ELECTION EVE MUSINGS
I’m voting for Bernie in the Maryland primary tomorrow, and I’m excited about it. Lord knows it’s rare for me to be enthused about a candidate. I doubt I’ll be as enthusiastic come November, but voting for a woman will be huge, even if I’d prefer a more progressive woman — say Elizabeth Warren. Who knows? Maybe Clinton will tap Warren for V.P. It would be a sure way to engage Bernie fans like myself, but I doubt it will happen.
I know my support for Bernie has some of my more “pragmatic” friends bent out of shape. And I found this on my car windshield the other day:
Whatever — I’m just done with business-as-usual.
I’m sure this post will annoy some Bernie supporters, too. I’m sorry, but the math just doesn’t look good for our guy.
I’ve become somewhat of a cynic in recent decades. I am not hopeful when it comes to the future of the American political system. Too much corporate money in both parties, and it seems elections can’t be won without it.
Still, on a sunny day when the birds are singing and perhaps I’ve had a glass of champagne, I can imagine a day when the right leaders will rise up and organize regular people to overturn this dysfunctional system.
Bernie has started the conversation. He’s definitely pulled Hillary to the left, and some go so far as to say he has “made the Democratic party safe for liberals again.” Maybe. It is great that Hillary mentions climate change and campaign finance reform and even Citizens United, but they aren’t her top priorities and she will swing back to center during the general election. That’s just reality.
Why Not?
On the hopeful side, there are now millions of new voters — including many young people just forming their political consciousness — who have embraced Bernie’s boldness and ask, “Why not?” In Bernie’s stump speeches, I hear an echo of the words of Robert F. Kennedy that formed my own adolescent political consciousness in 1968, “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”
So I’ll savor the moment tomorrow when I step into the voting booth, punch the Bernie button and think, “Hell yes — THIS!”
Bobby Kennedy, 1963
— Kennedy photo from public domain, courtesy Wikimedia
Writing with Spirit 
Apr 25, 2016 @ 16:01:18
sadly, you are right. sigh. bern, baby, bern. who knows what the future will hold — how much he will influence the election, the campaigns, the platform… who knows. we’re in a war to defend democracy and i wonder if we should be. is democracy the right set up? humans don’t seem smart enough to manage democracy without wrecking the planet that gives us life. every other day i’m hopeful. on the other ones, i want to become politically oblivious.
Apr 25, 2016 @ 17:03:34
I was with a good friend the other night, well educated. She asked me what Citizens United was. She pays no attention at all to politics or policy. It is an attractive way to live. Unfortunately, I think it’s also one of the reasons we are where we are. If people are uninformed about the way things work – things that affect their lives – then they are more open to blow-hards like Trump and Cruz.