, Columnist
Sanders Won't Be Fooled Again by Democracy
You can't trust those voters.
Forget the voters. We're revolutionaries.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
American socialism is not for the impatient. From the early 19th century on, a parade of reformers, unionists, utopians, anarchists, syndicalists, socialists, communists, pranksters and malcontents have sought to pick the lock of American capitalism and free the oppressed.
Wall Street, the Vatican of capital, was a source of grievance, and a bloody target of terrorists, at least as far back as 1920. Mass deprivation in the 1930s and youthful radicalism in the 1960s each took their best shot at revolution. In between, beatniks and professors scoffed at the herd instincts of mass consumers and the false consciousness of the perpetually striving.