My Thanks to Bernie Sanders [View all]

[WiffenPoof]

Objects In The Mirror…

As I get older and I realize that I am much closer to the end than I am from the beginning, I start the obligatory reflection on my life. It’s as if I’m in the passenger seat heading down an unfamiliar road, looking through a rear-view mirror. It’s one of those side mirrors that has the curious warning: “Objects in the mirror appear much closer than they actually are.”

We were close, weren’t we? But then again, maybe we weren’t. Maybe it was just an illusion.

After the California Primary, I took a few days off from politics. I think we all know what was coming. This is particularly hard for me since I’m a dedicated political junkie. There are very few things in life that accurately reflect who we are better than our political identity. It not only exposes our view of ourselves, but it reflects how we see the world around us. It taps into our idealism as well as our cynicism…our hopes and dreams…our disappointments.

Nothing says you’re getting older better than the realization that you have fallen out of the prime demographics. Suddenly, what you think and feel mean less to the corporate machine. It is a rude way to be put out to pasture. Getting older is not for cowards.

I’ve thought a lot about Bernie lately. The professor with the messed up snow white hair, glasses and a manner that clearly demonstrates his unflinching determinism. Many of us were surprised that someone like Bernie would show up carrying high the banner of a true Democrat. It had been so long that we barely recognized him. Only a year earlier, I would have bet that the original tenets of our Party were long gone, never to be seen again. But there stood Bernie. Unapologetic and exceedingly confident…Bernie was to express the hopes and dreams of our better angels. We had not seen anything like this in decades.

Not everything that is reflected in the rear-view mirror is pleasant. I recall as a 10 year old being woken up in the middle of the night by my mom who wanted me to see something I would never forget. There, flickering in black and white, were that day’s newsreels of the racial strife from the deep South. I was horrified to see African-Americans being controlled by high pressure hoses while German Shepherds nipped at their feet. I recall my mother, with tears streaming down her face, whisper to no one in particular…”who are these people?” “This is not America.” The experience would have a profound effect on me. The word “injustice” finally had a meaning. It also solidified in my mind a twisted image of the South. That image remains to this day.

Not everything through the rear-view mirror would darken my view of the world around me. There were moments of light, moments of hope. There was Martin Luther King reminding us that it is the “content of our character and not the color of our skin” that mattered. But then, April 4th would come too soon.

Or the reflection of Robert Kennedy who “saw things that never were and asked…why not?” Yes, even in our darkest days, Bobby knew that America was bigger than any single person and that we merely must look ahead to find our way home. But then there were the words: “Now, it’s on to Chicago…”

I could have sworn that the reflection in the mirror was closer than it appeared. In reality, it was Bernie’s “last hurrah.” And perhaps America’s last hurrah.

All that I came to believe that America was about was in Bernie Sanders. It was about reason and compassion. It was about optimism and justice. It took Bernie to remind us that we weren’t being as naive as others would have us believe…that it was not just our dreams that were real, but that all things were possible.

With all due respect to “Willie the Shake” I would like to believe that “it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” But I’m not so sure. My disappointment is profound and as I drink from a glass that is half empty.

After California I realized that I would have to vote for someone that I did not fully support or believe in. That my vote would mean nothing more than it has ever meant in the past. I wouldn’t be voting for someone, I would be voting against someone else. A hollow victory at best.

All that remains is to thank Bernie. I’m just not sure how.

Perhaps it is best that I simply stare ahead on this unfamiliar road. Comfortable in my passenger seat, I will avoid the rear-view mirror for fear that our collective dreams will appear closer than they actually are.

-Paige