Four years ago, despite 100s of hours of organizing for Sanders, I watched the campaign grind to a crashing halt in the my old home state during the New York primary campaign, even before my adopted state Maryland began to (early) vote in late April. In the aftermath of our Maryland primary, I found that I had been elected as a delegate to the convention, but it was very bittersweet. the definition of anticlimactic. In fact, that’s been the case for me in almost 40 years as a voter. The Democratic nomination has always been a fait accompli when my state voted.
I am hoping to finally be able to cast a meaningful vote in a Democratic primary — to make an important statement for a progressive party which would solidly back a literally world-saving progressive agenda — and one which would also transform this country for the better, in so many ways.
With Medicare for All, one’s ability to pay for the proper care would no longer be a consideration before seeing out medical care or deciding on a course of treatment. With a tuition-free public college (and trade school), the ability to pay for higher education would no longer be separating economic classes, and wouldn’t decide one’s future, or force students to carry massive debt burdens for many years or decades. With a $15/hr minimum wage, people could live with some dignity and we would be pumping more money into our economy in empowering our lowest-wage workers.
With a Green New Deal, including almost $1Trillion on transit infrastructure (which would be about a 10-fold increase) and a rapid transformation of our energy system to away from COs-producing sources to using clean, carbon-free, renewable energy sources. The Green New Deal will also provide solid, well-paying jobs for millions of Americans, including those being transitioned out of fossil-fuel industries and profit-taking financial service industries which provide no great benefit to the public that couldn’t be better provided by having the government take on the funding of the underlying services.
For example — there’s a great piece today from Vice — the start of a series examining why the US sucks at building public transit. The difference in the two Presidential candidates is brought into stark relief in one paragraph. First, the take on Bernie’s proposal:
“Bernie Sanders has proposed $300 billion for public transit by 2030 and $607 billion for a high speed rail network....That would be a lot more money where it’s desperately needed, and polling suggests it’s a popular platform with majority support.”
Here’s the take on Biden’s proposals:
”Joe Biden, in an excellent distillation of the failures of American transportation policy to date, does not commit any dollar amounts to these issues in his platform, but does commit $50 billion in his first year to repair roads, highways, and bridges.”
In other words, Biden’s approach is simply to continue the wrong-headed approaches we have followed for more the better part of a century, as we put the automobile and the petroleum industry at the center of our culture, pushing us into countless other bad choices, racist red-lining, destroying urban, black neighborhoods to create highways for white suburbanites, tearing up much of the public streetcar transit infrastructure, and undermining the livability and vitality of our cities. Even if you’re motivations are primarily cynical, partisan ones, you should see the benefits in making our cities a more attractive place to live even for people with modest means and the middle class. Nothing would do more to assure Democratic majorities than the rapid urbanization of even the red states.
And, then there’s Medicare for All, which will save this country a lot of money, improve the quality of life for millions, and force Americans to take a different view on their relationship with their federal government. That would also benefit Democrats, even if it means we will no longer be able to grandstand by promising great new healthcare programs to achieve universal coverage or access, which we never fully realize. It’ll be good for business too, which might transform how some small business people regard our party.
We’ve made lots of mistakes in this country in the post-war era (and plenty before that, too). Let’s try to do better. You can do better for me, for starters, especially if you live in one of the states voting over the next month. Vote for Bernie Sanders, so that I can finally cast a meaningful primary vote.
Thanks.