Dear Bernie Supporters

Dear Bernie Supporters,

Bernie Sanders is gearing up to announce his intent to run for president in 2020. I’m not surprised, and I understand your enthusiasm. I’ve had it myself for certain candidates over the course of the forty-four years I’ve voted. He is qualified for the position and he certainly has made a positive impression on many voters, which is true of most of the Democratic candidates stepping forward. But I would like to offer a word of caution for your unbridled enthusiasm.

This is not a zero-sum game. We find ourselves in an unprecedented national crisis and our democracy and standing in the world are at risk and have already been damaged, maybe irreparably. Our most important goal is to be united against the evil represented by Donald Trump and the GOP that has put party and power before country for the last fifty years. Only a united Democratic front can fight that kind of ultimate corruption.

This is not 2016. It is not 2008. It’s not 2000 or 2004. It is not even 1972. Our country is caving to authoritarian rule, our democratic processes have been corrupted and dismantled by greed, criminal activity, stupidity, foreign influence, and systemic white supremacy, which  has regained currency and credibility in the mainstream. 

This is not the time to believe that there is only one candidate who represents the singularly correct view of what America can be. It is not the time to support only issues that directly benefit the individual like legalized marijuana or free higher education.

It is time to understand that progress is what the Democratic Party is known for. It is time to take the concept of the greater good out of the closet and dust it off. It is time to understand how the system of government works, and that even if a candidate believes he or she can change an issue or usher in progress, it takes three branches of government and the support of the American people to make it happen. And even then, not everyone is happy. It is time to renew our belief in compromise and negotiation – we can all take a page from Nancy Pelosi’s playbook. The GOP stopped the government from working since 2008 because they believe the country is only for white Americans, particularly those who are male and those who are wealthy. We have to speak out, through our votes, and let them know that is unacceptable.

We did it in 2018. We elected the most diverse Congress in the history of our country. But we cannot stop there, because even the most diverse Congress still is not representative of the demographics of all Americans. The 2020 election may well be the most important election in our lifetimes.

That means our unity is very, very important. Trump won partially because our party was divided. And you have to know that many Bernie supporters were victims of Russian-generated messages pushed into their social media newsfeeds just as Trump supporters were victims. The messages were misogynist and bashed Hillary as a candidate. Why? Because Putin did not want her to be president. She was the most qualified presidential candidate in the history of our country – more qualified than Bill and Barrack! More qualified than the candidates stepping forward for 2020 – including Joe Biden, should he decide to run. She understood the threat Russia poses in world stability and she was respected across the world by our allies and by many of our adversaries.

We still probably would have been okay in 2016, and Hillary would have been elected, since she had 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump, but the work of the GOP in creating voter suppression sealed the fate of the 2016 election. Gerrymandering and voter suppression laws made sure that the election was not fair.

Many Bernie supporters know this. They understand the process. It didn’t stop them from feeling passionate and working hard to get their candidate elected as the Democratic candidate in 2016. When he didn’t win the primary, they voted for the candidate most Democrats believed would best represent the platform, ideas and beliefs of the party of progress. They voted for Hillary.

Others, as mired in the lies spread by the Russian government and the extreme right as Trump supporters, either refused to vote or voted for third party candidates. Their choice to not vote or vote for candidates who had no chance of winning helped get us in this situation. If we had their votes, even voter suppression efforts would have failed.

There are going to be a lot of Democratic candidates coming forward. So far, many of them are very qualified to step into the White House and stop this crazy train on which America finds itself trapped. We have to be open to their messages. We have to make sure we don’t fall back on old paradigms of white and male supremacy. We have to make a pact that all campaigns will be about platforms and issues, and not devolve into negative and attack campaigns. We have to understand that most Democrats, even the more moderate ones, are seeking progress and equality for our country. The issue that often divides us is that white privilege is as alive and well in our party as it is in America in general and in the GOP specifically. We have to check our privilege and bias. Our diversity is our strength!

Bernie Sanders promised not to conduct a negative campaign in 2016, and I believed him. I’ve been a Bernie advocate since the early 1990s. I’ve watched his rise as an independent Senator who caucuses with the Democrats. He and I agree on many of the issues and we both sit pretty far left. We old, lifelong progressives are idealistic and believe in equality, and we fight hard for it. But something happened to Bernie in 2015 and 2016. He could taste the power, just as Trump could taste the power. Neither one originally expected to win. Bernie threw in his hat because he felt Democrats should have a choice. As the primary got closer to the finish, he did engage in negative campaigning, and I found it hurtful personally and to the unity of the Democratic party. Of course, Hillary did the same in 2008. And I felt both Bernie and Hillary were late in conceding defeat. Both threw their support to the winning candidate, as they should have. Most Hillary supporters moved their support to Barrack, but some Bernie supporters didn’t care that he supported Hillary. They were never-Hillary voters. We can’t do that again. It hurt us. It aided in dragging us fifty years backwards into our history, not helped to push us forward.

So when twenty-four or thirty candidates step forward to run in the primary, do your research, listen to them speak at rallies, listen to the debates, read their white papers on issues, make sure you only read articles from the real and unbiased media, pick your best candidate, and vote for him or her. That is your inalienable right as a citizen of this country. But if your candidate doesn’t win, do the right thing. You can still fight for progress. You can still look to reach your ideal. Vote for the candidate that will defeat the GOP. And that is true for Senate seats and Congressional seats and state legislature seats and governor seats and municipal seats. We can only progress when we agree that equality and unity are our mandates – every American has the inalienable right to experience America like white male Americans do now and every American should have access to a living wage job, fair and decent housing, safe neighborhoods, affordable healthcare, good and safe schools, and affordable higher education – and  the GOP has clearly shown they believe in neither equality nor unity; they believe in the power of the dollar and in the myth of supremacy. 

Everyone deserves a voice in America, even the individuals we don’t agree with. There is plenty of room and resources for all of us. Letting everyone have a voice sometimes means we don’t get what we think is best or we don’t like the way policy is implemented, but if we remember equality and unity at all times and use them to guide us, we might understand that the process and the path to progress may look different but we can still arrive at the same place in the end.

And here’s the other thing: we older progressives fought hard won battles for equality in school, in the home, in the workplace and out in society. We served as, in my case,  a union steward, a lobbyist for affordable childcare, and an advocate. Our hard work and ability to make change make it easy for a young woman today to say that feminism never did a thing for her. That young woman doesn’t know the history and doesn’t realize whose shoulders she stands on when she makes a statement like that. The statement doesn’t make me angry, it makes me believe we need to educate our young Americans so they know the full story of our history of equality in this country and across the world – the truth really does hurt, but we can learn from it and vow not to repeat it, as we are doing today when babies are snatched from their mothers’ arms and put in detention centers.   

I would have proudly cast my vote for Bernie Sanders in 2016 had he won the primary, and I will proudly cast my vote for him if he wins this time or for whoever else garners the most Democratic votes and support. I don’t have a favorite yet, and I am excited about the level of possible candidates stepping forward. I hope you feel the same way, because the candidates are qualified and the field is strong, and though we have our personal favorites, we have to remember what is at stake. Use your vote and your voice thoughtfully.

Sincerely,

A lifelong progressive and Democrat

PS These are just two of the letters I have written to newspaper editors in my adult life. I often use the written word as my instrument of advocacy. The second letter urging for a change in the city school district gifted program selection process prompted several anonymous phone calls that bordered on threatening. It wouldn't be the first or last time my message of equality was received negatively, but I won't give up, and I hope you won't, too. There are many ways to advocate for progress and there is no shortage of issues in our country that require hard work, enthusiasm, and passion to make them better.

Letter to the Editor, The Daily Orange, circa 1978

Letter to the Editor, Syracuse Post Standard, circa 1990

The Greatest is Dead

Muhammad Ali died this week.  His death represented a watershed moment personally and for our country and the world. He was one of the movers and shakers of the era in which I grew up. His life affected my life, my thinking and my understanding of race in America.

I was the child of an Italian-American father who only learned English when he went to school and a mother who was a WWII war bride of Irish descent from Australia. We were solidly trapped in the class of the working poor since neither of my parents graduated high school. The concept of white middleclass America was fuzzy in my child’s eyes.

Clearer was the circumstance of my father’s best friend Harold who, like Ali, was the grandson of slaves. I understood his concern when he told us to stay behind at the house while he walked down to the grocery store to pick up rolls for our dinner. He did not want to cause us trouble, but I know my dad respected his request because he did not want to cause Harold trouble in his mostly white rural community where he moved after retirement into the house his grandmother left him and my father was helping him renovate.

I watched boxing from an early age with my dad. It’s one of the few things I shared with him. He watched boxing by throwing punches at the TV, jumping up and down out of his chair, pacing, yelling, and clapping. I adopted his raucous spectatorship and still watch boxing with my husband Ronald. Ronald, who has always been protective of me, has repeatedly said I would not like watching boxing live in the arena. He said you hear the punches and see sweat and blood fly. I agree with him. Often one of the things I am yelling at the screen is for the referee to stop the fight.

I remember watching Ali fight, when he was Cassius Clay and when he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. I heard adults talking about his name change and then again when he registered as a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam War.  He was stripped of his title and his license was suspended. People were angry with him. When he returned to boxing three years later after the Supreme Court reversed his conviction, some wanted to watch his fights in the hope that he would lose. But he disappointed them by winning.

He kept speaking up on the right side of history; although few people understood what side of history he was on and what side they were on. Maybe he wasn’t thinking that at the time. Most people don’t wake up one day and say, “I’m choosing the right side of history. I’m going to change the world.” They simply respond to the situations presented to them, and, after the fact, the historians and pundits decide who changed what and who had the most influence.

I wonder which people will be considered the movers and shakers of these times? Certainly President Obama will be chosen. Maybe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be looked upon the same way in the future as the first presumptive female presidential nominee and maybe as the first female president.

Trump, on the other hand, is clearly on the wrong side of history. He promotes racism, hatred, prejudice, violence, selfishness, and narcissism. His supporters followed him to the wrong side, claiming political correctness was dead.

Of course, there is political correctness and then there is blatant racism and discrimination. Trump supporters were really choosing the latter, and I do not think they chose it mistakenly. Trump said of Judge Curiel, “I’m building the wall, I’m building the wall. I have a Mexican judge. He’s of Mexican heritage. He should have recused himself, not only for that, for other things.”

Within the same week he said at a rally, while pointing to a black man in the crowd (someone who said he was not a supporter), “Oh, look at my African-American over here. Look at him. Are you the greatest?"

The GOP establishment is now walking an unknown path: the way to preserving the GOP while distancing the party from an avowed racist.  What a treacherous journey they have ahead of them, particularly because they have relied on racists as supporters since Nixon’s Southern Strategy.

One day, sometime after Ali retired, white Americans declared him a hero. He had become a shadow of his former self, his body holding his mind hostage. They forgot he was physically powerful and dominated his opponents in the ring. They forgot they cheered for the other boxers to beat him. They forgot how he spoke out against racism and white supremacy.  They forgot he was a black nationalist. They forgot how they hated him for converting to Islam and changing his name from a slave name to a name with spiritual meaning and identity. President GW Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom.

Maybe, as I’ve often heard, our memories grow sweeter with the passage of time.  Me? I always thought Muhammad Ali was an amazing and intelligent athlete, who sometimes let his ego choose his fighting strategy, and he was a person who was courageous enough to tell his truth no matter how people reacted.

Sometime during this election campaign and the deaths of several icons of my era (Ali, Prince, Bowie and others), I lost my mind and all understanding of the world. Maybe I never understood it in the first place.

I watched Trump turn the campaign into the art of the deal, playing the role of the modern PT Barnum who once said, “There's a sucker born every minute,” and “Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.”

I watched millions of first time voters “feel the Bern” and heard one say that if Bernie Sanders did not become the Democratic nominee, she refused to vote for the lesser of two evils (Hillary Clinton) because it was unfair to make her vote for a candidate who was not her first choice. I wondered as I listened when they would reinstitute civics classes in high school and teach about personal sacrifice for the greater good. I wondered if Bernie would choose the right side of history and concede, perhaps this evening at the close of the polls.

Then last night the AP and NBC projected Secretary of State Clinton as the presumptive Democratic nominee. I rushed to change my Face book profile photo from a glum, cranky pants expression to one of absolute glee. I am elated we reached this historic moment in our country, 36 years after Iceland elected their first female president Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, and 50 years after Indira Gandhi was elected the first female prime minister of India, serving until she was assassinated in 1984. It feels similar to my excitement in 2008 when President Obama clinched the nomination and then won the election. As a woman, a spouse in an interracial relationship, and the mother of biracial daughters, these moments are tangible.

Perhaps if Trump supporters could tell the truth about how scared they are in a world in which they feel irrelevant and disenfranchised, we can begin to heal this country. We can assure them they and we are all Americans and that we have more in common than they believe. We can promise them no one is going to take away their way of life or their guns or their religion or their safety in public bathrooms; we simply want equality and the ability to live our lives and our truths, too.

Telling the truth is something all of us need to do more often, even at the risk of others not accepting you or it.

Mohammad Ali knew that. He lived it.

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