2016 Postmortem

Bonobo

(29,257 posts) Thu Dec 24, 2015, 10:07 PM Dec 2015

2015: The Year of Bernie Sanders

Has an independent ever resonated as much as Bernie Sanders has? I don't think so. Yes, there have been candidates in the past, outsiders who have left a mark. But none at the deep level of Bernie Sanders.

Independent you say? But he's running as a Democrat! Yes, well, we have a two-party system that demands that a politician affiliate with a party, but Bernie has done more than any other Senator to remain free from the kinds of ties that might prevent him from always going with his conscience and working for the people of his state, Vermont. That's because he has such a sure and steady moral conscience that he does not need to be told how to vote and he refuses to cater to political exigencies like supreme politicians such as Hillary Clinton who seems to require focus groups to determine her stance on issues ("I didn't have a position until I had a position!&quot

2015 will go down as the year that Independents found their voice and realized that they can exert an influence on the process after all. By any measure, Bernie would seem an unlikely choice as a national candidate with his cartoonish NY accent, his advanced age and his unruly hair, and yet this makes his candidacy all the more meaningful because of what it says: Namely, it is all about the message, wait strike that! No, that is what is different. It is not enough to deliver a message that has been market-tested. What is different about Bernie Sanders is that people KNOW that he is indistinguishable from the message. His "message" is his life and his political career. He makes no adjustment for where he is or who he is speaking to because his roots are strong, his compass unwavering.

Yes, 2015 IS the year that the Progressives began to wake up from the sleep-inducing Clinton legacy, where we were told: "If you wanna win, you have to be more like THEM!" With that came policies that were traditionally Republican. It was the beginning of a cycle of wins for the Democratic Party but a major setback in terms of the soul of the Progressive movement. It is only now that we are starting to rediscover that soul and believe in the efficacy of our commitment.

An uphill struggle, with Bernie leading the way. That's what this Primary Race is. But even if he doesn't make it all the way up the hill, Bernie has shown us that it is a climbable hill. We can make it and we do not need, in the future, to settle for the candidate thrown at us, the LOTE. We will keep climbing that hill and 2015 will go down as the year when we realized it belongs to us.