insurgent Democratic campaigns frequently end up merely corralling critics of mainstream Democratic politicians into support for the eventual mainstream candidate. As Smith writes, “by steering liberal and left supporters into a Democratic Party whose policies and politics he claims to disagree with, Sanders—no matter how critical he might be of Hillary Clinton—is acting as the opposite of an ‘alternative.’”
This phenomenon is often referred to as “sheepdogging,” a term suggesting that candidates like Sanders simply function to capture left-wing unhappiness within the party and subdue it. (Indeed, it isn’t difficult to find images depicting Sanders as a literal sheepdog, herding voters toward Clinton, in online left-wing communities.) In
a scathing piece for Black Agenda Report, the essential journal of radical black politics, Bruce A. Dixon writes, “Bernie Sanders is this election’s Democratic sheepdog…. Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic party.” The Sanders candidacy, according to Dixon, will simply redound to the benefit of inevitable nominee Clinton, and in so doing turn activist energy into just more politics as usual.
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