The decision by the AFL-CIO to cancel the planned candidates\u2019 forum in Florida this week is bad news for Bernie Sanders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would have been the perfect opportunity for Sanders to challenge his sole remaining rival for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden, on the issues which divide them. On all those issues \u2013 social security, Medicare for all, trade deals like NAFTA and TPP \u2013 Sanders\u2019 views are much closer to those of the unions. Biden\u2019s neo-liberal agenda would have been exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is now something we are going to have to get used to as more and more events are cancelled in the wake of growing fears about a global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With events like the Summer Olympics in Tokyo facing possible cancellation, it seems increasingly possible that the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to open in July in Milwaukee, may itself be cancelled \u2013 with some kind of alternative arrangement made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These changes do not bode well for the Sanders campaign which has relied heavily on mass events, some of which may cancelled under new \u2018social distancing\u2019 rules that are likely to be brought into effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And furthermore, both Sanders and Biden fall into the category of vulnerable individuals, because of their age, meaning that they are taking a particular risk in meeting voters in large numbers, face to face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By forcing campaigns to move more and more of their efforts online, the Sanders campaign might also be disadvantaged as mainstream media, even liberal media like MSNBC, remain largely hostile to him. And it\u2019s not only a question of his campaign being outspent online, as Biden and Trump buy up millions of dollars of Facebook advertising. As Mike Bloomberg showed in his brief campaign, online influencers on popular platforms like Instagram are up for hire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s not all bad news for the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pandemic is making it clear to many that a society\u2019s ability to stop the spread of a pandemic is only as strong as the weakest link. As Rupert Beale wrote this week in the London Review of Books, \u201cThe US response [to the pandemic] will be complicated by its lack of socialised healthcare. \u2026 People often don\u2019t go to the doctor in the US because they are understandably fearful of the huge costs they may incur.\u201d Not only can\u2019t many Americans afford a visit to their doctors \u2013 many can\u2019t afford to take a day off from work, especially if they are displaying no symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
COVID-19 is making the case for Medicare for All better than a hundred speeches by Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More generally, the pandemic is exposing the Trump administration as being completely incompetent, as well as corrupt. The US, which Trumps likes to tout as the \u2018richest country in the world\u2019 does not have nearly enough testing kits. The aid package Congress just passed, which gives out money to the individual states to cope with the virus, is pathetically small \u2013 a drop in the bucket, as several state Governors have already complained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This pandemic is turning into the worst global health crisis we have seen since the \u2018Spanish flu\u2019 which followed the First World War. That time, about one in four people on the planet became infected, and the death toll was in the tens of millions \u2013 more than died in the war itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just the Trump administration that is being exposed. This pandemic is focussing attention on systemic problems caused by capitalism itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
COVID-19 is exposing more clearly than anything else how ill-prepared modern capitalist societies, with their privatised health care and pharmaceutical industries, are for crises on this scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sanders campaign, and every movement working for social change, will need to adapt to the new reality \u2013 and also to exploit new opportunities that arise.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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