The road ahead is interesting, to say the least.
The Grand Old Party is completely fractured. The merely greed-driven "conservatives" were pushed from power by "neocons" (who dupped America into Iraq Deux and the Wall Street/banking financial collapse). They, in turn, were render ineffectual by "christian fundamentalists" (who apparently abhor Christian principles of love and tolerance), collectively known as the Tea Party. Their contribution was to prevent, at every turn, any attempt to repair a severely damaged America, and to instead further that decline by liberal application of their peculiar personal, cultural, racial and religious intolerance.
Not to be outdone, the Democrats just couldn't take it any more, seeing all that money and power going to the other guys. So they shed their people-first values and got on the gravy train, essentially becoming the Dem Party of the GOP (located somewhere between "conservatives" and "neocons" on the greed/values scales). Tried their hands at international relations and got pretty much the same results--more instability, more human misery, more bodies... But, hey--more money!
A billionaire came out of wrestle-mania-and-real-estate-reality-show-land and sneered at them all. A lot of angry GOP voters flocked to his banner and his quest to trump the party and take the presidency for himself.
Things were getting interesting.
A democratic socialist, when he saw who was on deck for the next presidency, knew he couldn't help enough as just one out of hundreds of voices in Congress. His life-long voice and battles for fairness and justice in all aspects of humanity had to step up, onto the national stage. He threw his hat in the ring and offered to help the rest of America to re-create America in the image THEY felt it should be.
The wrath and fury unleashed on the man was immediate. But he didn't back down. He continued those darned talking points. He kept asking if we wanted to build something better. Turns out quite a few folks did.
They lost a squeaker in Iowa, then landed a haymaker in New Hampshire.
Things were definitely getting interesting.
So of course, the Fates just had to throw in the death of a particular Supreme Court justice. This fellow played no small part in allowing the destruction obtained by said Grand Old Party. Wthout a tie-breaker, the Judicial branch cannot exercise their checks and balances functionality properly, so lower court rulings (disjointed by geography and often completely contrary) fracture America even more.
We've passed "interesting" and are into the realm of deer-in-the-headlights mesmerizing...
But only for those paying attention to this crap. Most Americans really don't know or don't care that all these things are happening. Really, they don't. They're just trying to get along and get by. They don't have the time or energy or resoures to expend beyond their immediate needs and the needs of their families and friends.
To you and I (avid supporter of Bernie Sanders), and to our counterparts supporting Hillary Clinton, what's happening now and what we're trying to accomplish is IMPORTANT! CRITICAL! URGENT! We have links! We can prove the lies! This is REALLY IMPORTANT!
Not so much. The stink of methane in their neighborhood is important. The fear of layoffs (United Technologies, anyone?) is important. How to stretch limited medicine is important. Single moms and single dads--there's only one thing important to them: their little ones.
They're all different colors, all different religions, all different cultures, and they carry their burdens and cross each others' paths with tolerance and courtesy. We're a small group of wonks wonking at each other on blogs and tweets, and we often slip up on the tolerance and courtesy. It's what we do. :)
Now Sanders loses another squeaker in another tiny state, and will likely take a punch in South Carolina.
The Sanders message and the Sanders vision seem pretty good to me. But that "rightness" isn't translating into reality. What's WRONG with the voters? Can't they see how much better off they'll be...? Can't they hear...? Don't they understand...?
No, no and no.
All politics is local.
Personal contact. Listening. Asking what THEY think would work. Building trust and respect. And when they ask what YOU think, then you can start talking about that America that is bigger than what they can see right now. But keep it real in scope. Keep it at a level they can accept and understand.
It's a lot of work and it takes time.
Don't fret early failures.
Bernie's job is to make the vision real for the nation. Our job is to make it happen.
And if we do, guess what?
We have to do it all over again!
Just like our democracy. We create it every day. It truly is a process, not a goal.