US election: Donald Trump rules out US presidential debate with Bernie Sanders

US election: Donald Trump rules out US presidential debate with Bernie Sanders.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has ruled out a one-on-one debate with second-place Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders, killing off a potentially high-ratings television spectacle.

The suggested debate would have sidelined likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but given Mr Sanders a huge platform ahead of California's June 7 primary.

Emphasis Mine

Trump is afraid of Sanders because a debate would show Sanders to be a compelling candidate against him. Sanders is able to articulate policy positions that align with the values of the American voters without being condescending. His ordinariness would contrast strongly with Trump's garishness.

If this debate ran before the California and New Jersey primaries, Democratic voters would probably vote for Sanders over Hillary Clinton. This might even give Sanders a majority in the pledged delegates.

With a majority or close count in pledged delegates, the super-delegates would come under great pressure to choose Sanders. Clinton may still win the Democratic Party nomination because she has managed to give the sanction of the Democratic Party machine from whom the super-delegates are chosen.

If that were the case, then Trump would benefit from the perceived corruption of the Democratic Party nomination process, and may even attract sufficient Sanders supporters to win the Presidental Election.

Agreeing to this debate would be a high-risk strategy for Trump, as:

• Sanders has to be convincing enough for voters in the remaining primaries to vote for him over Clinton;
• Sanders has to be damaged enough by Trump so that the super-delegates choose Clinton over him;
• Sanders' supporters have to remain upset enough to vote for Trump over Clinton.

There are too many moving parts for this to work for Trump successfully.

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Eric Blanc: Party, class, and Marxism: Did Kautsky advocate 'Leninism'?

Eric Blanc discusses Party, class, and Marxism: Did Kautsky advocate 'Leninism'?.

Experience over the past decades would seem to demonstrate that while non-Marxist broad parties cannot effectively transcend capitalism, projects of building Marxist parties will likely flounder if they are divorced from wider efforts to promote a mass political representation of and for the working-class majority. Socialists today might do well to rediscover Kautsky’s forgotten 1909 contribution and to reconsider its strategic conclusion:

It is not a question as to whether we prefer a small resolute Social-Democratic Party to a big class party with no definite programme … A Socialist organisation of the S.D.P. type is as insufficient by itself as the Labour Party. We must encourage both.

Emphasis Mine

This would mean that the Socialist Alliance should continue with other parties like the Greens and with groups within the Australian Labour Party on common issues like Workers' Rights, defending Trade Unions, Refugees, Environmental Issues, etc.

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