The Freedom Tape XI

Trump Urinal in Paris

1. So Unjust - Stephen Marley ft. Rakim & Kardinal Offishall

2. Letter to the Free - Common ft. Bilal

3. Filthy America - The Lox

4. Don't Shoot - Dave East

5. Black America Again - Common ft. Stevie Wonder

6. Change - J. Cole

7. Gotta be More - Nick Grant ft. BJ The Chicago Kid

8. Don't Touch My Hair - Solange Ft. Sampha

9. We The People - A Tribe Called Quest

10. Go Tell 'Em - Vic Mensa

11. Uprising - Muse

12. The Party's Over - Prophets of Rage

13. Formation - Beyonce

14. Million Dollar Loan - Death Cab for Cutie

15. F.U.B.U. - Solange ft. The Dream and BJ The Chicago Kid
16. Breathing Under Water - Emeli Sande
17. Stay Up - Fantasia ft. Stacy Barthe
18. War - Nas ft. Raye
19. Freedom - Pharrell Williams
20. FDT - Nipsey Hussle ft. YG

The Bernie Sanders Campaign

Source

Political Revolutionary 

OR 

Negotiator Between Progressives and Moderates of the Democratic Party

"There is a lot of sentiment that enough is enough, that we need fundamental changes, that the establishment — whether it is the economic establishment, the political establishment or the media establishment — is failing the American people." –Bernie Sanders, April 30th, 2015.

This excerpt came as Sanders announced his Democratic bid for the White House and marked the start of an electrifying campaign for presidency. An independent state senator from Vermont, former state representative and former Mayor of Burlington, VT, Sanders galvanized a new generation of voters considered progressives. His campaign has railed against big money in politics, blasted corporate media, challenged establishment politics, embraced #BlackLivesMatter (after some protesting), and championed working-class America. He’s called his campaign a “Political Revolution.” Ballots are still being counted in California and Sanders is closing the gap with Clinton. However, with a pledged delegate count of 1,831 to 2,220 Sanders to Clinton, it is mathematically not possible for the self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” to be the democratic nominee. With the democratic national convention in July and Sanders vowing to work with Clinton to beat Donald Trump, this “Political Revolution” is turning out to be more of a negotiation between progressive ideals and moderate ideals for the direction of the Democratic Party. The premise of this post is to dissect Sanders and his negotiation between the far-left of the democrats and the center-left, Clinton in this case represents the center-left, and Bernie the far-left. 

This post will analyze Bernie Sanders’ campaign as a negotiation with the Democratic Party. The analysis will take the framework of Tricks of the Trade by Robert Burdick, ten points on executing a good negotiation, and look at Sanders' power in this negotiation, the degree of difficulty he selected, his strategy, how he disarmed the opposition, clue searching, explanation of his power, the path to agreement on common grounds, his brainstorm of valuable options, his bargaining, and the use of deadlines.

Knowing His Power

To enter into a presidential race, particularly for one of the most powerful developed countries, one has to consider the type of power they have. There are six different kinds of power that will be used to analyze what Sanders has. The first is constructive power. Entering into the presidential race, Sanders did not have much constructive power. The perception the media, democratic establishment, and the general public had of his ability to clinch the nomination was not high. Last June, polling numbers in the country’s first contest, Iowa, did not favor Sanders at 16% to Clinton’s commanding 57%. As the campaign moved on and the debates began, it was clear that progressive Sanders did have some obstructive power towards the moderate Clinton campaign and nearing towards the end of the race he won a surprising 23 contests.

The fairness power Sanders brought into the race is what galvanized the country. His campaign advocated for getting money out of politics, for breaking up big banks, for a $15 minimum wage, for tuition free college, and victims of police brutality such as Sandra Bland found hanging in a Texas jail cell. The stances that Sanders took on forced the Clinton campaign to at the very least change the tone of her message and some of her political stances. The collective power of the Sanders campaigned proved to be an unprecedented force behind the push for the presidential bid. During his campaign he touted that he did not accept money from Super PACs, raised $229.1 million with 88% of the contributions being of $200 or less. Since December of last year he broke the record for most contributions to a campaign at 2.3 million. Of the PACs that did support him, they were labor unions. Outside of raising money, Sanders’ rallies attracted record numbers, with over 28,000 supporters showing up to a rally he had in his hometown of Brooklyn, NY. There was effectively no walking power that Sanders used in this negotiation because to him that would mean conceding to Clinton or helping Trump win.

Finally, there is personal power. Prior to becoming a democratic candidate, Sanders was the most well-known independent politician in Washington D.C. always advocating for the low to middle class. An activist in his youth, Sanders was arrested for protesting segregation in Chicago public schools and he attended the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. His passion for justice and equality seem to be part of the personal power used in his negotiation for a progressive democratic party.