For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
When we discuss the Democratic party, a few iconic leaders come to mind: FDR, who took on the moneyed influence in government, built the modern military, and gave us programs like social security; JFK with LBJ sealing his legacy with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and Medicare; RFK, whose vision inspired us and who we often think of wistfully as the lost, great President we might have had; Jimmy Carter, whose presidency may have been less than stellar but his subsequent leadership, his global service is exemplary; Paul Wellstone, whose fiery rhetoric was as far to the left, and further, than Bernie Sanders; Elizabeth Warren, who has essentially endorsed Bernie Sanders’ platform through her recent no-holds-barred speeches about the rigged economy and the scourge of big money in politics and was rewarded for that with an attack on her cherished policies from DWS.
For years we have talked about some of these bold, imperfect leaders, proud of their accomplishments, in some cases stunned by their loss and the loss of what might if been. I recall for years many of us here talking theoretically about who would represent the “Democratic wing” of the party. And we as a community even talked about Bernie Sanders, pretty much all of us in agreement that he was a bit too irascible to run for President but great for making the case for bedrock Democratic principles.
Yeah, Bernie’s great. Too bad he could never be elected. The powers that be would never let him take the baton. ‘Sides, he’s an Independent. Well, he could become a Democrat . . . . . . . .
And then he declared his candidacy. Wait! Could this thing we joked about as not really feasible, a bit of silly hopeful thought, actually happen?
Now think about it. Bernie’s history is one of being out in front on civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights. We didn’t study him but he was known to be a standup guy on these issues, and we were glad to see him blustering the Democratic message on the Sunday shows or after some egregiously unfair hypocritical GOP move, even sometimes a lame center-right move by Democrats (and we didn’t freak out about it!) He was in some ways a beloved figure. Even those of us who could not fathom someone like him running for President liked him.
I really expected those of us who’ve expressed so much pride and hope and sadness over these iconic democrats and their ideals would embrace the fact someone would stand up for those core principles they all talked about. Why not Bernie Sanders?
Suffice to say it will take years of forensics and endless discussion before we ever come close to understanding what happened to bring us to the point where people are here ridiculing Bernie Sanders, denigrating his years of service in the Senate pushing for progressive policies, falsely casting him as a racist, sexist, “false” on gay rights, a liar and cheat. And why every faux pas and stumble has been assumed to be motivated by the worst in him and in us.
Did he get caught flatfooted by BLM? Yes, and he responded to the first incident by diversifying his staff and expanding his policies and his message before the second even happened. And it wasn’t a new message for him; he’d been talking about institutional racism and unfair targeting of Black people by law enforcement for decades. And yes, his outreach has failed in good part and that’s on him.
Mistakes, though, should not breed so much contempt. There is more behind it — the DNC and other power brokers and the Clinton campaign came to the conclusion that they had to utterly crush Bernie Sanders: his youthful actions on behalf of civil rights, his prolific Senate career, his ability to reach across the aisle and negotiate pragmatically, his message of inclusion and working together, his early advocacy for LGBT and women’s rights, his bedrock Democratic policies. All of it had to be misrepresented, denigrated, erased. Along with the integrity, thoughtfulness, and open hearts of those of us who support him.
This is what you’ll get
This is what you’ll get
This is what you’ll get when you mess with us
Okay, that’s politics. It happened to Gore and Kerry and they couldn’t figure out how to work with it, but when Clinton pulled the same stuff with Obama, Obama survived it and thrived. I still believe Democrats shouldn’t act like Karl Rove toward one another, but I guess that’s okay now too.
For whatever reason people decided Bernie was not for them. That’s the way it goes.
But this isn’t about one man.
Why have people also begun to denigrate the Democratic ideals we’ve been talking about so long, and so longingly? Things like universal health care sooner rather than later, and pre-K and paid family leave and everyone being able to go to college, energy independence and sustainability, economic fairness, good jobs, a living wage, standing up for working people, speaking truth to power?
Bernie Sanders consulted a housing study to determine his minimum wage, achieved over a number of smaller increases. Wouldn’t we, as Democrats, want to support this fact-based policy? No, in fact, many of us scoffed at it, misrepresented it as “sudden” bad for business (wince, RWTP much?), and turned our backs on it, and him.
Haven’t we dreamed of having such bold, refreshing Democratic ideas presented by someone representing US? Isn’t that part of the reason we voted for Obama — the light at the end of the tunnel, the policies that will return power to the people and to those of us who want to make things better for everyone? Working together? Saying we can do more is not denigrating what he has already achieved.
Those of us who continued to talk about that dream were ridiculed, cast as racists and sexists — as if a man with zero history of any of that and a message of inclusion would attract racists and sexists in any substantial number. And the very idea of elections free of ‘dark’ money and supported by voters or of government investment it its citizens (including taxes) was treated with derision and attacked with right-wing talking points about ‘free stuff’ and ponies and ‘ya gotta play the system we have’. All that stuff we said we wanted for so long . . . . well, never mind. We’ll take this set of weak tea “shoulds” over here instead.
I've given all I can
It's not enough
I've given all I can
But we're still on the payroll
One of Bernie Sanders’ messages is that the powers that be seek to divide us, because as long as we are fighting over scraps, fighting amongst ourselves, we are not working together to confront the system that bleeds us dry and ignores our voices in favor of those with money. That the middle class is being taken advantage of and crushed and that people are being kept in a cycle of poverty in a rich nation as the money flows to the top. That echoes what some of our most revered leaders spoke about and warned about.
Those of us who embraced the message watched this past year as the powers that be built a wedge between us, building on old enmities and frustrations until we are at one another’s throats, and telling us that these ideas are scary and dangerous and we have to slow down, shhhhhhhh don’t get yourself all excited, we’ll take care of things, we promise. Vote for us or it could be worse.
And so now, this site where I’ve learned so much and where we’ve discussed the way it could be, and should be, if only there weren’t so much money in elections, or so much corporate influence in our laws, if only we could wrestle the environmental reins from those who deny and drag their feet and transform the way we treat our planet, and come together to support one another against the institution and make our voices heard, no longer wants to talk about that anymore. That’s a silly naive little dream now, something to set aside while the grownups continue the game and rules they’ve put in place.
This is what you’ll get
This is what you’ll get
This is what you’ll get when you mess with us
Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
I haven’t given all I can. In the end all I can give still might not be enough. But it’s not so much about whether a specific candidate wins or loses. I think the sadness and frustration a lot of us are feeling is that we believe that, together, we could actually do this — we could actually make poverty and economic fairness a bigger subject than who to bomb next, we could actually use our voices to influence legislation and policies, we could end institutional racism, we could use our taxes to invest in ourselves instead of weapons and noxious industries. Because we could, if we just decide to.
Only time will tell whether we will even make baby steps in a truly progressive direction at all if Sanders is not at the helm, but based on the way those ideals have been savaged during this primary and we’ve been told to shut up and eat our spinach, I’m not hopeful.
And the only reason this attention-averse, sometimes socially uncomfortable person is subjecting himself to this asinine process is because he genuinely believes the system is not beyond repair.
Not all of us can say that. But that doesn't make us right, and him "unrealistic."
More than any other politician in recent memory, Bernie Sanders is focused on reality. It's the rest of us who are lost.
Matt Taibbi
www.rollingstone.com/...