Bernie Sanders and Henry Wallace: progressive politicians and American pseudo-democracy

Journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar often says on his TV247 programs that Bernie Sanders has no chance of being elected president of the United States. Not for lack of votes (recent polls show that Sanders has a real chance of beating Trump in 2020), but because the Clinton machine within the Democratic Party and the American billionaire elite will not allow it.

The Democratic Party primaries, which took place a few weeks ago in Iowa, caused controversy. Initial reports indicated errors detrimental to Sanders, in favor of Pete Buttigieg. After the suspension of the official results, caused by a failure in the application that counted the votes, several inconsistencies were demonstrated. There are votes counted for candidate Patrick Deval that belonged to Sanders and others for Elizabeth Warren registered in the name of Tom Steyer, for example.

The app was chosen in a less than transparent manner by the regional committee. The app's developer, Shadow Inc., is a subsidiary of Acronym and was founded by veterans of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Furthermore, one of its founders and CEOs is the wife of Michael Halle, one of Pete Buttigieg's campaign strategists.

The policies advocated by Sanders and recent events allow us to compare the 2020 Democratic primaries with Henry A. Wallace and the Chicago Democratic Party primaries of 1944.

Henry Wallace and the elections that changed the world.

Filmmaker Oliver Stone produced a documentary series titled "The Untold History of the United States," based on the book of the same name he co-authored with historian Peter Kuznick. In the first episode, Stone reveals that his goal is to tell stories about events and personalities that are left out of textbooks, people forgotten for not submitting or conforming. People like Henry Wallace.

Henry A. Wallace was a progressive and pacifist politician. During Roosevelt's first two terms (1933-41), he served as Secretary of Agriculture and was one of the key figures behind the New Deal policies aimed at combating the Great Depression. He instituted agricultural subsidies, soil conservation and land use programs, and in cities implemented food assistance programs for the needy and school lunches for students.

Wallace advocated for equal pay regardless of sex and ethnicity, an end to colonialism, opposed military and economic imperialism, and called upon the world's population for a popular world revolution. For him, the 20th century would be the century of the common man. Later, he came to advocate for reconciliation with the USSR, opposed the Cold War, and favored ending the US monopoly on the atomic bomb.

When running for his third term, Roosevelt chose Wallace as his vice president. Democratic leaders, who feared Wallace's progressive ideas, did everything they could to prevent it. Roosevelt then threatened to drop out of the race if Wallace was not accepted as vice president, which led the Democratic party to accept the nomination. Both were elected in 1940.

In 1944, Roosevelt ran for his fourth term, already in very poor health. Because of this, some believed he wouldn't be able to finish his term. Despite Gallup polls indicating Wallace as the second most popular man in the US, behind only Roosevelt, with 57% approval among Democratic voters, they were unable to secure Wallace's nomination as vice president again.

Because opposition within the party was high, a convention was held in Chicago to choose the vice-presidential candidate. On the day of the convention, Wallace was leading with 65% of the vote, Byrnes with 3%, and Truman with 2%. Wallace's victory was considered certain, but party leaders demanded that the convention chairman suspend the session until the following day.

That night, through negotiations, promises of positions, ambassadorships, and bribes, Democratic forces rallied around Truman. The following day, to everyone's surprise, during the convention it was announced that no new candidates would be accepted (similar to today's maneuvers, but instead of withdrawing the candidacies of Bloomberg and Buttigieg and concentrating votes on Joe Biden, new candidacies were prevented to unify the votes on Truman).

Delegates who had previously supported Wallace withdrew their votes, and many others switched to Truman. Gradually, the difference between the candidates changed, and Truman was elected as the vice-presidential candidate.

In early 1945, with Roosevelt's death, Truman took office as President of the United States. During his administration, he initiated the Cold War, created the CIA, maintained a militaristic state, and encouraged McCarthyism.

In 1948, Henry Wallace ran for president representing the Progressive Party. A victim of fake news, labeled unpatriotic and a supporter of communists, he received less than 3% of the vote, ending his political career.

Back to the present day

The Democratic Party Convention in Iowa, combined with Super Tuesday, is not yet as decisive as the one in Chicago in 1944. Other primaries will come. But the always well-informed Pepe Escobar warns that there is a fake news campaign against Sanders, with all sorts of accusations, and that this comes from within the Democratic Party itself.

This raises a question: will the country that calls itself a bastion of democracy (even though its own history proves otherwise, as seen in the, at the very least, suspicious elections between Bush and Al Gore in 2000) now allow the election of a progressive president with a policy opposite to that which has been adopted in the last 80 years?

And this is happening precisely at a time when the US is losing its global hegemony and initiating a cold war with economic embargoes, media and legal attacks, this time against China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and any country deemed contrary to its interests.

For almost a century, in the name of democracy, the country responsible for the largest number of refugees in human history has been causing wars, destroying countries, and organizing coups d'état. This is not about democracy or principles. It's about "the economy, stupid!", as James Carville, then an advisor to Bill Clinton's campaign, said in 1992.