Bernie Sanders inspired me to revisit an old art project.
Originally the stars were New York (because that’s my home state).
I must point out that, to understand the point of my original artwork (the NY stars), that I traveled a lot back then. I guess I still do, since I’m currently overseas, and haven’t felt I’m home in decades, but as it relates to the art, those Subaru jaunts in my teens and early 20s are the most poignant.
It’s hard to convey how extensively I traveled our huge nation.
I thought of Colorado as a day away (28 hours non-stop).
I’ve driven from coast to coast 10 times.
I drove to Alaska and back. Alaska! I cruised down Kenai’s main drag watching whales swim in the bay below the mountain backdrop on the one side, while trying to find the Pizza Hut among the “civilization” on the other side.
I rode my mountain bike 1200 miles from Steamboat Springs CO, following the Colorado river, with a detour to ride the Slickrock Trail, all the way to Old Mexico.
I want to tell of all the things I saw, all the people I met, all the micro-cultures I discovered, but I could never, in a million pages, convey what it taught me.
But understand that, having been to 36 states — by car — I have and have had a particular perspective on this thing called America.
So, there I was in an art class. I’m not an artist, it was an accident that I was there. It was caused by a misinformed advisor who said, “if you’re enrolled in the VPA (visual and performing arts) college then you have to take ‘Design 101’.” I was there for music and I challenged her but, I was young. Maybe “Design” was some abstract thing about the Arts in general. Whatever.
So I’m in this art class and the assignment was Repetition, essentially.
Well, since coming home after years of travel, the prevailing feeling I had been mulling over, chewing on, was the culture shock I experienced in coming home.
Culture shock in my own home!
As you all might be aware, New Yorkers are not afraid to voice their opinions. I have no problem with that, of course. It’s a beautiful micro-culture!
But I’d just been to so many places that did not have the same perspective: it was hard not to notice how myopic many of these overtly expressed opinions were.
It struck me like lightning that this is the essence of our dysfunction, as a nation.
We all see it from where we are. We talk in dictums about how “Independent voters will do this!” “my candidate will unite people around x!”
I guess, at this point, it’s fairly obvious how I came to make the above piece of art with New York State as the stars. People always perceive the other 49 states as being roughly some version of their own state. The reality could not be further from the truth.
Now, to address the redux.
Bernie Sanders has been baffling in how he has shown very little awareness of what I was taught by my travels. I don’t think one needs to travel to learn it, but it is a trait that must be acquired. A deep study of Presidential and Congressional electorates will bring you to the same revelation.
Sanders, ensconced in his Blue seat in the congress, provided to him by the comfortably liberal residents of Vermont (not one of the states I’ve been to, though I’ve seen it, across the way from Lake Champlain), talks and campaigns in very primary colors. He never approaches even a feint at the complexity of this country.
He lives in a an insular world, from Burlington to D.C., always wondering why he hasn’t won in a landslide already, giving not a second of contemplation as to the meaning in the facts of the primary results.
He, literally with his hand, waves off brutal losses in the “Deep South” as if they’re merely a nuisance.
He tries to redefine the Midwest, claiming he has “strength” there, because he won a surprise in Michigan, just after he lost in the states of Illinois and Ohio. As far as I’ve ever understood it Illinois and Ohio are in the Midwest.
He keeps postponing and postponing when he will face the American electorate as it is and show that he can win.
His 4.5 state strategy (home state Vermont, Michigan, a few caucuses here and there and… California!!!!) is getting tiring.
And... I can’t put this in a nice way... Bernie Sanders has no chance in New York. I know that because I know the people of my home, but if you don’t care to accept that, there’s also this poll from yesterday showing him down 71-23%. Remember, it’s a closed primary.
I don’t know any calculation of “progressive” that ignores New York.
On thursday, Rachel Maddow interviewed Sanders. He admitted to something quite offensive.
He sees the numbers and he knows he can’t win the nomination of the Union, as it is. He suggested that he’s not above using Superdelegates to overturn a Pledged Delegate lead by Clinton.
One of his arguments for such an act of hypocrisy was based on his supposed advantage in polls against the potential Republican nominee, which any honest person would laugh at, since it’s quite plain that Sanders has not begun to be vetted on a national scale.
When, or if, he is vetted, it would be a form of ruthlessness that would be mesmerizing and shocking, yet quite predictable (see: Hillary Clinton).
But also, he confessed his pitch to Superdelegates for betraying their own inclinations as well as those of the Pledged Delegates in their respective states: that he may not have won the majority, but he won in the “progressive states.” So if the Democratic party is to proceed toward their goal, they must disenfranchise those who did not vote the way they should have.
Bernie Sanders is in a Blue Bubble, and he’s encouraging his supporters to believe the whispers that they hear inside that same bubble; that it is not a slog; that it’s just the matter of “feeling the bern,” feeling the “revolution”.
Now he’s openly contemplating how to subvert the electoral results of the Democratic coalition that is not composed exclusively of people in “progressive” states.
It’s bodes badly for the longtime coalition that has been, step by step, with body blows to show for it, trying to arrive at electoral opportunities to achieve progress.
Sanders is swelling the ranks of those who believes there are shortcuts. Thus he is swelling the ranks of those who will find out the hard way that answers like “I’ll say hey Mitch, if you don’t want to lose your job, you better start listening to what we have to say” is just not reasonable governing strategy.
Sanders is running out of time to get out of this without doing long-term damage.
It’s a big, diverse country. Bigger than most people can accept. Gonna have to deal with that in your thinking, sooner or later.
If you’re not careful it’ll turn you into a Republican.