Sanders' 'Revolution' is coming – to a bookstore near you

Former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders is planning on writing a book about his vision for the future of the country and the campaign. 

First Look

Senator Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont will continue to promote the messages he brought forth during the presidential campaign with a book release this fall, slated to arrive in readers' hands just one week after the general election. 

The senator, whose long-awaited endorsement of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton came on Tuesday, is planning on releasing "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In" on Nov. 15. The book will describe his policy ideas for the future and discuss his insurgent presidential campaign, according to its publisher, Thomas Dunne Books. 

"Garnering over 13 million votes, winning 23 primaries and caucuses, and receiving more than 7 million individual donations to his cause, he energized the party as he fought for the average American with unrelenting energy and passion," Dunne said in a statement. "(The book) will be an inside account of this extraordinary campaign, and will also provide a blueprint for future political action. Its message: the fight has just begun."

As the presidential primaries came to a close and it became clear former secretary of State Ms. Clinton would receive the nomination, Sanders made it clear that the end of his campaign would not be the end of his self-described political revolution.

The first clear example of the Sanders campaign's legacy can be seen in the shaping of the Democratic party's platform, as The Christian Science Monitor reported this week:

"On Sunday, Sanders lauded “enormous strides” after the platform’s authors met to hash out a final, though non-binding, agenda. Alterations to the platform included a “reasoned pathway for future legalization” of marijuana; increased regulations on fracking and a toughened carbon tax (although not the fracking ban Sanders has urged); a $15-an-hour minimum wage, which would rise over time in tune with inflation; and a commitment to "crack down on the revolving door" between the private and public sectors, particularly Wall Street. 

“Thanks to the millions of people across the country who got involved in the political process – many for the first time – we now have the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party,” said Sanders. "

But although Sander's fingerprints are clearly visible in the platform's agenda, that may not necessarily translate into the kind of long-term change many of his supporters say they want. 

"For now, Sanders has pulled the party to the left, but we’ll see. Things can fade," Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, told the Monitor in June. 

In order to ensure that his leftward push of the party doesn't fade, Sanders may need to keep stumping, as the Monitor's Simone McCarthy wrote in late June:

Sanders himself plans to campaign to defeat Donald Trump and to "make sure that the Democratic Party not only has the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party, but that that platform is actually implemented by elected officials," he said on CNN.

For Sanders, that means working to persuade Democrats to adopt his flagship policies such as free public college tuition, $15 minimum wage, and strong environmental protections. It also means campaigning for politicians who espouse these goals – from city level positions to state and national ones. And he can do so from a familiar perch: his seat in Congress, where the Vermont senator recently returned after a campaign hiatus.

Some supporters, such as Les Leopold, director of the Labor Institute in New York, want to see Sanders push for the creation of the national organization to mobilize his agenda, as Mr. Leopold wrote for the Huffington Post. 

"We need an organizational structure that brings us together and connects our many issue and organizational silos," Leopold writes. "We should be able to go to Patterson, Pensacola or Pasadena to attend a meeting of a common organization that fights to reverse runaway inequality."

Leopold hopes Sanders' campaign could lead to the creation of a "large-scale progressive alliance" that could promote Sanders' agenda. 

"If Sanders could build some kind of movement – and I'm not necessarily sure that he could – where he could be an asset to the Democratic party would be to energize these voters to come out in 2018," Justin Holmes, assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, told the Monitor. 

Sanders' book could help mobilize the large coalition of primary voters, ranging from millennials to '60s-era liberals and blue-collar workers, who feel left behind by the developing economy and inspired to help keep momentum going for the senator's progressive vision. The final section of his new book, according to the publisher, will be aptly called "Where Do We Go From Here?"

This report includes material from the Associated Press.