Feeling the Bern

…but for how long?

LIGHTING THE LIBERAL TORCH
A gym workout or a good run should end with the sense that you’ve gone beyond your routine, kept lifting six, seven, eight more times…kept running after you’d crossed your own finish line…giving it another 50 yards or even fifty feet…just so you could feel the burn.

That metaphor works so well for the Bernie Sanders campaign that has shocked the political establishment, the media, the entire country. Millions of people following the words of a democratic socialist Senator from Vermont (by way of Brooklyn, NY) who launched a campaign for President simply because he wanted to say things that no one in the nation’s establishment (Democrat and Republican) would bother to say.

Millions of dollars flowing to this curmudgeonie-looking guy, sparse gray hair blowing in the wind, fists pumping the air, face set in a scowl of outrage as he pounded the message home again and again…in every interview, every speech, every debate…answering every question or statement with that same message. Repetition makes for learning. Repetition makes for remembering. Repetition drives success. Repetition sells.

You know his message or you wouldn’t be reading this one. America had been purchased by the one percent. They own the government. They write and enforce the laws. Set the agenda and made sure it passes. We are no longer a democracy, we were an oligarchy taking orders from a precious few who could afford to give them and back them up.

It was stunning because thoughtful Americans believe it to be true and listening closely hear it from an Elizabeth Warren and occasionally from this old guy in Vermont. But now he was campaigning for President, was serious, was looking into the faces of Democrats and Republicans and telling them that they were all the same. That party names were just empty labels. That they stood for nothing. That government officials were all part of a system that had purchased everything it wanted for a very, very few Americans — maybe ten percent..owning more of America than all of the rest of the 90%.

To change all of it, he called for a ‘political revolution’ as the only answer possible.

And with great media support and money to spend he gave Hillary Clinton a race that she would not have had.

And the message was clear…what was wrong, what it could look like if a political revolution took hold. What was missing – but it never seemed to matter – was how the changes would take place.

People were feeling the Bern…even the Republicans couldn’t ignore his influence. But the Bern, even after 30 years in Congress, couldn’t get his numbers to make sense and hadn’t thought through all the answers to “how”.

It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

What America needed and still needs to refresh its soul is outrage and Bernie provided it with unfailing energy and ‘on message’ every day and night.

WHAT MATTERS NOW
The Democratic Party will meet in Philadelphia and Hillary Clinton will become its Presidential nominee. As this is written it appears that Donald Trump will be her opponent but wise political pundits predict that the Republican Party will not give away its power base, it’s very party to a man with Donald’s background, foreground and essential essence as salesman not political thinker or doer….and that Cleveland will become notorious not only for just winning a major professional sports title but hosting one hell of a ‘heavyweight prize fight’.

But the question here is what will Bernie do.

He has summarized everything perfectly. He has 12 million votes and lots more who didn’t vote but who clearly understand that the game, the system, must change.

He has called for a continuation of a political revolution through involvement in the system so as to change it. That is intellectually honest because America is an evolutionary country not a revolutionary one. He wants people to run for office at all levels and to get involved and stay involved way beyond this Presidential campaign.

He has promised to help people to head in that direction.

He has promised to do all he can to have the Democratic Party’s platform reflect the message he has been delivering and he should be successful in many instances even if that won’t make much of a difference in the hurly-burly of the months ahead.
But will he attempt to gather his people – his Berniecrats – into a voting bloc for Hillary Clinton?

Will his endorsement carry that pledge – mi casa, su casa – and genuinely encourage the ‘Bern’ to continue with a wholehearted endorsement of the very system that Hillary Clinton truly does represent?

We think not…not quite…not exactly…OK but not wholehearted. He doesn’t have to…and we think he probably won’t. But he will make it clear that America has no chance with a Republican leader..whether Trump or one of the also-rans.

He will indicate that there is no sense in standing still and that Hillary as President could offer her genuine talents in unexpected ways.

Something happens to a person who is President. Something bigger than ever experienced before. If the influences carry on in those people who really care beyond the sound and fury and fun of a political campaign…their voices will be heard.

We hope that those ‘feeling the Bern’ these many months will try to stay with the program and seek involvements to make change. It’s the very least they can do as an homage to their tough-guy mentor.