I have decided to back Bernie Sanders for president. I got my Bernie 2016 t-shirt in the mail a week or two back. It took long enough. But it’s a lovely shirt: well-cut, union-made, and all.
It seemed too good not to share.
I’ve seen no visible sign of an Elect Bernie movement here in Santa Cruz — not even a bumper sticker. So last weekend I put on the shirt and hiked back and forth through downtown.
This is a well-to-do, progressive college town, hardwired into national Democratic politics. The local heavyweights all schmoozed with the Clintons and seem committed to them. Hilary Clinton is electable, the common wisdom goes. She’s the smart choice. Progressives and leftists, fall in line with the safe establishment candidate and be happy for what you get. You’ll get something. It may even be meaningful. I say, “may.”
But there are people around here who, like me, appreciate Sanders and his energetic, activist, no-generalities approach to America’s problems. Yet they’ve been quiet. They don’t have a voice of their own. Perhaps they’re unsure whether many others feel as they do. We talk of individualism, Americans, do. But human beings run in packs, in tribes.
So I decided to fly the flag. I put on the shirt and, for an afternoon, became the flag. And I walked myself up and down Pacific Avenue.
I said nothing, didn’t engage. But people engaged with me.
“Bernie!” said the retail clerk trundling goods onto the sidewalk. He threw a thumbs-up.
“Bernie!” barked the fat man in Bermuda shorts.
“Berrrrr-neeeee,” a woman sang out as we passed on the sideway.
“I like your shirt,” a young woman called from her car.
“I like your shirt,” a father said as he straightened the clothing on his disheveled tot.
“I like your shirt,” said the cost-conscious fashionista in the thrift store.
“I like your shirt,” said the hipster fledgling businessman from the counter of his new shop. “Do you think they have key chains, too?”
“Bernie, phhhtt!” spat a street musician. We know each other: a committed Republican and a Portuguese-American like me. If a Portuguese doesn’t get in your face, it means he doesn’t like you.
Most people said nothing, but I saw the eyes of oncomers shift down to my shirt, felt eyetracks zip across my chest . Calculations were taking place behind blank faces: “perhaps,” the neurons whispered to one another, “Bernie’s not just a media construct…”
I’d say there are a lot of people out there who’d like to see the flag flown, and even more who need to see the flag flown. And a t-shirt flies higher than a bumper sticker. If you are a Bernie supporter, and you’re comfortable with the idea, put on the t-shirt. Fly the flag. Become the message.
And the people you pass will see it with their own eyes, and begin to believe that it’s real. It’s a place to start, before the real campaigning begins.
Hey Jim, I usually vote for the long-shot idealist in the primary, then hold my nose and vote for the establishment primary winner in the general election. My favorite candidate never wins. I should be more cynical, I suppose.
Yeah, well, I’m hoping that Sanders’ support will be stronger than expected. There’s nothing radical about most of what he wants, and he speaks in specifics instead of generalities (“Let’s get this country moving again” makes me want to puke.)
All that said, I’m like you. Voting in the primary is one way to show what “the people” want (or at least are not happy to put up with); and even if the insider candidate gets the nomination, these votes affect the conversation and, one hopes, eventual decisions. Sometimes that’s about all we can get out of this thing we laughingly call a democracy.
What a great thing to do. Very true about people preferring to be part of a pack or group or someone to rally around. As you wrote, you were the flag and perhaps one of the people who said Bernie, heard another person say it too, and now they feel less alone.
Thanks, and good to hear from you. A little quiet around here lately. I’ve seen one or two other Bernie shirts, have ordered one for Rhumba, and have worn mine around a bit more. Am going to one of the July 29 Bernie Sanders organizing meetings with Rhumba — which includes a live telecast/address from the man himself — and we’ll see what developes.
It’s good to know I’m in great company. Bernie’s the best of the bunch, in my opinion, and if he can talk Liz W into being on the ticket…………WINNER!
Forrest, somehow I knew you’d be on board with Bernie, socialist or not. I don’t know if he’d be able to pry Warren out of the Senate; but if he got the nomination, who knows?
I’m been joking with Rhumba that Bernie should have Jerry Brown as his running mate so they could use the slogan “Bern and Jerry 2016!” Bad pun, but I like it. Nevertheless we’re going to one of the organizing meetings next week, and I’ll let you know how that turns out.