Despite his flaws (age, too much finger wagging, Democratic Socialism label, and everything else that the commentariat will point out below) I feel that Sanders is the right nominee for our party in this moment. The country in 2016 elected Trump as a fake billionaire and a fake populist. Bloomberg may be our real billionaire, but Sanders is our real populist. Sanders speaks to our future, not just our Party's future but our Nation's future, our CHILDREN's future. Warren has great plans, but Sanders has the movement and the momentum.
The debate last night was a clusterf##k. Everyone talking over each other and screaming mostly canned answers to stupid questions. And it turns out much of the audience PAID big dollars for tickets (and was mostly establishment supporters) — which is probably why Bloomberg got some applause. I turned off the sound, felt sickened by the sheer stupidity of it at such a critical moment and concluded it would change few people’s minds.
I have had my California Mail In Ballot sitting on my desk for weeks. I have been vacillating between Warren and Sanders, and last week wrote a diary in support of choosing Sanders. www.dailykos.com/… But Warren’s effectiveness in the Nevada debate was impressive, and she was good last night too. So I hadn’t yet filled out my ballot. I like Warren and would eagerly support her as a nominee, but for the reasons below I have just voted Sanders and will be taking my ballot to drop off today.
This morning, by chance, (You Tube brought it up after a Colbert Show clip on the debate) I watched part of this live Sanders rally in South Carolina (much less shouting). He spoke passionately and thoughtfully on the meaning of NOT ME / US and on why historically all change happens from the bottom up, not the top down. (For some reason I couldn’t find the link to post.)
(Thank you to J Graham who posted the link to the speech in a comment below.)
After listening to his speech, and seeing the connection with his supporters, I filled out my mail ballot and will take it to the library drop off today. I chose Sanders (despite his flaws, his age and his label as a Democratic Socialist) for these main reasons:
1. He’s the ONLY candidate who isn’t saying “I’m THE ONE WHO CAN FIX IT”. He’s VERY clear that the disfunction in Washington is too endemic and too entrenched and that no matter how well intentioned or good anyone is UNLESS WE (THE GRASSROOTS) STAY ENGAGED in the process and continue to PUT PRESSURE after the election on the establishment nothing will change.
To me, all the other candidates sound like car salesmen saying “I CAN” “I AM” ME ME ME etc. Even Warren (who is my second choice) is saying that SHE will fight FOR us — she’s still saying (like Obama did, and that was our big mistake then) that we should give her the ball because she’s the one who “knows how to get it done”. She may well have the better plans and know how to get things done, and she’s effective attacking the opposition in a debate, but she doesn’t have a movement behind her, and she has weaker support in key demographics (Latino and Black)
While demographic changes unfold slowly, it’s already clear that the 2020 electorate will be unique in several ways. Nonwhites will account for a third of eligible voters – their largest share ever – driven by long-term increases among certain groups, especially Hispanics. At the same time, one-in-ten eligible voters will be members of Generation Z, the Americans who will be between the ages 18 and 23 next year. That will occur as Millennials and all other older generations account for a smaller share of eligible voters than they did in 2016.
2. Sanders is very clear that he believes (and I 100% agree) that CHANGE HAPPENS FROM THE BOTTOM UP NOT THE TOP DOWN. He pointed to every historic movement for change — the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the gay rights movement etc. — and spoke to how change happened because PEOPLE AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL came together and challenged the status quo and forced changes, forcing the people at the top to climb aboard to keep their power. Bottom up, not top down — history shows us that is true..
That makes sense for several reasons — first of all, the people who are already in power — the people who “make the rules” MAKE THE RULES TO PRESERVE THE STATUS QUO, BECAUSE THAT PRESERVES THEIR POWER, AND PEOPLE DON’T GIVE UP POWER UNLESS FORCED TO. The people at the top make the rules to keep the status quo, giving the rest of us “just enough” to keep us quiet and “in our place” in the hierarchy they’ve created. That applies to Dems as well as GOP. That’s why you see establishment Dems freaking out at a Sanders candidacy.
Second, the 1% keep their power by dividing us and pitting us against each other BECAUSE IF WE UNITE we outnumber them by millions of people — 99% of US are not in the 1 percent of THEM.
All the candidates make the token call for “unity” (urging people to come together BEHIND THEM.) Sanders has actually PUT TOGETHER a HUGE grassroots NATIONAL MOVEMENT bringing people of every color and generation together. He’s NOT asking them to UNITE BEHIND HIM, he’s OFFERING HIMSELF AS THEIR SPOKESPERSON, THEIR REPRESENTATIVE. NOT ME/US — even the way he speaks, it’s not all I I I I. “I alone can do it!”
I found the videos below far more powerful than the ads Bloomberg’s billions have bought him. For those of you who are still not committed I hope you’ll watch and make your own decision as to who speaks to the heart of our Party not its Head. Sanders is not a Mondale or a Kerry or a Dukakis, he speaks to the young people and the dispossessed who MUST be brought into the electoral process for us to win not only in 2020 but beyond.
Don’t think Sander’s can have any crossover appeal? Listen to him go on Fox for a Town Hall (yes he took flack for appearing on Fox) and see him speak thoughtfully and convincingly to an audience made up of Republicans, Democrats, Independent and self described “conservatives” in a steel town in Pennsylvania — and get enthusiastic applause for his signature proposals.
As a newly minted Sanders supporter I am mindful that the commentary here sometimes gets heated. I am and remain committed to positive discussions in support of my candidate, without trashing anyone else’s views or anyone else’s decision to support someone else.
We have several excellent candidates. Warren remains my second choice as I am a Progressive. I state my reasons for not choosing the others simply to indicate why they failed to earn my vote, not to criticize anyone else who votes differently.
If you’re not interested in why I didn’t choose your favorite candidate then just stop reading here.
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This is the graphic that most clearly sets out what we have to do to win in 2020: WE HAVE TO EXPAND THE ELECTORATE, NOT JUST TRY AND “CONVINCE” SOME DISAFFECTED MODERATE REPUBLICANS TO DUMP TRUMP.
So why aren’t any of the other candidates viable to me?
1. Biden, although a nice guy who may indeed win South Carolina on the basis of the Jim Clyburn endorsement is to me (and I’m about to turn 75) showing real signs of age related degeneration. Yes Sanders is older than Biden (I wish all our major candidates except Buttigieg were younger) but Biden last night (which was considered a good debate for him) was still too often incoherent.
Apparently (though I didn’t see it) in one debate he introduced himself as “HI I’m Joe Biden and I’m running for Senate” . . . .he’s also living somewhere in a past that no longer exists and has NEVER (and this is his third try) run a GOOD CAMPAIGN. (I supported him in 1988 and saw his campaign flame out over a plagiarism scandal. Now he’s apparently making up an arrest in South Africa — shades of HRC dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.)
He was a good wingman for Obama, but being a good wingman in a brilliant Obama-run campaign isn’t the same as being a good campaigner on his own ticket a decade later. He claims he’s going to “beat Trump like a drum” ! How’s he going to do that? Challenge him to a push up contest? Call him “a dog faced pony soldier”? Perhaps many older black voters and old other voters and terrified moderates may well vote for Biden. But the young will stay away in droves. The demographics show we absolutely need Black and Latino and Generation Z youth voters to have a prayer of winning any of those 108 million people that don’t usually vote. The idea that enough Republicans are going to vote for a moderate Democrat doesn’t begin to make up for the millions of young and Latino people who are thirsting for change. Yes, few have voted in the past, but many are paying attention now. In fact, last night as I was watching the debate in the marina lounge (I live on a boat) a 25-year old watched with me, and declared that he and all his friends were voting for Sanders. I asked him “But will you really go to the polls” and he said “Absolutely” he was going and his friends were too. It made me feel hopeful.
2. Buttigieg is very impressive until you listen to him enough.Then he starts to sound canned and rehearsed — as someone said in an earlier comment on another diary, Buttigieg sounds like a good radio announcer who knows how to deliver a canned pitch. He also has virtually ZERO support in the black and Latino, community and is too far down to make that up by Super Tuesday even if his numbers are improving. Sadly, Trump will NOT shy away from going full homophobic on him, perhaps not in public but certainly in the back rooms. The America that thinks English should be the required national language and found Obama too “elitist” isn’t going to vote for an elite polyglot gay man who is married and bringing his husband to the WH. I’m sorry but I don’t think we’re there yet. Not with this guy, who can be ice cold and, while eloquent can be a bit snarky. Watching him and Klobuchar trade insults was a total turn off for me, on both of them.
3. Klobuchar — no way she gets through SC — virtually no Black support. And although I’ve liked her as a Senator her pitch for herself is just another politician’s ego trip I CAN DO IT NO ONE ELSE I’M THE SAVIOR !! LOOK AT ME. Well I’ve looked and I’m not impressed.
4. Warren I covered above — she’s my second choice — just doesn’t have the momentum or the appeal to the demographics needed. I liked her for president in 2015 when Sanders told her he’d stay on the sidelines if she ran and she didn’t want to go up against the Clinton machine. Maybe if she had she’d have won. In politics as in life, Timing Is Everything.
5. Steyer isn’t going anywhere. He should drop out and put his money where his mouth is. I signed his email list when he came out with Need to Impeach and dropped him when instead of using his billions to fund demonstrations around the country once the House actually impeached, he chose a vanity run for president.
6. Bloomberg’s nomination would tell the world that Democrats are no different from Republicans. We love those rich oligarchs who give us just enough to keep us quiet. Yes he’d get all the Republicans who are disaffected with Trump. But he’d lose massively with women, blacks, and Latinos. He appeals to those Democrats who are terrified of Sanders either losing to Trump or changing the system they’ve done well in. He may well win that tranche of support, but he would represent a betrayal of Democratic Party ideals and might well destroy the party’s future, which depends on YOUNG, BLACK, AND LATINO votes — none of whom will come out in sufficient numbers for Bloomberg. The Bloomberg movement is fueled by great ads (like the cigarette ads — great ads, lousy product) and by the MISTAKEN ASSUMPTION that because Trump won as a supposed Billionaire Populist that the key is for us to get our own billionaire — But Trump won for his FAKE POPULISM, not his FAKE BILLIONS.
Bloomberg is OUR Billionaire, but SANDERS is OUR POPULIST.
Conclusion: Understanding Pendulums
The nature of a Pendulum is to swing from one extreme to another before slowly swinging less and less until it reaches balance in the middle. Those on the left who think that the way to correct the wild extremism on the right by just trying to “get back to normal” have no idea of how a pendulum works. Sanders is the “extreme” needed to ultimately “Balance” to a new normal, as opposed to the “old” normal, which gave us Trump.
That’s It Folks! Comment if you like, but please keep it civil and on topic. I am battling to restore my health after serious health issues last year. I’m NOT supposed to be watching TV or listening to news and I’m definitely not supposed to be blogging about high stress politics, but the stakes are too high. Not for me — I’m turning 75 next month and my life will not change dramatically — but for US. I am voting Sanders because his vision of what he hopes our country will become squares with what I most hope to see for our children and grandchildren.
Hope and love are more powerful than fear.
At this moment in our history despair is not an option. I've got four kids and seven grandchildren. I can't give up. You can't give up.
~ Bernie Sanders
