No, Whitney is not referring to Bernie Sanders. He is referring to Huey Long who was governor of Louisiana and then US senator back in the early 1930s. Long thought he could fight and win against major corporations. Well, he won some minor skirmishes, but his character was severely attacked by the press media of that time, and in the end he was literally assassinated. Whitney draws a very limited lesson from his history to conclude that all we need today is another candidate like Long!
This is exactly what the country needs, a brassy-brawling chest-thumping populist who likes a good slugfest and doesn’t mind stretching the rules a bit when necessary. And if he happens to have some less-than-admirable human frailties, then so be it.I simply don't understand Whitney and other such critics of the status quo. Surely he knows the sordid history of corporate takeover of all political institutions in the US since the 1930s. This history has led the US to what it is today: a capitalist Empire governed by a hidden "deep state" of financial, industrial, and military directors that control everything behind a facade of a democratic government staffed by their loyal employees. Surely he knows this! He has certainly written a number of articles describing it.
So, why does he write such articles as this one? Is it because he, like so many others, has also learned the real lesson of the Huey Longs of American history: that you can't fight and win against them in their system? Is it that he, too, has decided to play it safe because he fears the powers of the deep state to destroy people who fight against their system?
What we really need today are revolutionary-minded people who are willing to risk all and join together to end the ownership and control of our economy, country, and much of the world by capitalists.