centrist” can win. Funny, a centrist didn’t win in 2016. And in 2008 we all voted for a guy who promised “change,” even though he didn’t deliver. Does anyone seriously believe, with 40% of Americans near the Poverty Line, and most of the rest just one illness away from bankruptcy, with young people leaving college saddled with a lifetime of debt, few families able to afford a home without the debt of a mortgage, and many only getting by on credit card debt, that voters are looking for the status quo? If you do believe this, chances are you’re one of the comfortable few, maybe one of the top 10%, and you are not representative of most of the people in this country.

Liberal Media would have us believe that the country is evenly divided into Democrats and Republicans – well, in a way it is. According to Gallup, Democrats and Republicans are tied 27% of likely voters each. That leaves 45% of Independents and those are the people who will decide this election. They will not vote for a Democrat out of Party loyalty or even in many cases simply because they are not Trump. These are people who don’t want to be affiliated with either Party. This is a group that repeatedly repudiated the uninspired Party careerists like Gore (at the time, at least), Kerry, McCain, Romney, Jeb, Clinton and Biden. They will not have gone heavily for Sanders in polls and they elected Trump – many of the same people who voted for Trump said they would have voted for Sanders had he won the Nomination.”

Sander’s democratic socialism – the type of governance that we see in Canada and the Scandinavian countries –  is the real threat here and the structural backlash we are seeing speaks volumes to who the current US polity is designed to serve.