Yeah, that’s Bernie, slightly out of focus in Greenville, South Carolina this past Friday; but that’s me backing him up, right behind the enthusiastic lady in green who is clasping her hands together. It looks like my unkempt hair is resting on his shoulder. (Maybe they put me on stage behind him to make his hair look more normal. Someone asked me if I was trying to look like Bernie. I said I was simply having a bad hair day.)
The truth is it was just dumb luck that I was even able to get into the Gunter Theater at the Peace Center. Freakish thunderstorms were predicted, so the venue was moved from the large outdoor amphitheater into the smaller venue.
I had just attended Bernie’s two-hour workshop a mile away to end poverty. Bernie didn’t seem to care that poverty isn’t a hot political issue in the 2020 campaign. Bernie chooses his own issues to promote. At the workshop I saw Nina Turner standing nearby, whom I had written about in a diary about a year ago. Although I had spoken to her at different events, I knew she wouldn’t recognize me, as I am only famous in my own mind. I still planned to talk to her, but didn’t want to interrupt the other speakers on the dais, particularly not Bernie. But as soon as it was over, she left quickly to hug and congratulate Bernie and the other participants. I missed my chance to even say hello. Oh well, at least I would get to hear her speak later that evening.
I had seen Bernie in person at different events in South Carolina about a half dozen times, but only got to shake his hand once. For that I had to stand in the same place for five hours at a rally in Columbia. It was just before the South Carolina primary in 2016. Looking around the small auditorium that day I reluctantly concluded Bernie would lose to Hillary Clinton in the primary. The auditorium wasn’t filled to capacity, and there weren’t enough black people in attendance. Unless you study his record promoting civil rights, Bernie just looks like an old white guy from a mostly white rural state. Without the black vote, Bernie didn’t have a chance to win the Democratic primary in South Carolina.
Yet today, Bernie was the only white guy sitting on the panel with about nine black speakers. Later, at the rally at the Gunter Theater, three of the four speakers who introduced him were black. Yet I suspect Bernie would choose this same entourage of speakers even if he were in Idaho, as each of them gave an excellent introduction.
When I finally got to the Gunter Theater, security was at the max. I wasn’t even allowed to take in my plastic bottle of Pepsi Max to get my afternoon caffeine fix. I was thirty minutes early, so I took five minutes to chug it and discard the container before passing the first line of security. By the time I got to the door, and scanned again for guns or knives, I was given a ticket for the lobby. I was told the theater was already filled, and the overflow crowd would get to stand in the lobby. When I asked, what was the point of that, if the speeches could only be heard on the inside? I was told Bernie was making special arrangements to address the overflow crowd in the lobby.
So even though I knew I would miss Nina Turner’s great introduction, I positioned myself ten feet from the small podium where Bernie would be speaking, and waited. Then out of the blue, one of Bernie’s volunteers asked about a dozen of us standing there if we would be willing to volunteer to stand behind Bernie on stage. I immediately said yes, but then we were warned we would have to stand in one spot without moving for an hour and a half, and would have no opportunity to leave to go to the bathroom. And I just chugged 16 ounces of a diuretic soda!
Actually, I was impressed with the manner we were selected—at random! No effort was made to be sure we were the right mix of black and white, male and female, young and old; just taking a random cross-section of the crowd achieved that without any effort. No one was either included or excluded to obtain the appearance of diversity.
I had campaigned vehemently for Bernie for about a year, beginning in the summer of 2015.
Moreover, before submitting my first diary to Daily Kos, I had contributed thirty-six articles to a blog-site called SCforBernie.com. Most of these articles were about issues; gun control, climate change, legalizing marijuana, education, health care, and even the Electoral College. I also wrote a few articles about why I believed Bernie was better than Hillary, and why Trump would be a disaster if he ever became President. One of my last blogs was written when Bernie could no longer mathematically win the Democratic nomination. I called it, “Hold Your Nose and Vote for Hillary.”
I was dismayed at the negative backlash. Some die-hard Bernie-or-bust writers lambasted me for abandoning all idealistic principles in order to endorse the devil-incarnate, Hillary Clinton. Later I would learn that these avid Bernie supporters/Hillary haters had been brainwashed by fake news stories posted by the Russians to influence the election in favor of Trump. Although I railed against the unreason, and argued in vain that voting for a third-party, or not voting at all, would only serve to put Trump into the White House; I was no longer preaching to the choir. Even my argument that the Supreme Court would be packed with right-wing extremists for decades, fell on death ears. The attacks against Hillary Clinton, me, and even the website’s editor became so vicious, that the editor deemed it necessary to take down the website.
Since the time Trump won, I haven’t been nearly as enthusiastic about Bernie. Instead I have been obsessed with getting the orange menace out of the White House. But in 2016, Bernie Sanders was endorsing issues near and dear to my heart that no other candidate would touch. Bernie was ahead of the curve, promoting legalization of marijuana, Medicare for all, attacking Big Pharma, advocating a $15 minimum wage; etc. As these once radical ideas became more familiar they gained in popularity and now almost all the Democratic candidates are saying the same things, only emphasizing one or another to stand out. In 2016, I gave Bernie a rating of A, and Hillary a rating of B. Today, with candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris also running, there are several candidates I give an A rating, right up there with Bernie. Bernie may be outstanding but you no longer stand out standing next to other outstanding candidates.
Although Bernie wasn’t the first to announce he was running for President in 2020, he really never stopped running after 2016. Yet Bernie doesn’t run for office quite like anyone else. There are two kinds of politicians. One type wants to achieve political power because that is the only way to implement positive policies that solve problems. The other kind of politician wants to achieve political power because they like having political power; they want to be the big cheese, the head honcho, the person in charge who tells everyone else what to do. Bernie Sanders is this first type of politician. Donald Trump is the other type. In the words of Theo Anderson:
Sanders has made it a priority to educate Americans on both the profound challenges we face and how we can take them on. He has shown a stubborn belief that the people, supplied with the true facts of the situation, will choose to build a better democracy.
Although I have already read a couple of books written by Bernie, I bought Where Do We Go from Here the day before the Friday rally. Whereas Trump gallivants around the country staging Trump rallies to glorify his own magnificence (to get his narcissistic fix of adulation from brainless followers); Sanders has not stopped campaigning around the country and around the world promoting needed policies. In England he delivered a profound speech on progressive foreign policy. After Hurricane Maria he went to Puerto Rico to provide real aid (not paper towels.) He held countless town halls around the country to drum up support to save Obamacare. He not only spoke at an event to stop climate change, he even “recorded a short video discussing Trump’s war against our planet. It was viewed by over 1.5 million people.”
Was this a political ad? If so, it is obvious Sanders is more concerned about solving a problem (death of the planet) than personally getting elected. What I have always admired about Bernie is that he puts issues first, and himself second. For instance, in this book he devotes a chapter to gun control, “More Children Killed by Guns.” Did Bernie whine that when he was running against Hillary Clinton, she distorted his position on gun control to make him look weak on this issue? No, he never even mentioned it. Instead he attacked the NRA and pleaded with Republicans to ban assault rifles to protect children. So I am not surprised that Bernie devoted as much time in Greenville at the workshop to end poverty in America, as he did making his stump speech.
The problem I have is not with Bernie. The problem I have is that I also really like so many of the other Democratic candidates. Sitting in the workshop, I had a chance to write down a question for Bernie. I wrote:
“Do you believe that the House of Representatives now has enough credible evidence to impeach Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors?”
There was no time to get to my question. (Of dozens of questions submitted, only one was answered. We were all assured Bernie would read all questions and respond to them in later presentations.) That same night, the news reported that Elizabeth Warren came out advocating the House begin impeachment proceedings. Good for her! I wish Bernie had said that. My daughter, who doesn’t share my passion for politics, commented that Bernie never did like attacking his political opponents; he prefers to simply promote his policies. Perhaps this is why Bernie hasn’t jumped on the Impeach Trump bandwagon, but Bernie spares no words stating his disdain for Trump. On the other hand, Bernie hasn’t said one word against any other Democratic candidate for President.
Yet, I can’t say the same about so many of my progressive political friends. One such person told me she wouldn’t go to hear Bernie because she is tired of Bernie supporters who vilified her on Facebook for liking Joe Biden. People please! Do not use Facebook or social media to bash or insult anyone simply because they favor a Democratic candidate you don’t prefer! Other people have told me they dread a rehash of the 2016 fiasco, fearing that if Bernie comes close again, but loses, his supporters will fail to back the nominee. They fear Bernie in the race will create a rift between him and more moderate candidates. Also, two other liberal friends told me Bernie was too old and should step aside for someone younger. Ironically, both of these guys had just turned 80 themselves. I challenged one saying he was bright enough to be President so why wouldn’t Bernie be bright enough, too? He accused me of flattery. I had no intention of persuading him with flattery; I just wanted to point out more knowledge and experience are plusses, as long as someone doesn’t have hardening of the attitudes. Trump is showing signs of early dementia. It’s hard to tell because Trump has been intellectually demented all of his life.
So far, I have written one diary defending Joe Biden, and one applauding Elizabeth Warren. This is my first supporting Bernie, who is still my first choice as I dream of a Sanders/Warren ticket or even a Warren/Sanders ticket. I just hope and pray that a Democrat wins in 2020, whomever he or she may be.
Will Bernie Sanders win? No one knows as it is too soon to tell. But in his book, Bernie may have accidentally outlined his own political fate. Writing about Eugene Debs, the Socialist who ran for President six times, Bernie wrote…
Debs was a great American who played an enormously important role in our history…Many of the ideas that Debs campaigned on were later adopted…
Bernie, like Debs before him, helped move the entire Democratic Party into a more progressive direction. In that sense, even if he doesn’t win the nomination, if another candidate carries forward the policies Bernie has cared so much about, Bernie has already won.
I welcome reading why other candidates deserve our praise and or attention. Just don’t bash Bernie!