What Sanders supporters want

Why is it that the media expects Bernie Sanders’ supporters to “behave” when the media itself continues to do its utmost to derail his campaign? Take for instance the recent New York Times article in regard to Sanders’ efforts to establish a “sister city” in the former Soviet Union when he was mayor of Burlington. While it denied such intentions, it was clear that for anyone who just saw the headline or read the first few paragraphs without reading the “whole” story, it was designed to imply that Sanders had some devious design to promote a Soviet-style society. But as a Media Matters story by Matt Gertz pointed out, this was a self-defeating hit piece that does the Democratic cause no favors. He writes 

But the implication of wrongdoing on Sanders’ part does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. The then-mayor worked to establish a sister-city relationship in December 1987. At that time, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform policies of glasnost and perestroika had been underway for years. The year before, President Ronald Reagan had encouraged such cultural exchanges, with the White House calling sister-city initiatives “an important part of our effort to expand and broaden contacts and communications between the people of the United States and the Soviet Union.” 

Gertz also noted that Sanders’ stated motivation was ending the threat of “nuclear annihilation”—not being a unwitting conduit for Soviet propaganda. He also wonders why if the story eventually “concludes” that Sanders was not doing anything particularly “nefarious,” then why print such a story at all save to try to injure Sanders? 

What is the truth? The truth is that Sanders supporters want a more equitable society where all people earn a living wage that their labor deserves—and if that means that people who do manual and production labor make as much as some “information technology” drone, then this is only right and fair; and if that means that billionaires who just “oversee” others who are making them their money must sacrifice a few million dollars, what is so “wrong” with that? Again, it is a question of fairness. Sanders supporters also support a society where all people have access to healthcare that is both affordable and relevant to their needs, not this “mini-medical” fakery that Donald Trump is trying to fob-off on the public as an “affordable alternative” to real health care coverage.

Sanders supporters want to live on a planet that is fit to breath in, not one where all environmental regulations are thrown out the window in the name of economic "progress." We don't want to have to suffer the long-term consequences of the actions of the science-challenged Prince Prosperos of the country (like Trump and his ilk), who believe they can hide in their castles high up in the hills, while the less well-off are left to fend for themselves in the valley ravaged by environmental degradation brought on by the greed of the few.

Sanders supporters also want a society where every human being is assumed to have dignity and value, and is not stereotyped by race, “ethnicity,” or if they are immigrants from what Trump calls “shithole” countries. Joe Biden has bragged about how the Obama administration deported more migrants than the Bush administration; why should people like me trust him when he helped to manufacture the atmosphere in which even native-born citizens like myself must endure the “assumption” of many people that I am either an “illegal,” a “criminal”—or at “best” not a “real” American? In that respect (and in many other ways), his presidency may be no different than Trump’s. 

None of this has a chance of happening unless we get someone in office who truly believes in this "brave new world," and Biden and the media who keep harping that this is all a “pipedream” and “dangerous” ignore the fact that the Trump administration has taken us all the way to other extreme, and it is going to take something close to the opposite extreme to put things back in “balance.” Many in the media claimed that the Republican party was “finished” when Barack Obama was elected in 2008; boy, were they wrong. They were even more wrong when they claimed the Republican Party would be “finished” once the real Trump was “revealed”—and the Republican “base” only became more “enthusiastic,” and Republican senators were only too enthusiastic themselves to vote in extremist and unqualified individuals that Trump put forward to fill judicial vacancies, whose decisions will go far in reshaping society in the image sought by the Taney Court back in the mid-19^th century. I see a potential Biden presidency as one that just works as a bilge pump to keep the moral and ethical parts of the ship of state from disappearing completely beneath the waves.

Yet the media acts as if Sanders and his supporters are “crazy” for wanting to actually right the ship and keep it moving out of the storm and into the light. I firmly believe that Sanders’ vision for this country has been long overdue. If Biden is nominated, I don’t expect him to say anything I want to hear, but that doesn’t mean I won’t necessarily not vote for him, like I refused to vote for the corrupt Clinton (or Trump). But I certainly will not if he does what Clinton and the Democratic establishment did in 2016: completely ignore Sanders supporters by bringing in as a running mate a “moderate” white-bread with no shred of progressive cred. Sure, Clinton hated (and hates) us, but guess what: she isn’t president, either.