It's the quintessential Sanders, voice raised, hand up to emphasize the point he's making, hitting on the same points he's made hundreds of times in the last year about the inequities of American politics and economics. Of course, he didn't just start campaigning for these values in April 2015, when he announced he would compete with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. He's been an activist for leftist causes since before I was born, and his message has never wavered: equal rights for all people; redistribution of wealth and power; socialism as the cure for all our nation's ills.
That stubborn consistency singles Bernie out from the political class, who by and large succeed by adjusting their positions to match or at least work in sync with the shifting views of their constituents. It helps, in Bernie's case, that his entire career as an elected politician has been based on New England, a region that values bluntness over polish. It has not, however, yielded results in Washington, where as first a Congressman and, more recently, a Senator, he has had few legislative victories. Until he decided to run for President, he was not even affiliated with a major political party, calling himself independent but caucusing consistently with the Democrats. While his principled stands have earned him the admiration of many of his colleagues, he has not had many friends on Capitol Hill. Of all the 538 potential Congressional candidates for President, he seemed the unlikeliest to attract a following.
To be clear, I have never been on the Bernie Bandwagon. I liked what I said, would be delighted if any of his dreams were to come to fruition; but I knew that the office of the Presidency had no power to implement any of those programs, that in fact the President's greatest influence lies in the realm of foreign policy, an area that is a Sanders weakness; and I worried that a socialist heading the Democratic ticket would ensure a Republican victory in November. For all that, I have been impressed with his tenacity, amazed by the youth and passion of his following, and I very much hope we are seeing, at last, the awakening of the Millennial generation to its own political power. Over the next few decades, I expect Bernie's movement to remake American culture and governance, to nationalize and institutionalize the gains in equity made since President Obama took office, to shift political influence from the wealthy back to the populace.
But what of Bernie himself? At 74, he really is too old to have another shot at the Presidency. But I don't believe that was ever the right place for him, for one simple reason: prophets ought not be kings.
In the Hebrew Scriptures (commonly referred to be Christians as the "Old" Testament), there are two classes of prophets: those who work for the king, speaking for God in ways that, by and large, affirm his policies; and those who independently speak for God against the evils of the dominant culture. We only hear about the king's prophets when they come up against the independent prophets, and typically, they wind up disgraced or dead (the Bible is not kind to toadies). The independent prophets, though, are the heroes of the Scriptures, railing against injustice and corruption, predicting destruction for the leaders and their followers, offering up a vision for a future that is just, equitable, and righteous. There's no glory in this job: prophets lead their lives in isolation and poverty, under the threat of persecution, imprisonment, and execution for their treasonous views.
Read the Biblical narrative from end to end, and there will be little doubt in your mind who the true prophets were. Even the best kings come across as flawed individuals. Prophets, on the other hand, stay true to their messages, no matter what the cost.
Bernie Sanders is a prophet. He's been a prophet at least as far back as 1960, when he joined the Young People's Socialist League at the University of Chicago. As an activist through the 1960s and 1970s, and as an elected politician since 1980, he has continued to prophesy, holding true to a message that is wholly compatible with the prophetic ministries of Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah: justice, righteousness, mercy. He has, quite remarkably, managed to hold true to this prophetic work from within the government he criticizes--though he's done this at the cost of legislative effectiveness, and by virtue of representing a region of the United States known for its idiosyncrasies.
There are many within the Sanders movement who are grieving now, angrily railing against the system that kept their prophet from becoming king. They're right in their belief that the deck was stacked against him: the politics of any republic favor candidates of the middle, and it is rare for a candidate from either extreme to ascend to office without manipulating or subverting the system in some way.
That's as it should be. Had Bernie won the Presidency, he would have either spent one frustrating term of accomplishing nothing, finding every one of his radical policies rejected by Congress, the only branch of government that could put them into practice; or he would have had to compromise every one of them to the point at which they became unrecognizable. The United States is not a dictatorship; the executive branch does not have the power to implement policies anywhere near as radical as those proposed by Bernie Sanders.
Continuing with how it should be: this keeps Bernie where he belongs, prophesying from Capitol Hill. But there's a difference now: thanks to his campaign for the Presidency, both his colleagues on the Hill and the next occupant of the White House will have to reckon with him. He's no longer just the junior senator from one of the smallest states in the union. He speaks for a movement of millions of voters, voters who were the majority in nineteen state primaries and caucuses, most of whom will grudgingly vote for Hillary Clinton in November, but none of whom will just disappear. These voters are the future of center-left politics in America, and ignoring them will cost the Democratic party dearly. The Republican party is on the verge of self-destruction because its own fringe candidate's following proved far stronger with voters than any had suspected; Democrats of future elections could face a similar fate if they don't heed the message of the Sanders movement.
That's why I'm glad Bernie Sanders is not going away. Don't get me wrong, Hillary Clinton has an essential, historical role in the immediate future. But long term, Bernie matters more. He speaks for those who will, more and more, decide future elections. We know he won't be silenced--25 years on Capitol Hill have proven that. The difference is that he can no longer be ignored. He speaks for millions.
So no, Bernie, you don't get to be king. And that's just as well, because from the very beginning, you were called to be something far more significant: prophet.
It starts in infancy. As soon as a baby learns to make noises with hands or feet, that child is a body musician. As we mature, we explore more sounds, and not always with music in mind: making noises that evoke giggles is a staple of elementary school humor. Making them rhythmically, on the other hand, is something we have to figure out, or learn from another. I was in my 40s before I realized there could be music in body noises other than stomps, snaps, and claps.
I can't remember how it was used at my first workshop in 2005, but I know it was there. Body percussion is as essential to Orff pedagogy as rote imitation, improvisation, and mallet instruments with removable bars. An Orff staple is to teach a rhythm first by speech, then by playing it on the body, programming it indelibly into the brain, before ever an instrument is touched.
It began, as so many hard weeks have in this chaotic era, with a news story: a white nationalist, the kind who are the most rabid believers in the Trump agenda, only this one was even more extreme than they are, took his Trump-empowered bigotry and part of his NRA-empowered gun collection into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed eleven people. I saw that in my news feed Friday after school, and coupled with the other horrible things that no-longer fringy conservative white men had done that week (pipe bombs, shooting elderly African-American grocery shoppers when a prayer meeting proved inaccessible), I started the weekend in a bad place. All these crimes hit close to home one way or another: the bombs being sent to people of any prominence at all who'd been critical of Trump (making me thankful my blog reaches dozens, rather than thousands, of people); the attempted assault on a church much like the one where I played the p…
I didn't brace myself, because I knew what he was going to say next. I've been hearing it a lot lately, in fact.
This chapter in the "getting old" volume of my memoir began a year ago. That's when I noticed an odd growth on the first knuckle of my right middle finger. It resembled a blister, though I'd done nothing to cause one. My first thought was that perhaps I'd been bitten by a spider or some other insect, and developed some kind of infection. I had a doctor look at it. She inserted a needle into it, drew out some fluid (this was not a pleasant experience), and concluded I had a ganglion cyst: fluid was leaking out of the joint, causing this strange growth. She told me to keep an eye on it, and come in if it appeared to be infec…
The voters have spoken, and the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. Or perhaps it won't. Or maybe the kingdom will divide, and Scotland and Northern Ireland will remain in the EU while the stump of England and Wales leave. Except London would rather remain. And with the promises used to convince voters to leave turning out to be mostly exaggerations, if not out right lies, maybe they'll take another vote. Or not.
The Brexit campaign was led by two British politicians: Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, and Boris Johnson, former mayor of London and probable contender to replace David Cameron as Conservative party leader and possibly prime minister. In their quest to flush the British economy, and possibly that of the rest of the Western world, down the loo, Johnson, Farage, and the campaign they spearheaded said many things about immigration, spending, and policy that they are now having to walk back or deny--not unlike a certain spray-tanned, wild-haired demagogue who will almost certainly be the Republican nominee for President. It turns out the racist populism that gave him the edge in so many caucuses and primaries doesn't even come close to representing a majority of the general electorate, and is, if anything, energizing not just minority voters, but independents, Democrats, and even some Republicans to commit to defeating him in November--and possibly costing the GOP their majorities in both chambers of Congress.
And yet, as Bob Garfield has written, the majority that will defeat Donald Trump dare not breathe easy. More than 13 million people voted for Trump in the primaries, and if he wins even 40 per cent of the general election vote, that number could rise to 50 million ballots cast for xenophobic populist hate mongering. Numbers like that turned the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich. And here's another thing to consider: those Trump voters are both less educated, and better armed, than the German minority who gave Hitler his step up to demonhood.
The British voters who, in their ignorance, passed the Brexit referendum were mostly middle-aged and older, white, rural, and lower income. The "remain" electorate were predominantly young, urban, and better educated. Trump voters look a lot like "leave" voters, and have similar axes to grind: the global economy has left them behind, and in their anger, they blame those who look most global: immigrants who are also persons of color; and the business elites whose exploitation of the economy caused it to collapse in 2008.
I empathize with those voters. I, too, was hurt by the recession, RIFed out of my teaching job. It took me four years to return to full-time work. That's a big bite out of my eventual retirement income, and probably means I'll have to stay in the work force until later in life than most of my colleagues. This didn't have to happen: if the financial industry had been better-regulated, if the traders running it had had fiduciary responsibility, if the previous administration hadn't been obsessed with making the rich richer, if if if if if...
But happen it did, and working class and middle class people around the world suffered. Leap forward just a few years, and the culprits who caused the collapse are starting to feel uncomfortable. The Tea Party movement could easily have turned on them, but allowed itself to be co-opted into the Republican obsession with obstructing the Obama administration agenda. Ultimately, that movement fell apart, as its base had a series of "Hey, wait a minute..." moments, and realized the GOP establishment was not, in fact, any more fiduciary than the financial industry that donated so generously to its politicians. Rather than turn to the other establishment party, these voters found a voice in the erratic rants of a self-professed billionaire, a man who exemplified so many of the practices that caused the collapse. Somehow, rather than becoming the object of their anger, he channeled it, making common cause with them against immigrants and intellectuals. Working in parallel, the Brexit movement played a similar game, presenting a mix of xenophobia and unattainable promises.
I feel the pain of the Brexiters and the Trumpers, and I know these people. I grew up in small towns like those that voted out of the EU, or for the Donald. My schoolmates, my parishioners, and the parents of some of my students probably have a fair number of Trump bumper stickers on their cars. The typical Trump or Brexit voter looks a lot like me: white, middle-aged, male. Just as my generation (despite its counter-cultural youth) handed Congress to the Tea Party, so it is now handing the Republican party to Donald Trump, and England and Wales to Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. My generation sucks.
But hang on, hipsters: you're not innocent, either. If you had turned out in larger numbers in the Brexit referendum, you could've held the line against the Leave voters. And while poll numbers are looking promising in the American Presidential election, it's far too early to rest easy. A lot could happen between now and November 8. You can't count on my sucky generation to make the right choice at the ballot box. If you stay away on election day (as many of you disappointed Bernie believers have promised to do), we still might be facing a Thousand Year Reich in Washington.
Britain is reeling from its bad decision. Trillions of pounds vanished overnight. The economic earthquake was felt around the world: Wall Street had a very bad day, as well. Giving in to anger and hatred doesn't just hurt the objects of those feelings. It washes over the bystanders who thought they could stay out of it, and ultimately splashes back on the haters themselves, dragging everyone down with the scapegoats.
As much as Britain is hurting now, the impact of a Trump win in November would be far worse. The British economic is significant, but it's tiny next to Wall Street. The aftermath of a Trump win would make 2008 look like a walk in the park.
Brexit was enabled, to a large part, by the disorganization of the Remain campaign; and in the wake of the vote, both the Conservative and Labour parties are coming apart at the seams. The one thing Americans can do to avoid the Trumpocalypse from happening is to unite against it: every age, every ethnicity, every skin tone, every orientation, gender, class, occupation, political persuasion working together to turn back the tide of hatred. That means Sandersites making common cause not just with Clintonians, but with rational Republicans. We don't have to agree on any issue but this one: saying no to Donald Trump.
Can we do that, America? I sure hope so. Canada's too chilly for my tastes, Britain's not likely to be welcoming ex-pats of any nationality for some time to come, and Australia's just too bloody hot. I'd much rather remain.