Bernie Sanders promised a Revolution, a promise that was seized upon with an almost religious fervor by a new generation of political activists, a generation raised with smart phones and terror alerts, a generation burdened by debt and facing dim economic prospects. Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of the political journal CounterPunch, called Bernie's raucous band of followers The Sandernistas, as they pitched themselves for battle against one of the most brutal political operations of the modern era, the Clinton machine. Ridiculed by the media and dismissed as a nuisance by the political establishment, the Sanders campaign shocked Clinton in a state after state, exposing the deep structural fissures in the American electorate. Ultimately the Sanders campaign faltered, undone by the missteps of its leader and by sabotage from the elites of the Democratic Party. By the time the Senator gave his humiliating concession speech at the convention in Philadelphia, even his most ardent supporters jeered him in disgust and walked out, taking their protests back to the streets. This turbulent year of mass revolt and defeat is recounted here, as it happened, by one of America's fiercest and funniest journalists.
About the Author: Jeffrey St. Clair (born 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana) is an investigative journalist, writer and editor. He is the co-editor, with Joshua Frank, of the political magazine and website CounterPunch, and a contributing editor to the monthly magazine In These Times. He has also written for The Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, The Nation, The New Statesman and The Progressive. St. Clair attended the American University in Washington, D.C., majoring in English and history. He has worked as an environmental organizer and writer for Friends of the Earth, Clean Water Action Project and the Hoosier Environmental Council. In 1990, he moved to Oregon to edit the influential environmental magazine Forest Watch, later renamed Wild Forest Review. In 1994, he joined journalists Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein on CounterPunch. He now co-edits the newsletter and the popular website. In 1998, he published his first book, with Cockburn, Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press, a history of the CIA's ties to drug gangs from World War II to the Mujahideen and Nicaraguan Contras. This was followed by A Field Guide to Environmental Bad Guys (with James Ridgeway), Five Days that Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond, Al Gore: a User's Manual, The Politics of Antisemitism, Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature, Imperial Crusades, Grand Theft Pentagon, A Dime's Worth of Difference, End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate, Red State Rebels, Born Under a Bad Sky, Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion and Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence. Jeffrey St. Clair lives in Oregon City with his wife Kimberly Willson, a librarian.