BERNIE - BIDEN: TRYING TO RECONCILE MY GLAD AND MY SAD

I couldn't understand why I had an overwhelming sense of sadness recently as the results of the latest primary voting came in, and Joe Biden was the big winner. As I plumbed this feeling, I realized that it was mixed with gladness, and so I need to write about that.

I jotted some notes - yes, pencil on paper:

Glad -

• the Democrats are coalescing around one candidate
• Joe Biden would be a good President
• Biden is day to the Trump night, light to dark, hope to despair
• Democratic Socialism is out of the shadows and discussed openly, even if to attempt to repudiate it

Sad:

• a Biden presidency means that the Sanders agenda (Democratic Socialism) has no chance of being implemented
• the "revolution" America desperately needs will have to wait
• going back to the way things were before Trump (the Biden agenda) is going in the wrong direction
• at age 76, I might never see another Democratic Socialist candidate for President.

The remarkable ascendency of Joe Biden from a runner-up to the leading candidate is easily explained: Bernie Sanders scares the poop out of moderates and establishment Democrats.  Revolution - really? 

In 2005 I wrote a post here asking if it was time for a revolution, and I used this definition: "a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving." At that time, I was reacting to the G. W. Bush administration, and the effect it was having on what America is. Too many people forget the damage the Cheney/Bush folks did to this country and the world. And here we are, the age of Trump, and dealing with the Trump/Republican Party revolution. 

If Bernie Sanders scares you, find and watch the March 4 interview by Rachel Maddow, MSNBC. It's too bad that, based on the so-called debates, Bernie is often seen as a red-faced, shouting and pointing old man. In the interview, Bernie is seen as he is, a thoughtful, intelligent, experienced politician who has spent his career trying to move a progressive agenda forward in a world of complacency and corruption. Everything in Bernie's menu of policies is common sense and, quite frankly, desperately needed in this country and the world. 

So what is it that scares the establishment and moderates?  We don't need a revolution, and just the thought is too scary? That opinion demonstrates the immaturity of Americans. Most people understand and can articulate the very large, serious issues we have in America, and yet doing what needs to be done about them (revolution of thought and behavior) is way too scary to think about. 

What does the future of America look like? If the Trump Republicans stay in control, it will be very grim, indeed. If Joe Biden becomes President, the Trump agenda will be dismantled and we will be...where? Back to the future? The same old same old? America needs to move forward, not backwards, and not treading water. We have major institutional problems that can be solved, but not by incremental moderation. The power of corporations and their associations - military/industrial, drug companies, financial firms, insurance companies, big tech/internet, and others is too much for incrementalism to overcome. Only revolution, the kind defined above, by a majority of citizens, has a chance to change the system, and it's not a certainty by any stretch of the imagination.

Can Bernie, or a Bernie-like President make the needed changes? Not easily, and very likely not. But we will never know if someone doesn't try. And given the state of the nation and the world, the time to try is now.

The sad and the glad. I was not happy that Bernie Sanders ran for President again; I would have rather seen someone like Elizabeth Warren carry the Democratic Socialism (or similar) banner forward. I was also not happy that Joe Biden jumped in. But here we are, and it's down to Bernie - Biden. So let's get on with it and see what we can do. On a "glad" note, Bernie has dragged the Democratic Party a long way to the left, and his ideas have been aired and debated. I truly hope that progressive Democrats continue to build a movement and continue to fight for the revolutionary changes desperately needed in America. 

Hope springs eternal.

---