Last edited Mon Feb 29, 2016, 04:45 PM - Edit history (1)
He has earned it, or should have by now. Just not in the ways we have come to expect.
I don't have a problem with the way he deals with race or the way he reaches out to me, as a black woman. I think his message is not fully understood and that's mostly on us (his supporters).
Quoting the Nation article from the OP:
For all his political virtues, Sanders has had difficulty connecting his message of economic populism to the other major social justice concerns of the modern left, such race, gender, and sexuality. And unless he overcomes these problems, he will be unable to achieve his goal of expanding beyond his base and sparking a popular mass movement.
It’s not that he doesn’t connect the dots, the two being linked. It’s that
he doesn’t make a distinction. I understand this because I understand his spiritual world view – it may be too much forest for the trees forsaking the connection of dots, but I am perfectly fine with it. Explaining the forest does not fit into a bullet point, least of all a talking point for pundits or a bumper sticker for a laptop. It overlaps with the spiritual in some ways and that is just too messy to get into in the middle of a campaign. Policies aside, and he is directly responsive no doubt, the other half of the Venn diagram appears to be left hanging. But is it?
The issue is an imbalance of power, ultimately. All inequalities share the same foundation and the one thing that empowers people politically is money – leading to income – leading to leveling the playing field – leading to social justice. It’s all
one messy problem and as a people, we lack the collectivistic instinct to see that. I get more frustrated with supporters not selling it because he has enough to do. I guess I should do better in this regard. I tried with a few posts but could do better, I admit (see my DU journals).
The connection between the dots is this:
The idea that one cannot have any (or more) power unless another has no (or less) power is what drives inequality. The idea that “less for you means more for me” is what drives every form of inequality. This is why he runs the
“Together” ads, he is getting to the larger picture. Maybe it’s too meta for most people but that’s where we come in, we have to expand and explain. We have to change the way we think. Otherwise we just keep right on doing what we have always done and nothing changes.
Power is shared collectively.
I wish his team would have made the ads more than just inclusive but with sensitivity to the threat of invisibility we poc face. Unity has to embrace our differences, not erase them. But again, that’s on the rest of us. Black folks gotta explain (Yes, I know. We have been, for far too long) and white folks got to listen.
He is running for political office and uses political language – money. Which means inequality takes on an economic message. It’s more than just the linkage of the economic and social, it’s literally the same problem. He cannot explain this problem as a footnote in a speech, it requires getting too deep in the weeds. So, no, it's not generic. It's just subtle.
And while I have your attention … on the other points in the article.
This here:
Sanders himself has received few union endorsements, even though he arguably has the strongest pro-labor record of any politician in America.
drives me nuts. How blind can we be, America? Come on. It’s a clear pattern: members of various groups love him while the people up top in the group don’t. Are we a democracy or not? Why are we accepting this? I blame the public, actually.
We have been conditioned and expect to be pandered to, which I personally cannot stand. Pandering. Ugh… If someone wants to represent me, they better bring substance, and the more authentic they are, the more they have my attention. I don’t need my President to be pretty or cool. Pandering, for me, counts
against a leader, but sadly it works too well. That’s part of the problem, we want slick salespeople or charismatic cool. (We also want a president that will slice and dice opponents, which is another problem. One for a different post at another time.)
Bernie has his own brand of charisma, an endearingly rumpled grandfather. It’s not going to work for everyone, obviously, but we have to be willing to let our leaders be who they are while simultaneously able to see their vision for us. We have gotten used to Bill Clinton and President Obama, a smooth operator and The. Coolest. President. Ever. But let’s be honest here, we know that charisma doesn’t necessarily translate to great leadership – see Ronald Reagan. I am tired of the “game” and Bernie is a breath of fresh air, he isn’t that popular guy on campus. He is a nerd, ultimately. He is more an academic than a football star, or lead singer. He is not going to effectively
woo people because that’s just not who he is. It is on us to sell his message to the fickle public, not him.
Bottom line - he brings substance to the table, which is what a leader does. It is what a leader is supposed to do. If a leader brings substance, I’m in - that’s all I need.
That said, Bernie is quick on his feet when he has to be, but he isn’t going to twist himself into a pretzel trying to be many different things to many different people – nor should he. One thing that consistently inspires me is that he still, even after all this time in Vermont, has not lost his gloriously authentic accent. This suggests that on some level, he is not the kind of guy that changes on a whim. He is flexible enough to bend with the wind but he is not going to be pushed around either. He’s been around for a while, he isn’t new to politics by any stretch. That means he’s also older than the past few presidents.
A lot of people cite this strength as a weakness:
Unfortunately, when it comes to race and gender issues, Bernie sometimes sounds like who he is: an occasionally clueless 74-year old white guy (witness his language about paid leave as a program that would allow “mothers”—as opposed to parents—to stay home with their kids).
Oh, come on. Really? All this does is indicate his age, not his mind-set. He is not a savior, he will be a President. Besides, if millennials don’t have a problem with it, why on earth should anyone else? The politics of intersectionality is on us, not him. It’s pretty clear what he means when he speaks of equality, despite saying it like a grandfather does. He is walking the talk, so much that we don’t see it. Besides, I don’t expect him to worry much about the
optics of politics of intersectionality because, after all, he is literally trying to lead us to save a country as
an intersectional collective.
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