Puntorojo roundtable: What’s next for the Latinx left?

Now that Bernie Sanders has left the race and endorsed Joe Biden, several articles in The Red Nation, New Politics, Latino Rebels and Jacobin, have assessed the campaign and offered next steps for socialists. At puntorojo, we’d like to contribute to this comradely debate by opening up our magazine for others who want to contribute their reflections. In this piece, we offer two reflections from members of our editorial collective and we invite other Latinx and people of color (POC) socialists to contribute their insights and perspectives as we move forward in a post-Bernie landscape. 

Through this exchange, we want to ‘to think out loud’, dialogue and reflect on the lessons—good and bad—we can take from the Sanders campaign. We invite commentary from those who participated, as well as those who didn’t support Sanders but organized other struggles and campaigns. Responses should focus on Latinx and POC experiences, reflections or perspectives. Submissions should be between 100-500 words in either Spanish or English, and should be sent to submissions@puntorojomag.org.

The current crisis makes many things unpredictable, and we’ve found it difficult to find solid ground. So, we understand if comrades feel unsure about their opinions or conclusions, but we still encourage readers to write their reflections and submit them as we think through these questions collectively. We believe that this exchange will be beneficial for the movement and we are confident that, as the Zapatistas say, we can make the road by walking.

Below we start our roundtable discussion with puntorojo editors Yanny Guzman and Héctor A. Rivera, who lay out an analysis of the Bernie Sanders campaign and follow up with their individual perspectives on where to go from here.

The Bernie Sanders Campaign

It is undeniable that the Sanders campaign galvanized Latinx voters like no other campaign had done before. In large part, this is due to the strategic resources the campaign put on the ground in Latinx neighborhoods. Chuck Rocha, senior advisor and Latino consultant for the campaign, made it very clear that Sanders won with Latinos because of cultural competency and because Sanders invested in those communities by hiring local youth as campaign organizers. 

Of course, Latinx usually vote Democrat, but Sanders’ policy platform made him stand out from all other candidates, even as Julian Castro billed himself as the first “Hispanic” candidate for President. Sanders’ immigration reforms—still couched as comprehensive immigration reform—promised to award citizenship for all DACA recipients by executive order. It contained one of the most detailed plans to dismantle ICE, support refugees who seek asylum and develop a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Besides immigration, Sanders had an arsenal of demands like Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, College for All, student loan forgiveness, public housing, and a Green New Deal. These were all ambitious reforms that were very popular with Latinx voters and would have dramatically improved the life of millions of workers. Equally important is Sanders’ record on Latin America; from his support of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, to his position on Venezuela, the military coup in Bolivia and literacy in Cuba—these views are antithetical to US imperialism and no doubt, improved the credibility of Sanders with Latinx communities. 

Rightly so, the community turned out for Sanders in Nevada, where he won 53% of the Latinx vote, and in California, where he won 49% of Latinx voters. Although Sanders did not win Texas, he still took 39% of the Latinx vote, compared to Joe Biden’s 26%. Part of what was exciting about the Sanders campaign was that it came with a political revolution that had inspired progressive activists—many of them Latinx—to run for office for the first time. After Bernie’s victory in Nevada, the energy of the Sandernistas was electric and for a moment, many of us could see Bernie “catching fire” as the establishment fumbled its centrists. It was a good time to be a socialist in the United States. Of course, Super Tuesday was sobering; the establishment strategy to close ranks behind Biden had paid off and Bernie found it difficult to catch up in the ensuing primaries.

The efforts of the Sanders campaign to engage Latinx voters are impressive and laudable, and they give us an idea of what it would take to mobilize millions of young Latinx to engage in an election. Still, cultural competency and outreach is the minimum a campaign should bring to minority communities. Future socialist campaigns will need to deliberately address deeper issues facing communities of color, and clearly Sanders failed to convince Black voters that his coalition would successfully confront structural racism. While it is undeniable and significant that Sanders raised the political horizon of millions of Latinx and POC youth, an emphasis on electoralism alone gives an incomplete picture of where consciousness is at and where it can go. Especially as the pandemic disproportionally ravages communities of color, the need for grassroots organizing is made clearer, and the immediate benefits of the Sanders campaign are in question. This is what we want to reflect on and what we want others to contribute: what next for the Latinx left after Sanders?

Hector A. Rivera:

Even as the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a national crisis, I still remained hopeful because Sanders had the platform and the policy to fight alongside nurses and against evictions. I believed that if push came to shove, Sanders would pivot his base to a grassroots focus of mutual aid networks that would support nurses, rent strikes, and refugees, thus making a truly grassroots, agitational campaign that would be in a better position to challenge Trump and the DNC establishment. Instead, Sanders threw in the towel, endorsed Joe Biden and dismantled his campaign apparatus.

Of course, I did not expect social democracy to be handed down from Washington and it’s been clear that “Not Me, Us” means we only have ourselves to rely on. Nevertheless, a sense of disappointment still remains, because now is when an “organizer-in-chief” is needed the most. The disorganized retreat of Sanders added to the uncertainty of the pandemic and unfortunately, many will only take away the betrayals of the Democratic Party. Other organizers, however, did not wait for Sanders to give direction and have been building mutual aid networks, supporting nurses, protesting outside prisons and occupying empty homes. In the weeks since Sanders quit, there have been more than 150 wildcat actions across the country and on May 1, thousands joined rent strikes.

However, looking at the road ahead we see a grim picture: 30 million unemployed, millions can’t pay rent and more than 65,000 deaths from COVID-19 so far. What is more alarming, is that as the crisis has unfolded, Black and Latinx enclaves in New York City, Massachusetts and Chicago are the most affected. Even though they are deemed “essential”, immigrant workers in agriculture, construction and meatpacking are treated as disposable since they continue to work without protective equipment.

The conditions around us are fertile ground for the emergence of a far-right mass movement in the United States. Millions of jobs will evaporate forever and millions—among them soldiers returning from conflicts abroad—will be left to fend for themselves just like in 2008. While many are still burying their dead, the far right has joined Trump supporters in rallies to open up the country. It is horrific to see neo-nazis calling to sacrifice the weak while armed militias occupy state capitols. These acts of symbolic violence run along a continuum that leads to the Gilroy and El Paso massacres. When we stop and consider the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities, calls to reopen the economy are covert calls for murder. We run the danger of normalized far-right positions in the midst of the pandemic. We cannot let the right fill the void left by the Sanders campaign.

Black, Latinx, Muslim, Asian, Indigenous and Jewish communities are constantly under threat in the Empire. These elements of our lived experience must be factored into discussions of how we move forward as the left in a post-Bernie landscape.

Black, Latinx, Muslim, Asian, Indigenous and Jewish communities are constantly under threat in the Empire. These elements of our lived experience must be factored into discussions of how we move forward as the left in a post-Bernie landscape. It is our responsibility to rally the socialist movement and step into the breach. We need to train, work with and learn from the millions inspired by Sanders and continue developing independent working-class institutions that don’t shut down when the election is over. Latinx socialists must be ambitious and ready to disseminate our politics in publications, media, social media, socialist organizations, unions of all kinds and anti-fascist organizations to respond to the crisis. At the moment, billions around the world are being put under the stress of two lethal contradictions: “stay at home but don’t earn a living” or “go to work but risk your life”. These are explosive tensions that will push millions of workers into self-activity to defend their life against the crisis of capitalism.

Yanny Guzman:

I did not endorse, donate, or canvass for Bernie because I wasn’t sure if I trusted him or the Democrats to deliver. I was still bitter with the DNC for the way they treated Bernie in 2016 and I wasn’t convinced that this time would be any different. Over and over, the Democratic Party has only paid lip service to Latinx issues in terrible Spanish and expects us to come out and vote. Once in power, they turn around and pass legislation that vilifies and impoverishes black and brown communities—proving that their pandering was a mockery.

Yet, despite my reservations, I started to believe that this campaign was different because it employed grassroots organizers and strategically focused on often ignored communities. Many of these organizers did not begin their careers working with Bernie, if anything, they brought much needed credibility to his campaign—the kind of credibility cultivated over the years organizing to address the issues of black, brown, and immigrant workers. So, I thought that perhaps the campaign was positioning itself not only to build a path to the presidency, but also to use these resources to support working class struggles and this was intriguing.

Even when the delegate votes weren’t adding up, I still hoped that Bernie would stay in the race and shift gears to use his campaign apparatus to support the communities that had poured time and energy to build his candidacy. Then, in mid-March, Covid-19 brought a life and death struggle to communities of color and instead of seizing the opportunity to mobilize his resources, he dropped out, and endorsed Biden, falling in line with the DNC and the “anyone but Trump” camp. Even though I understand the pull of lesser evilism, I cannot help but feel betrayed.

Living in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, it has become clear that the way forward for our movements is not through electoral politics. So far, there have been more than 175,000 infections and more than 13,500 deaths from COVID-19, and these numbers will continue to rise. Black, brown and immigrant working class communities have been disproportionately affected, particularly in Queens and the Bronx, where most “essential workers” live. Meanwhile, we bury our dead, carry the city on our backs and we’re still expected to rise to the occasion. With millions unemployed, thousands unhoused, and many left to die without testing and medical attention, New Yorkers are waging a battle to cancel rent, obtain worker protections, provide housing, education and health care for all.

Historically, we have survived structural inequality by relying on each other and this time will be no different. That has been one of the lessons for me, that we will survive this pandemic by supporting the tenant, labor, immigrant, indigenous, anti-imperialist movements that have existed long before the pandemic and have quickly responded to the pandemic. 

In the United States, the Latinx community is often seen as a coherent voting bloc interested in immigration issues, yet our concerns are as diverse as the nations where we come from. To fully engage with Latinx communities we cannot be limited to electoral politics because many of us don’t even have the right to vote. We will have to ask ourselves what are the structural issues we face as Latinx and transnationals living in the US and how to address them. Historically, we have survived structural inequality by relying on each other and this time will be no different. That has been one of the lessons for me, that we will survive this pandemic by supporting the tenant, labor, immigrant, indigenous, anti-imperialist movements that have existed long before the pandemic and have quickly responded to the pandemic.  The other lesson from this moment is that if we want to win, we will have to build independent socialist campaigns that are accountable to us and work to push for our demands.  There is no doubt that the Sanders campaign began to destigmatize socialist politics on a national level. It is our duty to further develop and center socialist politics and perspectives and work with newly identified POC and black socialists if we want to build movements capable of realizing our immediate needs and the future we want to live in.

Héctor A. Rivera is a queer, Mexican-American, socialist educator. He writes about geography, history and contemporary politics in Latin America. He lives in Los Ángeles, Califaztlán.

Yanny Guzman is a Chicana living in what is now known as the Bronx, NY. She is a socialist, activist, and rank & file union member. She is a writer, reporter, website administrator for the Working Class Heroes Radio. Currently she is a legal advocate for low income tenants in the Bronx.