Bernie appears to be channeling Martin Luther King Jr. in his latest book. The title is derived from one of King's landmark speeches in the wake of the Civil Rights Act. Pretty hard to top that powerful speech. Not that Bernie really tries. For all I know, he's a fan of Peter Sarstedt.
His is an account of his ongoing campaign against corporate America, venting his frustration on the Trumpian world we now live in and taking credit for liberal upstarts like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who he thinks give his "movement" legitimacy. He is particularly scornful of corporate media for constantly belittling his brand of social democracy. However, this NPR reviewer wasn't overly impressed, noting that the book is a slog offering little insight into the man or his mission.
Bernie is another Eugene McCarthy, who ran for president in 1968, and actually won more votes in the primaries than Robert F. Kennedy, only to lose on delegates at the convention to Hubert Humphrey after RFK's untimely death. Ironically, Humphrey never really entered the campaign. He had a paltry 116,000 votes to McCarthy's 2.9 million, but the Democratic establishment didn't like McCarthy and so gave the nomination to Vice-President Humphrey instead. The convention ended in chaos, just like the campaign, but amazingly Humphrey almost beat Nixon in the general election. We will never know what would have happened if McCarthy had won the nomination.
One would think Bernie would provide some historic footnotes to his never-ending campaign, but instead he likes to refer to the social democratic governments in Europe. I suppose in his mind these governments are a success, whereas rehashing McCarthy would only make him look like a loser. No one likes a loser in this country.
Bernie is the latest incarnation of the Democratic "lost cause." Before McCarthy there was Henry Wallace and before him William Jennings Bryan, all of whom campaigned on the theme of the common man. Bryan was famous for his "Cross of Gold" speech, before sullying himself with the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. He had wanted America to switch to the silver standard so that more persons could share in the American dream, but in the end the country stuck with the gold standard in voting for McKinley in 1896.
It seemed to me that the only reason Bernie ran in 2016 was to deny Hillary the Democratic nomination by acclamation. There were no other serious candidates. After her failed effort in 2008, the mood among many Democrats was that it was her turn. Maybe if Bernie hadn't been so critical of her during the primaries, she would have fared better in the general election? Or, maybe if he had miraculously won the nomination, the Democrats would have kept the White House? We will never know.
What we do know is that Bernie rekindled a social democratic spark in the party that seemed to ignite in 2018 with a surprising number of young social democrats winning House seats. Alexandria was just the one Fox "news" chose to vilify. It is hard to say what impact this will have on the party. There was some discussion that Pelosi would cede her role as party leader to someone younger and more in step with this movement, but in the end the social democrats chose to support Pelosi rather than risk a contentious fight within the party.
Some would say this is a smart move. It presents a unified front in what will be a very contentious two years. Hard to say what Bernie thinks from the short review in NPR, but I imagine he has his concerns, as he always does.
There is no denying Bernie gave the Democratic Party a badly needed emotional lift, but given the unprecedented number of Democratic women who were elected to Congress, #MeToo played a strong factor as well. This owes its genesis to how badly Hillary was treated in 2016, far worse than anything Bernie had to suffer through.
I won't use the word never, but it is rare to see a candidate suffer so much abuse for things she didn't do. Hillary wasn't a bad candidate. She had a horrible campaign manager, John Podesta, who didn't do enough to challenge these absurd claims. He decided to play it safe in the general election rather than take the campaign to the heartland of the country, where ultimately it was fought. How else to explain a one million vote swing between 2012 and 2016 in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin? These were all states Obama won handily before. Obama had also won Ohio and Florida, but just holding onto these three "Rust Belt" states would have been enough to put Hillary over the top.
For some reason, Hillary doesn't criticize Podesta in her book, at least not that I've read in reviews. He had served as her husband's chief of staff from 1998-2001, so they were old friends. Yet, Podesta was probably the last person she should have picked to run her campaign, given he didn't seem to have a single imaginative bone in his body and in the end his "play it safe" strategy cost them valuable Democratic real estate.
Bernie saw this, but couldn't quite generate enough excitement to get the party to recognize the dynamic had changed in the last four years. This had been true for McCarthy back in 1968, who wanted to see a more liberal Democratic Party really take on the corporate establishment. Instead, we got Humphrey. It wasn't like Humphrey was a bad guy, but he was too conservative, too mired in the old way of doing things, and ultimately too boring for the American electorate, even if he did only lose by 500,000 votes, or 0.7 per cent, to Nixon.
Now we have fresh young faces like Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julian Castro to choose from in 2020. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is too young to run for President. She will have to wait until 2024 or beyond. This casts a decidedly different glow to the next Presidential election, one in which youth will hopefully be served. Democrats have usually fared better with younger candidates. Bernie can claim to be the godfather of these political young turks. The Clinton dynasty finally appears over, although there remain rumors Hillary is not done yet.
Whatever the case, we could all learn from Martin Luther King Jr.'s great speech back in 1967. One it appears Beto took to heart in running his surprising grass roots campaign in Texas. You can't put out darkness with darkness. Only light can do that. You must show people a light, a ray of hope, you must show them love. Above all things, you must appeal to the common good in people.
Don't be afraid to borrow a few words from Jesus as MLK Jr. did, or William Jennings Bryan long before him. After all, this is a country where 70% of the population professes to be Christian. There is no reason to cede the evangelical vote to the Republicans. Go out there into the heartland and stir them up with a few religious parables of your own. They are just as much frustrated by the current state of things as we all are.
As MLK Jr. so evocatively said in acknowledging a greater creative force in the universe, "Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
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