Change in politics often happens at a glacial pace; one guy wins, another loses. One party takes power, another heads into the wilderness. There is divided government. The judiciary does its thing. Commerce churns along. And all these things are seen through the ups and downs of one’s private domestic experience.
This week, for better and for worse, thing were not like this at all. The pace of change was such that you could feel the old fabric of politics ripping apart, waiting to be sewn into some strange new garment, the beginnings of a new social order.
First, that debate. Give it to Senator Elizabeth Warren, who eviscerated Michael Bloomberg and exposed him to a humiliation greater than that suffered by Richard Nixon the sweating man, Dan Quayle, and Admiral Stockdale all rolled into one when she confronted him over the NDA’s. But let’s also consider the general contempt with which he was greeted by all the Democrats on stage. Together, despite their differences, they unified the party around a new bedrock principle: no billionaire can buy us, or our elections. One human being, one vote, that’s it.
Such unanimity would have been much harder to find a decade ago.
Second, Sanders winning the popular vote in his third state in a row. A thousand-year old ‘Communist’, an independent legislator from a small Northeastern state, virtually guaranteed that he would win the nomination of the Democratic Party. Or that is to say: millions of American voters, of every age, gender, race, and sexual orientation, and of every class, but with SPECIAL representation among the poor, organized and communicated with each other with enough success to ensure the victory of their most vociferous champion. No one knows the future, but if Sanders can replicate his success in SC and other states, he will have a base strong enough to make the defeat of Trump extremely likely.
And remember: it’s not just about Trump. This is a battle to finally snuff out the Reagan Revolution, and set the wheel of American political history spinning to the left once again, rather than the right. This is a momentous opportunity to define the next few decades — as Mayor Buttigieg has so eloquently reminded us many, many times. Even old Joe Biden senses this — note the energy with which he praises and advocates for policies that just a few years ago would have been considered impossibly ‘left wing’.
But the fight is only beginning. And the third thing that happened this week should give us enormous pause. I’m not talking about Trump, but about Nature — Mother Nature. Not content to register her disapproval of our abuse of the fossil fuel resources we have so greedily extracted from her, she has sent for, as if for our chastisement, a new virus which our doctors and caregivers do not fully understand. The potential for this to be the start of a year of great suffering is real and frightening. The potential cost in human lives lost and damaged (for those who recover will live on with diminished lung capacity the rest of their lives) is terrifying to contemplate. The damage this virus will wreck on the cities of the world may be enormous. And the damage to our common economic life, in terms of lost products and services and wealth, could also be extreme.
Pray, if prayer is your method. Seek and speak the truth. Work for the future, and lay the groundwork for a better one. Care for others as you would care for yourself. But also remember, for this week may well be indeed one for the ages.
