This is a very dense read, and a lot of it is obscured by Marxist lexicon. The broad point is that the Sandernistas did politics wrong because class is no longer a driving force in politics. This is broadly true among developed economies, but it is most noticeable in the birthplace of representative government: the US and the UK (the article doesn't talk about Corbyn, but his ghost flits around the edges of the essay).
There is a fair amount of talk about culture, without really talking about culture. By focusing on why Marxist class consciousness failed, it completely omits discussion of the civil rights revolution of 1955-1980. This included not only African American civil rights, but LGBT rights, second wave Feminism, Native American rights...the list is almost endless. All of this created a cultural backlash that has done more to define politics than "class" - a concept that has always had a weak grasp on American political imagination.
I'm sure this essay could have been written to describe why Eugene V. Debs never quite broke through.
Marx was a decent historian, looking at how forces within the economy could drive social change. OK, as far as it goes. He was an abject failure in predicting what came next. He has never been right about that.
He's like a doctor that accurately diagnosis you with a viral infection then suggest inject bleach and sticking a UV light up your ass.
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