As I mentioned in a previous diary, Bernie Sanders ain’t pretty.
He’s not sophisticated.
He’s kind of grumpy.
He (arguably) can’t really dance.
But none of that matters.
Because he doesn’t work as a candidate that way.
He should have lost already. He SHOULD have lost already.
But why do you think this too-old democratic socialist is doing to confusingly well? Huh?
Because he exists and presents himself as a representative of ideas first.
Bernie Sanders the man on stage is just a token. You can insult him all you want — you can say nobody likes him, and he’ll respond as a human being, but not really care for that, compared to the ideas he’s presenting.
You know what it’s going to feel like if he’s selected in the primary, after the primaries are over? It’s going to feel more like this clip from the end of the midterm primaries:
The focus on ideas, the transition away from infighting will be enormous. The atmosphere will be a LOT different — still dirty and ugly all over, but the focus on the ideas will be like a laser.
Not because he’s a high priest of those ideas or anything, oh no. Because he's always just been a pushy guy who just wants those ideas moved forward, ideas that have always polled well individually with voters, but have been kept away from voters as things they could vote on, on their own.
Medicare for All, full-on student loan forgiveness, aggressive wall street reform, going beyond just repairing Trump’s damage to institutions and infrastructure, actually taxing the rich, real jobs not just ‘gigs’, etc., etc.
Sound a bit familiar in some way though? Well, more than just me saying it...
Yeah — I think we’ve seen this same odd thing before. Trump was also kind of going in that same annoying path wasn’t he? That same frustrating process of sliding right past barriers and YUUUGE negatives.
But you know what’s different? The ideas. Trump didn’t represent ideas — he represented something deeper down — cruelty, and joy in cruelty. His entire appeal was that “you’re fired” cruelty.
Trump started out his real campaign with the ‘birther’ movement — of demanding a birth certificate from Obama knowing he was born in Hawaii, but making a dramatic show not for a real attack — but a campaign of cruelty and noise to promote himself.
His entire campaign was one of pushing the joy of cruelty.
Well now, we’re on the other side of cruelty.
Bernie isn’t a hero — he’s the guy who brings out the hero in all of us. By reminding us of the things we can do together as people. He’s a rascal of a different kind than Trump — using some of the same forces, but really just being a persistent reminder that the things we’ve really wanted all this time ARE practical, if we don’t forget that they are important — more important than just cruelty.
And no — I don’t expect his ideas to magically get done.
In fact, I don’t expect most of them to get done — same as no president EVER gets their campaign proposals done.
Because that’s all campaign proposals are — proposals. A representation of the ideas that president will push.
Presidents NEVER make laws. They propose them. Congress rarely writes them up as proposed. The threat of veto may guide them a little, but really, the president just takes what they can get.
It’s congress’ job to do the negotiating and the balancing for budget. Not the president.
Thus, it’s the best idea for the president to propose what they would ideally want, and let the congress do it’s job of negotiating. Then give speeches on why those ideas are important.
Pre-watering down your ideas BEFORE they go to congress is only a way of getting crumbs instead of a slice of cake.
To paraphrase another ugly set of folks pushing popular ideas for their time:
“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes… you get what you need”
The key isn’t giving up on what you want — but trying anyway even if you can’t get it all, since you never know what you can get ahead of time. YOU TRY AT EVERYTHING ANYWAY.
And if congress is determined to never deliver at all — then fine, you deliver that message to the people, and build demand, and build demand. You force congress to change by making congress better with better people by using that growing demand.
You literally make a better world, from whatever you have. Idealistic realism isn’t a contradiction — it is an ambition that gets what it can.
Sanders does all those jobs better, because he represents those ideas with no watering down. He negotiates, but only when he has to, for maximum effect, just like he’s done with very limited power in congress.
And as Trump shows — you don’t NEED any watering down, if you represent ideas that the public is in favor of, even by a slim majority.
You can pour all the negativity you want on that — and I think you can see by now little result that will have, from what little effect it has had.
People generally don’t care about what you want to paint on top of Sanders or his supporters. That’s almost never what he’s about, or what they care for with him. Only the political addicts like us swarm over that stuff.
The Germans might call this a ‘Zeitgeist’ approach — the spirit of the moment. Trump’s Zeitgeist was that of coasting on the zephyrs of cruelty, and the joy generated from cruelty.
Sanders Zeitgeist is that of tearing through that cruelty to bring back things we actually care for beyond cruelty. Of living life, not basking in schadenfreude. Well, alright — maybe a little schadenfreude — but only for that cruelty flying away on its own zephyr and crashing.
Both of their personalities are almost completely a representation of their approaches.
That’s kind of what makes this potential contest so interesting. Sort of a contest for the soul of the nation.
I think we’re better off with something that goes directly to that contest, rather than trying to manufacture a perfect balance with a candidate that waters down their approach for ‘electability’ that they conveniently define as meaning only them.
Thanks for reading!