Rules For Revolutionaries: Lessons from Vermont’s Bernie Sanders 2016 Presidential Campaign (BOOK REVIEW)

Publisher’s Note: Yah, we know. The Clintonistas and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rigged the 2016 Democratic Primaries and stole the presidential nomination from Bernie Sanders. As the Democratic Party continues to implode, even DNC leaders are now openly admitting this inconvenient truth, which we reported on last summer. How long Sanders will continue to play ball with mainstream neoliberal Dems – the Clintons, the Obamas, Pelosi etc. – is anyone’s guess. Will he ally with the so-called “Justice Democrats”? Be drafted to start a new People’s Party? Stay on point with a Democratic Party that is clearly lost at sea? Our answer?! It doesn’t matter, given the U.S. of Empire’s catabolic implosion. We’re feeling the need to secede. In the meantime, here is Lauren Greco’s review of the Sanders 2016 campaign team’s new book. We hope these lessons will be applied to the emergence of a 2nd Vermont Republic. Free Vermont, and long live the UNtied States.

A resurrection of traditional mass organizing techniques, accelerated by judicious use of modern communication technologies, with a focus on person to person relationship building, Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything describes the principles and tactics that helped propel Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign further than many expected it to go, and offers itself as a road map to guide the growing wave of mass movement organizing to come.

In Rules, Becky Bond and Zack Exley, the Distributed Organizing Team for the Sanders campaign, reject the increasingly dominant “small organizing” techniques characterized by cycles of low participation, small change, falling expectations and further lack of engagement. For them, Big Organizing is how we will address big problems that require bold change. It leverages new social technology to create meaningful peer to peer relationships across a radically inclusive cross-section of people. In the Sanders campaign, this meant building a mass organization made up of thousands of volunteer teams working towards a strategic, centralized plan. Rather than focusing on the incremental and attainable, they proposed revolutionary, and rather than targeting a narrow section of voters, they aimed to include everyone.

Over the course of the 22 rules, Bond and Exley share stories that highlight both the fundamental principles and the nitty-gritty tactics they learned on the campaign trail and throughout their careers. Embedded within these rules are themes relating to strategy, inclusivity, technology, relationship building, scalability and adaptability. For Example, Rule 4 “Fighting Racism Must Be at the Core of the Message to Everyone” and Rule 13 “If There Are No Nurses, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution” communicate the core message that oppression and inequality lie central to our common struggles, and that transformative change does not just require including, but actually following people of color, women, and those systematically excluded from positions of leadership and power. While Rule 8 “Barnstorm!” is a tactical account of their use of mass, in-person meetings to mobilize volunteers quickly and effectively through a process that was repeatable and scalable. This chapter also gave a window into the necessarily experimental nature of the authors who, confronted with an improbable task and a dearth of funding, had to improvise and pivot while learning fast from failure and remaining open to new ideas.

Bond and Exley make clear that the changes needed to address the interconnected challenges we face don’t ultimately depend on elections. That transformative change will come from the collaboration of all people in all spheres at all scales, actively working to reshape our collective economic and social lives. As demonstrated in Rule 19 “There is No Such Thing as a Single Issue Revolution”, the book acknowledges the intersectionality of all movements, with teachings meant to inform a broad cross-section of work, from small union campaigns to anti-war and climate organizing. In this way, this book serves as a briefing from the training ground that was the Sanders’ campaign, informing the practices we will surely need for the road ahead.

Lauren Greco is a graduate student in the Community Development And Applied Economics (CDAE) program at the University of Vermont.