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Bigger Than Bernie: How We Can Win Democratic Socialism in Our Time
Win or lose, Bernie has reshaped the landscape of American politics. Where does the political revolution go next?
The political ambitions of the movement behind Bernie Sanders have never been limited to winning the White House. Since Bernie first entered the presidential primaries in 2016, his supporters have worked to organize a revolution intended to encourage the active participation of millions of ordinary people in political life. That revolution is already underway, as evidenced by the massive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America, the teachers Bernie motivated to lead strikes across red and blue states, and the rising new generation of radicals in Congress—led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—inspired by his example.
In Bigger than Bernie , activist writers Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht give us an intimate map of this emerging movement to remake American politics top to bottom, profiling the grassroots organizers who are building something bigger, and more ambitious, than the career of any one candidate. As participants themselves, Day and Uetricht provide a serious analysis of the prospects for long-term change, offering a strategy for making “political revolution” more than just a campaign slogan. They provide a road map for how to entrench democratic socialism in the halls of power and in our own lives.
Bigger than Bernie offers unmatched insights into the people behind the most unique campaign in modern American history and a clear-eyed sense of how the movement can sustain itself for the long haul.
The political ambitions of the movement behind Bernie Sanders have never been limited to winning the White House. Since Bernie first entered the presidential primaries in 2016, his supporters have worked to organize a revolution intended to encourage the active participation of millions of ordinary people in political life. That revolution is already underway, as evidenced by the massive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America, the teachers Bernie motivated to lead strikes across red and blue states, and the rising new generation of radicals in Congress—led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—inspired by his example.
In Bigger than Bernie , activist writers Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht give us an intimate map of this emerging movement to remake American politics top to bottom, profiling the grassroots organizers who are building something bigger, and more ambitious, than the career of any one candidate. As participants themselves, Day and Uetricht provide a serious analysis of the prospects for long-term change, offering a strategy for making “political revolution” more than just a campaign slogan. They provide a road map for how to entrench democratic socialism in the halls of power and in our own lives.
Bigger than Bernie offers unmatched insights into the people behind the most unique campaign in modern American history and a clear-eyed sense of how the movement can sustain itself for the long haul.
- GenresPolitics
304 pages, Paperback
Published April 6, 2021
2 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Micah Uetricht
6 books187 followersMicah Uetricht is the managing editor of
Jacobin
magazine and the host of the Jacobin Radio podcast The Vast Majority. He is the author of two books:
Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity
and, with Meagan Day,
Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism
. He is currently at work on a collection of oral histories of radicals from the New Left era who "industrialized," getting jobs in industries like steel and auto in order to organize.
His writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Intercept, the Wall Street Journal opinion page, the Nation, the Chicago Reader, Bookforum, and elsewhere. He is a former labor organizer and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in Chicago.
His writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Intercept, the Wall Street Journal opinion page, the Nation, the Chicago Reader, Bookforum, and elsewhere. He is a former labor organizer and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in Chicago.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 20, 2021
I finished reading this book last night, and then this morning, I joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as a dues paying member to start.
I had been thinking about becoming active in the liberal Democratic Party at some point, but this book opened my eyes to the more important need, first of all, to join a group like the socialist DSA.
I do desire to be involved in what’s going on in this country, the USA, that I’ve lived in for over 41 years — to work with others towards making this significant corner of the world a better place.
And for me and for many — who are in solidarity with the overwhelming majority in the U.S. struggling to make ends meet, and who are inflamed by the fact that the top 0.1 percent own about the same wealth as 90 percent of America and 37% of households subsist on less than $50,000 a year (an average household consists of 2.58 people) — what that means is to work “to transform our grotesquely unequal and unfair society,” which is also “teetering on the brink of irreversible climate catastrophe.” (Quotes are from the book, “Bigger Than Bernie,” written so well by Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht.)
“Right now, there’s no better political home for those who want to join [this] fight than the Democratic Socialists of America.”
And yes, it’s socialism we’re talking about here. There is enough productive resources in this country to provide for an abundant and dignified life for all. The only problem is that capitalism gets in the way — funneling ginormous fortunes to a tiny few, and handing over the nation’s patrimony to the service of profit-making over the backs of those who work and who actually create the nation’s wealth, immiserating the many with wages not enough to live on, instead of uplifting the well-being of all.
Says the book,
“We each have one life to live. We should spend it free and happy. To maintain a system that renders people miserable and unfree, for no other reason than the accrual of a huge amount of profits to a small number of people, is a crime.
“We deserve education, for the knowledge produced cumulatively over centuries of human civilization belongs to all of humanity. We deserve health care, for social innovations in the treatment of ailments should not be withheld from the ailing in their time of need. We deserve high-quality, comfortable housing to live in, designed not to profit the few but to shelter the many. We deserve an end to racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and all other forms of oppression. We deserve pure air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the earth’s miraculous bounty to appreciate and enjoy. We deserve bread, and roses too. We deserve art and beauty. We deserve free time. We deserve peace. We deserve to feel connected and valued. We deserve democracy, a true say in our own destiny.
“…And we won’t have it until capitalism ends.”
Is socialism a levelling down of everybody’s lives to a low and miserable common denominator? No. Socialism is the uplifting of everyone to a decent and comfortable life, at the expense of a tiny capitalist few.
Won’t it destroy entrepreneurially-generated abundance, and wreck the economy as it did in the former Soviet Union? The socialism that is in the hearts and minds of socialists today is not a replica of the failed centralized command economy of the Soviet Union. Rather, it aims for transformational reforms, via heightened class struggle, to place more and more governance of corporations, and the profits generated, into the hands of the corporations’ workers and employees.
And the vision of today’s socialism is democracy — its strengthening and its deepening — not dictatorship as was the situation with the communist states. The workers constitute the majority of the electoral population, and socialists of today intend to arouse, organize, and mobilize this majority to fight for its own working class interests — via electing socialists and progressives to power in local and national government, via lobbying to pass and implement favorable laws and regulations, via trade union organizing to gain for working people a larger share of the pie, via organizing protests and mass struggles for working people to awaken to their inherent power and to wield it, via pressuring elected officials and government bureaus to side with the welfare of the people, and via many other effective means, but overall, via the vast majority taking a stance of class struggle, fighting for itself instead of just leaving it to political elites who claim to have the people’s best interests at heart. This is the only way for the majority to gain back their rightful share of the income and wealth they produce, which opulent capitalists will not voluntarily relinquish.
This book is eye-opening to me as “a guide for [such a] movement as it strides into the future.” The book presents a sophisticated vision of political strategy, based on socialists grounding themselves among the majority of working and oppressed people via class struggle organizing, in communities and within anti-racist, trade union, and climate-change movements. It also presents an analysis of the current role socialists have to play within the Democratic Party prior to eventually forming a separate socialist electoral party. All of this to advance socialism’s base and power over the coming years, spring-boarding from the vastly expanded fortunes in recent years of the DSA, and of socialist ideas, catapulted by the ascendance of figures like Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and the rest of the socialist squad in the U.S. Congress.
Signed myself up.
I had been thinking about becoming active in the liberal Democratic Party at some point, but this book opened my eyes to the more important need, first of all, to join a group like the socialist DSA.
I do desire to be involved in what’s going on in this country, the USA, that I’ve lived in for over 41 years — to work with others towards making this significant corner of the world a better place.
And for me and for many — who are in solidarity with the overwhelming majority in the U.S. struggling to make ends meet, and who are inflamed by the fact that the top 0.1 percent own about the same wealth as 90 percent of America and 37% of households subsist on less than $50,000 a year (an average household consists of 2.58 people) — what that means is to work “to transform our grotesquely unequal and unfair society,” which is also “teetering on the brink of irreversible climate catastrophe.” (Quotes are from the book, “Bigger Than Bernie,” written so well by Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht.)
“Right now, there’s no better political home for those who want to join [this] fight than the Democratic Socialists of America.”
And yes, it’s socialism we’re talking about here. There is enough productive resources in this country to provide for an abundant and dignified life for all. The only problem is that capitalism gets in the way — funneling ginormous fortunes to a tiny few, and handing over the nation’s patrimony to the service of profit-making over the backs of those who work and who actually create the nation’s wealth, immiserating the many with wages not enough to live on, instead of uplifting the well-being of all.
Says the book,
“We each have one life to live. We should spend it free and happy. To maintain a system that renders people miserable and unfree, for no other reason than the accrual of a huge amount of profits to a small number of people, is a crime.
“We deserve education, for the knowledge produced cumulatively over centuries of human civilization belongs to all of humanity. We deserve health care, for social innovations in the treatment of ailments should not be withheld from the ailing in their time of need. We deserve high-quality, comfortable housing to live in, designed not to profit the few but to shelter the many. We deserve an end to racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and all other forms of oppression. We deserve pure air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the earth’s miraculous bounty to appreciate and enjoy. We deserve bread, and roses too. We deserve art and beauty. We deserve free time. We deserve peace. We deserve to feel connected and valued. We deserve democracy, a true say in our own destiny.
“…And we won’t have it until capitalism ends.”
Is socialism a levelling down of everybody’s lives to a low and miserable common denominator? No. Socialism is the uplifting of everyone to a decent and comfortable life, at the expense of a tiny capitalist few.
Won’t it destroy entrepreneurially-generated abundance, and wreck the economy as it did in the former Soviet Union? The socialism that is in the hearts and minds of socialists today is not a replica of the failed centralized command economy of the Soviet Union. Rather, it aims for transformational reforms, via heightened class struggle, to place more and more governance of corporations, and the profits generated, into the hands of the corporations’ workers and employees.
And the vision of today’s socialism is democracy — its strengthening and its deepening — not dictatorship as was the situation with the communist states. The workers constitute the majority of the electoral population, and socialists of today intend to arouse, organize, and mobilize this majority to fight for its own working class interests — via electing socialists and progressives to power in local and national government, via lobbying to pass and implement favorable laws and regulations, via trade union organizing to gain for working people a larger share of the pie, via organizing protests and mass struggles for working people to awaken to their inherent power and to wield it, via pressuring elected officials and government bureaus to side with the welfare of the people, and via many other effective means, but overall, via the vast majority taking a stance of class struggle, fighting for itself instead of just leaving it to political elites who claim to have the people’s best interests at heart. This is the only way for the majority to gain back their rightful share of the income and wealth they produce, which opulent capitalists will not voluntarily relinquish.
This book is eye-opening to me as “a guide for [such a] movement as it strides into the future.” The book presents a sophisticated vision of political strategy, based on socialists grounding themselves among the majority of working and oppressed people via class struggle organizing, in communities and within anti-racist, trade union, and climate-change movements. It also presents an analysis of the current role socialists have to play within the Democratic Party prior to eventually forming a separate socialist electoral party. All of this to advance socialism’s base and power over the coming years, spring-boarding from the vastly expanded fortunes in recent years of the DSA, and of socialist ideas, catapulted by the ascendance of figures like Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and the rest of the socialist squad in the U.S. Congress.
Signed myself up.
June 21, 2025
Bigger Than Bernie is a super informative, accessible read that breaks down how democratic socialism has long supported the working class in the U.S. It goes beyond Bernie and shows how real change comes from collective action. A great intro for anyone curious about how we build a more just future.
My favorite quote in the book, for the time being is this:
“I realized that, in the richest country in history, there was no reason we couldn't guarantee health care, housing, education, and a good job to every person. I began to realize that the fact that so many go without the basic necessities of life isn't an accident but a result of billionaires paying low wages, evading taxes, and destroying the environment. I began to understand that exploitation is core to capitalism.”
My favorite quote in the book, for the time being is this:
“I realized that, in the richest country in history, there was no reason we couldn't guarantee health care, housing, education, and a good job to every person. I began to realize that the fact that so many go without the basic necessities of life isn't an accident but a result of billionaires paying low wages, evading taxes, and destroying the environment. I began to understand that exploitation is core to capitalism.”
November 27, 2025
DNF at 55% - This book is pretty outdated even though it was published only a few years ago. So much of importance to what the book is talking about has changed since it was published and even since the writing of the second edition's introduction. AOC and Bernie have continued to betray their leftist values and capitulate to the Democratic Party. Mamdani has won but has already committed multiple egregious capitulations to both the pro-genocide, pro-corporation Democratic Party and Donald Trump. All of this is to say, the main premise of this book, which is that the "democratic road to socialism" is the correct way to defeat capitalism and the correct way to implement it is to run DSA members as Democrats in elections, has been negated by the reality, which is: DSA Democrats eventually soften their stances and water down their rhetoric to fit into the Democratic Party, or outright abandon the DSA altogether. This book, which is written by DSA members and writers for the DSA-affiliated Jacobin magazine, is basically an introduction to the history and recent activity of the DSA and how Bernie's run for president in 2016 jump-started the DSA into a modern organization (despite Bernie having no affiliation with the DSA whatsoever). It covers a lot of the same ground over and over again and contradicts itself countless times on one important point--if the main objective is to defeat the capitalist, imperialist Democratic Party, why is the method of the DSA to join the capitalist, imperialist Democratic Party (that has so far been successful in muzzling and/or deactivating elected DSA Democrats) in the hopes of one day breaking off to found a third party? I also found it kind of odd that the authors quoted Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder of Jacobin magazine, as a source multiple times when the guy was 32 at the time this was written! Nothing against him, but you'd think a book about socialism would reference people like Marx or Engels or other prominent socialist thinkers and not a 32-year-old founder of a magazine.
December 16, 2022
Repetitive - but nonetheless inspiring. The reporting about what has happened in this movement is great. The text still needs a spark though, to tell those stories with more colour, and to maybe even give us more of a how-to guide. A great start though, I hope they write another one in 2024 about how successful the movement has continued to be!
January 18, 2026
Beetje hoog ‘wij van WC eend’-gehalte. Wel weer wat geleerd en zin om over Bernie door te lezen.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews