Was it Bernie Sanders or Was it Vermont?
I want to trust Bernie like the cool kids, should I?
Being a C-SPAN junky in my teens, I was the rare person that already knew who the Congressman was with the (S) next to his name since he made it to the House in the 90's
(S)
A curious, and extremely contentious thing with its Cold War peasantry-sniffing scent of "RUSSIANS!" back then. He always seemed to take the almost, but not quite, out of the box angle when speaking on the floor, and of course had his shock of Einstein Approved Unruly Hair.
Which is why, when I found myself in Vermont in 2012 on the way to the Canadian Grand Prix, I was curious to see if "the land of Bernie Sanders" was somehow any different than any other place.
Maybe it was the Burlington airport... that struck me as something of a cross between a nice library and a museum, that charmed me. It was amazingly quiet, well kept, clean and didn't seem to feature any signs of "Modern Cheap Upscale" design aesthetic that plagues the 21st century.
The shuttle into town was an interesting ride, being my first glimpse of Near Canada. Unlike the south east, Vermont is clean. By that I mean, you don't see lots of trash everywhere, litter. No signs of urban decay, houses rotting out, sad 70's boom construction falling down.
It kind of looked like "what America should look like if things were not messed up".
Into town, the same thing. All the buildings appeared to be well kept, all of the businesses appeared to be prospering, not hanging on by a thread. Clean, no litter. Streets well marked, no gigantic holes or parts buckling, despite the weather there.
Nobody sleeping on the sidewalks. No beggars on the corners. A McDonald's sign was visible IIRC, but very little national chain signage. In fact, it looked like only locally owned, private businesses predominated?
It was exciting, it looked like the 70's of my childhood in a way. South eastern resort towns like Hilton Head almost have this vibe, brought about by a constant influx of tourist money and hyper-wealthy living there, but that wasn't the case in Burlington. It appeared to have pulled this look off "casually", naturally so to speak. Like it was functional on it's own, things are o.k. there.
I was thinking "Bernie Sanders?". I remarked to my wife some of these things - look at how clean things are, no rubble and buildings falling apart. Their mayor, rep and eventual senator was this guy that proclaimed himself to be a socialist I told her, was he responsible for the seeming well being of Burlington? She feigned interest.
The brief stay at the Red Roof was interesting, in that the natives appeared polite and .... upbeat?
The thing about growing up in Augusta, Georgia, is that outside of golf nobody comes here for anything aside from work. That work was helping to build the Bomb; in addition to that not really being a reason to vacation in Augusta, it also meant you're not supposed to talk about your work .
In turn, there was a sour, down beat mood over everyone here. For those not fortunate enough to be employed by the government, everything else was/is ancillary or some sort of industrial, chemical or otherwise production plant. As the song says, "Augusta Georgia is no place to be".
There is a lightness to spirit for people that live in work in resort towns. It may not be obvious, but when you live and work in such places you can always tag "...at the beach" onto it, or "...in the mountains". Augusta, you can tag "home of the Masters" to it, or ".... home of James Brown". Neither really apply to your daily life.
In Burlington the people working at the hotel, the people outside and around, did not all have an overtone of despair and resignation to their countenance and tone of voice. A subtle but real and present thing.
I attributed this perhaps to some Bernie effect, policies, mayoral decrees, whatever. Perhaps being the top of the local pyramid (I still thought of government/society as a pyramidal org chart in 2012) there was a trickle-down positivity, policy influence, that led to my impression of ease of prosperity (relative to my depressed Red state).
Fast forward to now, and of course everyone knows who he is. He's now effectively Democrat Jesus. If he runs in 2020 he may actually win, a thought so far removed from what I would have thought believable in 2012 that I would have bet anything against that at the time. That the general populace would ever know who he is I would have bet against back then.
I'm watching his response last night on the Jimmy Dore live stream and I feel the 'ol Bernie pull. He's saying things I like, lots of things I like, and with detail. He's not saying what should be done, but still, at least it's not just platitudes.
Then, he rolls out the Russians narrative. Jimmy Dore blanches. Myself, I come back to reality.
Bernie had a moment in time where he could have historically turned America around. Instead of "holding to his promise" he could have rejected the party that he knew cheated him, and candidate that he campaigned against that he knows is corrupt. He "kept his promise" over the good of the American people.
"Ahh, but Chip, that's so very noble of Bernie!".
Is it?
I'm not sure.
Are we in a Textbook Reality?
By doing that he accepts that the whole process is just fine, running the way it should, because the promise to the DNC only counts within the framework of the Textbook Reality. Which we all know 2016 wasn't. "Shenanigans" beginning to end.
Had he called the DNC and Hillary out for the graft and corruption, when his voice was the loudest in the nation, we could have had a watershed moment against the Establishment. He could have called for a write in campaign. It could have been, dare I say it, "revolutionary".
He literally embraced Hillary. As quickly as the Young Turks turn that night at the end of the primary, he erased all of the gains he'd made by allowing them to be diluted into the muddy and polluted stream of Mainstream Politics.
HE IS NO LONGER AN "OUTSIDER".
My fear, and suspicion, is that maybe he never was. He let go of South Carolina with no effort, and it certainly took no effort to just throw up his hands and become a shill for the DNC.
Let's make no mistake: he is definitely a shill for the DNC now. Just because he says some things you and I may like to hear (which is what a politician does...) doesn't change the fact that he endorses the DNC.
So last night, when he trotted out the "Trump and the elections are corrupted by the Russians!" I knew it was coming. That Jimmy Dore didn't expect it was interesting, he seemed genuinely affected by it, which is good: I think maybe I can trust him and his reactions for being his own? That is kind of hard to tell these days. You are constantly being played to by actors with titles like "Senator", "Spokesperson", "News Anchor", etc..
According to Twitter reactions, there were a lot of people that were "shocked" by Bernie's Establishment party line.
It has sort of provided closure for me with Bernie. After all, it was the people of Vermont that routinely was brave enough to vote for a guy that called himself a "socialist". Maybe correlation in this case holds true, there is something to the people of Vermont that allowed someone non-linear to the Establishment to get this far.