In the UK, the book-length post-mortems of the Corbyn moment are starting to be trailed. My own analysis was published online in January. In the US, the analytical dissection of the Bernie Sanders movement is well under way.
No doubt everyone who was even tangentially involved in the Corbyn and Sanders projects has their own account of what went wrong; and why it wouldn’t have gone wrong, if only they had been listened to. My account of Corbynism was certainly relentless in this regard.
But at moments like these, it’s important not to blame events that are shaped by broad forces on details of history. Of course, it matters if the people running a campaign are good at their jobs. Of course, it matters if a candidate is charismatic, and has the ‘common touch’. Of course, no historical outcome is ever entirely pre-determined. Of course, to a certain extent, anything could happen, and anything could have.
