My Darlings, Let Us Eliminate the Conditions that Elected this Demagogue

Dearest Dearest Dearest Friend and Countryman,

I want to speak to you about a matter of greatest urgency.  It is possible that you have

misread the current situation and so I address these words to you in the hopes that they will help sooth your heart and your soul and your feeling that something has gone terribly wrong.  

There is a great discontent in this America right now.  In this beautiful abundant nation there are children who have gone to bed hungry, people who are living under tarps in the rain, folks that are working multiple jobs, barely sleeping just to keep a roof over their heads and clothes on their family, people who are in debt for their education, their homes and their health care.  If you are reading this, chances are that is not you.  Chances are that if you have time to read this, you have just enough breathing space to sit for a minute, you have this device, you have the internet connection, you have the education, whatever it might take to be able to create the time and space to sit with this message. Cynical evildoers with their own agenda manipulated a large swath of the people above using racist, xenophobic, anti-LBGTQ and other divisive language and imagery to have people blame the state of their deprivation on THE OTHER rather than on government policies designed to enrich a wealthy few at the expense of working people.    My darling, it would be a big mistake to think that the goal of the Democratic presidential primary is to find the candidate least likely to scare people who have secure health care, housing and finances.  Those people, myself among them, are NOT the people who voted for this regime.  We are hopeful that those people with enough will vote Democratic regardless. Yet it is imperative that we understand that it not our pain at a Trump administration but the pain that attracted and created a Trump administration which will determine this election.

The goal of this election must be to remove the conditions that allowed a self-interested autocratic demagogue to be elected president in the first place.  We must elect a candidate who is trusted, connecting with and working for the majority of Americans that are not benefiting from the current economic recovery.  We must elect a candidate who can provide them with a loving, real alternative that offers something tangible that addresses their fears so that they can vote out of faith and hope instead.  Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both speak to the concerns of this group.  Both care about this group.  However, ONLY Bernie Sanders is drawing consistent energy, excitement, money and engagement from this vast group of people.  Warren is drawing energy, excitement, money and engagement from predominantly Democratic strongholds that will not decide this contest.
 Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has received over four million individual financial contributions in an average of $19 per person to date.  The largest self-identified profession to donate to him is teachers, the second is retail employee, particularly Walmart and Amazon. Bernie Sanders is tapping into the same discontent, anger and fear that elected this president and instead of cynically manipulating it, he is responding with love, compassion and people-centered policies that would make a difference in people's lives.  These policies are real.  They have long been done in every developed nation of the world and that are affordable by the world's wealthiest nation: Medicare for All, free public higher education, eliminating education and medical debt.  These are policies that unite across gender, race and background lines.    He is receiving contributions, volunteer energy and commitment from the highest number of women, immigrants, and people of color of any candidate.   Everywhere Bernie goes, the crowds grow and grow, the excitement grows and grows.  Many many polls show him ahead of Biden, Warren and Buttigieg in head to head contests against the incumbent president in battleground states of Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.   f you are scared of the incumbent president and his regime, Sen. Sanders and his movement is your sweet sweet antidote.  He can and will win.  The question to ask yourself may not be are Sanders supporters willing to vote for whomever the Democrats elect as a nominee?  The question may be are the Democrats who have been doing well in this economy willing to extend that prosperity to the bottom 60%, even if it means some change for them?

How Bernie Sanders is not just another Angry White Man

True confession: despite my longtime anger and suspicion towards Hillary Clinton, I remember feeling very moved as the first woman in US History accepted the Democratic nomination in her white pantsuit (and no, you shouldn't even consider running again, good day, I said good day, madam secretary).  So as a woman with a background as a consumer attorney and advocate who likes a lot about Elizabeth Warren, it is not lightly that I fully support, endorse and work for a Bernie Sanders nomination and presidency.  I'd like to tell you a few of the ways that I strongly believe he is not just another (angry) white man.  Several of the points I make are more strongly illuminated in this recent piece How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Senator Bernie Sanders

1.  Having a Jewish President would be a significant first.  We have never had a president who grew up in non Christian religion.  Three of our presidents were considered to have no religious affiliation:  Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.  John F. Kennedy with the only Catholic president.  It seems that Bernie Sanders identifies as more culturally than religiously Jewish, but he is not a practicing Christian.  So it would be very new to have a Jewish president.  

2.  Knows the dangers of fascism.   Although Bernie's father moved to the US in the 1920s, many of the relatives who stayed were murdered in the Holocaust.  Bernie Sanders grew up with a clear sense of the consequences fascism in the world.

3.  Child of Immigrants.  Since his father came to the US to escape poverty and anti-semitism seeking a better life, he can identify with other refugees and immigrants who come to American fleeing poverty and oppression.

4.  Better placed to broker peace in the Middle East.  Bernie has a connection to Israel going back many years.  In 1963 he lived on a kibbutz near Haifa. As a Jewish-American with concerns about Israel's treatment of Palestinians, a President Sander may be uniquely placed to broker a more lasting peace without charges toward him of anti-semitism.  As Bernie says in the above-reference article, "we should be very clear that it is not antisemitic to criticize the policies of the Israeli government."

5.  Common cause with Muslim Americans.  Related but separate point to above is that Bernie has been able to make common cause with Muslim Americans and is strongly supported by many including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) who are campaigning for him.  Bernie Sanders was one of only two Democratic candidates to address the Islamic Society of North America convention in August, the largest gathering of Muslim Americans in the country. 

6.  Grew up working class.  Unlike almost all the other male candidates for president including Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Julian Castro, Cory Booker and Tom Steyer,  Bernie Sanders grew up working class and was himself a union member for a time.  Looks like Joe Biden's father was very wealthy at one time and then fell on hard times in Scranton and became a car salesman.   It also looks like Sanders was the only one of those candidates with at least one parent attending college.  This gives Sanders a strong connection to the folks who are not particularly nostalgic for the Obama administration which did little to address their kitchen table concerns  [I refuse to consider Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick yet in this list).  

Bernie being arrested in Chicago 1963 Civil Rights protest

7.  Commitment to Social Justice.  Bernie has spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of others.  As this now famous (and sometimes misattributed) photo shows, he was dragged away by police in 1963 for protesting racist policies in Chicago schools.  He is on record as mayor of Burlington supporting women's and gay rights decades ago.   His commitments are longstanding, not a finger in the wind of the times.

Can we stop using "reality" as a way to stay stuck?

Realism is much touted in American life, personal and political.  Parents are socially validated for mocking their young adult children's "unrealistic" college majors and life choices.  Candidates for office are rewarded with big donor cash for mocking anyone who suggests that we can experience major change.  "I live in the real world," has become a favorite catchphrase in this election.

As the sovereign people of this nation (which means in theory, we're the ones in charge) I have long maintained that its not up to us to make the tough choices, its up to us to make the choices tough.  This means we ask for what we really want (like affordable high quality healthcare coverage for every person) rather than what we think we can "realistically" get (slightly more than what we have with some increased choice).  

The same goes for other aspects of life.  So often when people are looking for a job, a partner or a new place to live, their starting point is to be "realistic."  They are coached by conventional wisdom to look at what seems to be out there, determine what it costs or asks of applicants, and then winnow down their expectations to what appears to be possible.  In other words they are advised to start low and move lower.

As a student of quantum physics, psychology and the effect of consciousness on perception, I can tell you that what we call "reality" is actually just a reflection of our collective beliefs.  If we accept the current apparent conditions (poverty, war, racism, dead end jobs, expensive health care and education, "no good men") as determinative of what is possible, everything gets worse from here.

There is an alternative.  I love watching people take a chance on creating their Reality from within and then proceed (as visionary coach Mary Morrissey puts it) "from" that vision, rather than "to" it.  How would they love to feel in a job, in a relationship, in a home?  Most people will say things like "free, joyful, loving, creative and playful."  When they embroider their vision of their life anchoring it in the feeling of it, something shifts in their perception.  Now, instead of being a victim of "reality," they are creating their Reality.  I have watched people create in this way amazing careers, relationships, homes and experiences from the inside out.

I like to hang out with and vote for people who are not just accepting the parameters of the "possible" but changing them (and I bet you do too).  The people that we like to read about in magazines see something that is "impossible" and make it happen anyway.  
The people we venerate and idolize in the world history are always the visionaries: Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.,  George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, these are all people who led mass movements to achieve "the impossible."  If any of these people "lived in the real world" then apartheid, segregation, British colonial rule, and the Great Depression might still be "reality."

Why then do so many of us venerate, cultivate and encourage candidates for president who "live in the real world" right now?  Throughout his career, Bernie Sanders has not lived in the real world.  The real world said that an independent Jewish socialist from Brooklyn could not be mayor of Burlington let alone the US Senator from Vermont.  The real world says no one could raise tens of millions of dollars from average donations of $17.  The real world says that candidates for president would not all be talking about Medicare for All, eliminating student debt, a large increase in minimum wage and a huge jobs program that saves our environment, yet they are.

Unless we are very happy with the current reality in our lives and in this country, we need a new vision.  We need someone who does not let themselves be defined and limited by "the real world."  We need to vote for a new Reality.