My cousin is an ER doc who works in a very busy hospital in Indianapolis. He lives in a very affluent suburb near Indy, and has been an establishment conservative for all of his adult life. He has also been fairly active as a volunteer and donor to political campaigns starting when we were 16 (he’s six months older than me) and knocked on doors for David MacIntosh. He donated heavily to Mitch Daniels’s campaign. We argue a lot when I’m forced to leave California to spend time with my Hoosier kinfolk.
Since my dad passed last September, I’ve made three trips to the auld home place and talk to my ma more often than, well, necessary, really, but it’s good to check in, yeah? Anyhoo, while on the phone with her yesterday, she dropped this on me: “Your cousin, name withheld, surprised the shit outta your aunt and me earlier this week when he told us he’s supporting Bernie Sanders. Not only that, but he’s in touch with the campaign as to how he can volunteer.”
”Bullshit”, says I. “He’s Romney with less personality and about as progressive as Jim Inhofe.” So she started explaining his rationale. Remember, folks, this is a conservative who spent his first five years as a medical professional interrupting someone who dared called him “Mr.” instead of “Dr.” until he gained a grain of humility. So endorsing and volunteering for a progressive candidate in Indiana is pretty fucking big.
He said, and I called him up to verify this, that he was voting for, donating to, and volunteering for Bernie Sanders because, as an emergency room doctor, he’s fed the fuck up with our health care system. He works 12-16 hour shifts treating people who use the ER as their primary care facility, he often can’t treat people for 45 minutes to hours down the road because insurance paperwork needs to be filled out beforehand, and he’s fully aware that most of the people he’s seeing on a daily basis are likely to continue this pattern indefinitely unless someone does something to change that reality on the ground.
I asked him why he wasn’t taking the more pragmatic approach that Hillary Clinton is offering. He responded that having spent his entire career as an ER doc, the plan that Hillary has put forward may eventually help the next generation of health care professionals, but the system is broken now. What about the critics who say he’ll never get any serious healthcare reform passed? His answer deserves a blockquote.
”I’m not a god damn idiot. I don’t think for a second this will happen overnight. But I will dedicate all of my free time and resources to local and national elections to change the political landscape by 2020 so we can make this vision a reality”
That’s fucking huge. And that’s the Sanders campaign at it’s core. Knowing that there’s an enormous amount of ground to cover, but being willing to fight every day for real, systemic change. My conservative cousin has had a political awakening, and he sure as hell feels the Bern.