It’s common now to hear complaints that Bernie Sanders is endangering #I’mWithHer, unreasonably holding Hillary under the same intense scrutiny sustained by Republicans. “It’s not just a bad move politically,” many insist, “it’s simply not fair. So what she made millions of dollars speaking, has a history with Wall Street, and is highly rhetorical? That’s just politics!”
Exactly. Politics is equated with family fortunes, corporate connections, and a vocabulary of white lies and doublespeak, and not wrongly so. The fact alone that the average net worth of a member of Congress is eighteen times that of the average American household firmly embeds the stereotype.
Today, effective political participation might include voting with individual research or lobbying for the passage of a specific bill. However, most all appeals of any scale for more widespread reform are shallow or vague, and thus easily-denied or appeased with legislation more symbolic than substantive; examples include “immigration reform” and “criminal justice reform”. Even groups with a specific target like End Citizens United fool many into believing that target is, if not a solution, close to it — though political finance was undemocratic at best before the 2010 Supreme Court Decision.
In order to bring about momentous and democratic change, there are two daunting paths to choose between: elect a number of trusted individuals to office, or change the legislation regulating the powers and perks of officials, forcing them to focus on public.
The first, though difficult, has potential proven by the Republican Tea Party movement given that a group is well-organized, connected in elite circles, and highly emotional. However, the Tea Party represents only a very conservative agenda if anything restricting the exercise of democratic rights, and therefore fails to place us anywhere closer to a more democratic Union. Additionally, most politicians possess valuable political experience, and it would be harmful to rid our government of a significant portion of it.
The second option is yet more challenging. It asks officials to regulate themselves, which, understandably, would be fanciful even with a significant minority in government as has the Tea Party.
In spite of the heavy, guaranteed obstruction to that second path, it may be the more effective of the two. The U.S. loves to call itself a “mature democracy” as it no longer experiences major instability, but, in truth, it is no more mature than most other countries. The United States is the sly kid in school who makes trouble discreetly and is never caught; everyone knows it is no more “grown-up” than any other, only more clever, subtle, and practiced.
To guide it to true maturity, the country needs regulations that encourage a culture where in government, officials work solely for the betterment of the American people (and by extension, the living space of those people, the world), and in the public, citizens are able to experience true political efficacy within a concerned and responsive state.
Of course, realizing such regulations starts within the public through similar methods of protest and lobbying as are typical. It also requires that officials be placed under the magnifying glass, constantly criticised (or praised) in their political and economic activity. Thirdly, criticism must not come without a roadmap of steps all the way to a world more desirable. Remember: be not only critical, but visionary.
This is the message of Bernie Sanders. Would he have been the ideal president? Absolutely not. But he has extended the horizons of American politics and broader society, and, still wielding his tantalizing “voters”, is forcing Hillary to do the same.
Unlike Hillary, Sanders has pointed demonstrably to the “leak” in the American economy causing the poor and middle class to struggle while revenue from booming business and finance sectors fails to reach them. He has warned against violent intervention abroad, suggesting that diverse, multilateral and multi-regional forces become the standard in exceptional cases. He has even proposed and proven a new method of campaign finance which engages the electorate in place of a select few — what was previously spurned as unrealistic.
Undoubtedly, Bernie Sanders has left us new instruments of democracy with which to experiment in the years to come, and reignited hopes and plans for a more participatory, more respectable future of governance.
