All along, Bernie Sanders has been telling us that he is seeking
nothing less than “a political revolution” — a complete change in the
way America operates with regard to its people and the world. As it
turns out, he’s not the only one. Over 25 million people cast a vote for
change in the recent primaries on both sides of the political spectrum,
or about 65% of voters. How individuals define “change” differs from
right to left, but in the end, both sides are united in their
disenchantment with the current state of government and the continued
unravelling of their hopes and dreams.
It’s been a long time since the natives have been this restless, but
people are losing ground and it’s making them angry. Whether they want
universal healthcare or a wall around Mexico is significant but not for
the sake of this argument. Neither side is content with the status quo —
both Republicans and Democrats want life for American working people
(which is most of us) to improve, not in a decade or so but now.
Hillary, on the other hand, is the status quo, and that’s why she’s
going to win the general election in November. The people may want
change, but the powers that be most certainly do not. More to the point, I’m pretty sure a majority of Americans don’t want Donald Trump. Barring unlikely events, Hillary Clinton is going to be elected president of the United
States, which will be an important milestone crossed, but then she’s
going to have to govern one of the most divided populations in many
years. There’ll be your angry Trump Republicans, your determined
Sanders idealists, and your “sorry, guys, we had to do it” Clinton
Democrats who, let’s face it, seem a bit soft in their support of our future
Madam President. Nothing short of making people’s lives better is going
to satisfy this lot. Does Hillary have the goods to deliver?
It was a sad moment for Bernie supporters when we realized that
Democrats were content to get more of the same as long as Donald Trump
wasn’t President. Sigh. And moving on.
But who really expected a revolution to succeed by electoral politics
anyway? Not me. Dig deep and you know you always thought a Bernie
nomination, much less the presidency, was a long shot. So be it. We
had to go through this to prove that there really are people out there
who are open to changing our system so that it serves us better, as it’s
intended to do. It showed us that a lot of people care, even some
Clinton people who, for a variety of reasons, did not care to vote for
Bernie Sanders.
What this tells me is that there is a lot of unsatisfied demand out
there, and economics tells me that sooner or later, it will get
satisfied. There will almost certainly be pressure on Clinton to
deliver, not on her own campaign promises, but on the platform that
Sanders has so eloquently and forcefully delivered to a receptive
electorate. Even Trump people have heard Sanders’ message, subliminally
if not audibly, and they’re going to want a piece of it too. In short,
she’s going to get hammered with a social agenda that she’s ill suited
to implement.
Maybe she could just ignore us. Yeah, that’ll work. Let’s look at
the numbers just to be sure. 13 million people voted for Donald Trump
through June 7, another 11 million voted for Sanders. Add ’em together
and you get 25 million votes for change. Clinton got 15 million in all,
which means she’s short roughly 10 million votes when it comes to the
demographic that supports her. The press is saying that she’s going to
start her “pivot to the right” now, but if she does, where does that
leave the Sanders people? Meanwhile, Trumpers won’t vote for her no
matter what she does. The only possible pivot that could possibly win
the hearts and minds of Sanders’ supporters would be a hard pivot to the
left, which doesn’t seem likely and I don’t expect it. That said, many
Sanders supporters will vote for Hillary in the fall.
All the same, Sanders people are in an enviable position. We’ve been
booted from the main event, so to speak, but now we’re free to go after
what we really want without the restrictive protocol of politics.
Sanders speech Thursday night made it clear that if we do go after what
we want, persistently (with feeling…), we’ll get it. The platform is
already established and agreed upon by millions. Now all we have to do
is make it happen.
Wishful Stumping
Having some awareness of Havel’s Velvet Revolution, or the Zapatista’s struggles and Marcos’ leadership, I resented Bernie’s use of insurrectionist terms. It seemed glib. And as genuine as the sentiments were, as righteously indignant as he was, it didn’t really move me. He risked little, exhorted abstractly, and never made a case for focused sacrifice from his “followers”.
Not that he’s wrong. Even if he’s the least wrong of the candidates, his moment still seemed couched in entertainment. It doesn’t take much to go to a rally. Voting (for many, not all) is a minimal hardship. Like the Occupy Wall Street movement, Bernie’s perception of inequity is clear enough, and there is obviously discontent aplenty to draw from. But just as #OWS was contrived by the magazine Adbusters as Situationist theater with high hopes, Bernie had no real method to get to the goal. And relying on the system to deliver itself from itself is naive.
I’m sorry to say, as long as we stay addicted to our big cushy cars, our CGI epics, our athlete heroes, our screen swiped diversions, our Insta-everything…we’re not going to turn any tide of significance. As you say, it’s a start. True. I just wish the finish was more coherently conceived.
permission
One of my early bosses would tell us ‘No’ if we asked permission to do something interesting, such as make a cartoon with kids.
After a while it was tiring, so I changed tactics. I would tell her about the amazing thing we had already done! I stopped asking permission and just did projects thereafter, and when they were done I’d show them off to her. “Great work!” was usually the new reply.
Sometimes asking permission is a wasted step. Sometimes it is instructive.
Many people learned much about the political system in the last few months (not necessarily what they wanted to learn). I’ve heard many typically-centrist folks complain that things are clearly rigged and media is biased. It’s very hard to unlearn something once it has been learned.
In Sanders speech last night, he said he hoped history would show this to be a turning point. It would be up to all of us to determine if that is true.
Thoughts on thoughts
What first that struck me about your reply is that your general sense of hopelessness (pardon me if that isn’t how you see yourself!) is belied by the fact that you bothered to comment on this post…. 😉
Otherwise, I think what Bernie was doing this time was saying — I have nothing to lose, I’m going to expose the fact that the American people really do want change. That’s “Thing 1.” Thing 2 is that he provided some leadership — he said the things he said and people were able to agree or disagree with him without being the ones to say them first (which is hard to do effectively without a platform). And Thing 3 (I’m making these up as I go along) is that he wasn’t saying he was going to fix things all by himself, but that WE are going to fix them together. If in fact that’s even possible but how will we know until we TRY!!!
Sorry, I feel like so often we reject any possibility of change out of hand as “impossible” but when was the last time we really tried — many of us, not just one or another subset. His platform is unifying — it isn’t about one group or another but things that would make all of our lives better, even the super rich who oppose him.
It’s very hard to encapsulate so many nuances into a few paragraphs. I agree — this isn’t really revolution he’s talking about and I think he knew that very well. The fact that the press initially went “ooh, revolution, scary socialist” tells you something about how far we’ve come that we now see universal healthcare and affordable college as “revolutionary.” I could go on. And on and on, but it’s a long way to the election and weeks to the convention even so we have plenty of time.
hopeless? moi?
You put up a thoughtful post, I value discussion, that’s why I bothered.
I guess the bottom line for me is that I am sorely tired of career politicians, advertising, the masses being played for fools- whether we are or not. And I’m not able to be as credulous as I once was. I can’t not recognize regurgitated rhetoric, and do not find it nourishing.
We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians...
We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme. It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government. Nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent. Nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today. Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby, ulcerous, little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive. We are sorry if this impression has come across.
– Monty Python, 1972
So where was Senator Sanders the other day
When the senate had its fillibuster for stricter gun control , I see a number of Democrats were there including senator Leahy, but where was Senator Sanders?
Assange Surprise?
Wikileaks
will publish ‘enough evidence’ to indict Hillary Clinton, warns Assange
https://www.rt.com/usa/346534-wikileaks-clinton-assange-fbi/
Wikileaks
co-founder Julian Assange warns more information will be published about
Hillary Clinton, enough to indict her if the US government is courageous enough
to do so, in what he predicts will be “a very big year” for the whistleblowing
website.
“We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton
which are pending publication,” Assange said when asked if more of her leaked
electronic communications would be published.
Sensitive
information regarding US security was sent to her private server, including
information on drone strikes.
Speaking
via video link from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange said that there
was enough information in the emails to indict Clinton, but that was unlikely
to happen under the current Attorney General, Obama appointee Loretta Lynch.
Sergeant at Arms
All Hillary has to do is wait out the election. If she is sworn in next year everyone knows it difficult to remove a sitting president, and even then only the Sergeant at Arms of the US Senate can lay their hands on a president. At her age, if she makes it through two terms, she won’t care anyway by then, knowing she’ll treated with kid gloves..