Bernie Sanders may be the most important political figure since Abraham Lincoln, even if he is not elected president, even if he doesn’t become the Democratic nominee.
Bernie Sanders has ignited a political revolution. It will continue long after Sanders is dead and buried and will reshape the American political landscape for decades to come.
One has only to see Sanders’ popularity and support among young voters to appreciate how profoundly he will impact the country. Voters under thirty embrace Bernie in astounding numbers. Upwards of 80% of those young people support him. As they move into positions of influence and authority in society, the Democratic party as we know it cannot continue to exist.
Hillary Clinton is the last stand for Wall Street Democrats. She and the political hacks and opportunist whores who have controlled the party for the past 50 years are toast in a very few election cycles.
The Millennials are taking over the party, the country, society.
The knee jerk fear of socialism does not affect them. The siren call of greed falls on deaf ears. Social justice and equality are not campaign slogans to them. Our young people are not impressed by incremental improvements in society. They are unwilling to allow their values and beliefs to be sacrificed on an altar of political expediency.
They believe they are entitled to a government that works for everyone. They do not see their futures served by the status quo or gradualism.
Those young people are the future of the Democratic party. And that future will be significantly delayed if Hillary Clinton is elected president.
Bernie and his legions are fighting the status quo, the corrupt political system that auctions off legislation and governmental policies to the highest bidder. The system which makes officeholders more responsive to special interests and major donors than they are to the people who elect them.
Bernie and his team may believe that they must support Hillary if he does not defeat her for the nomination. He has certainly said he would. He may believe that he will be able to shape the future of the party and influence her policies as president. That is certainly the usual practice. All the good Democrats rally around the nominee and present a unified front to the electorate.
The problem with such an approach this year is that Bernie has exposed the political status quo for the fraud that it is. Bernie has raised issues that cannot be addressed by Hillary, as Hillary is the poster child for the very problems Bernie is describing.
Bernie may rationalize the problems away with concerns that the Republicans are so much worse than is Hillary, but that argument will not be persuasive to many who support Sanders.
I will stand with Bernie for as long as he fights to be our president. I will support him in his quest for the Democratic nomination. I would encourage him to continue on through November as an independent or third party candidate. I urge him to turn his campaign organization into a long term shepherd and advocate of the political revolution he has started.
I beg him not to fold. To not endorse Clinton. To not embrace the corrupt system he has been fighting.
If Hillary Clinton is elected president, the revolution stops dead in its tracks.
If Sanders endorses Clinton he will undo much of what he has accomplished.
He will almost certainly rip the hearts out of those who have come to love, respect, and admire him.
The revolution will be put on hold until such time as we can take back the Democratic party, possibly four or eight years from now.
And those years will continue to yield dead American troops, seniors without housing, students with crushing debt, families without healthcare, American jobs being outsourced, Wall Street running amok, industry lobbyists and alums in her administration, billions dumped into Israel’s coffers, arms sales to the world, neocon foreign policies reminiscent of W and Dick Cheney. And on. And on.
If Bernie does embrace Hillary, many of his troops will not.
Bernie, we love you.
But we won’t follow you into the enemy’s camp.
Your place in history has yet to be decided.
You can be a Democratic has-been. Or you can be the most important political figure since Abraham Lincoln.
Personally, I think you are Lincoln-esque.
Author’s Notes:
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"If Hillary Clinton is elected president, the revolution stops dead in its tracks."
ReplyDeleteOh no it does not. We will Occupy, we will establish People's Polling Places, and demonstrate what democracy looks like with publicly hand counted paper ballots when we do not have consensus otherwise. We will replace debt money with registered gratitude flows. We will not stop, we will replace this corrupt system.