I am eighty-two years old, so I have some experience with the passage of time, but even I am having difficulty contemplating what lies ahead. It is barely more than three months since the Iowa caucuses, now lost in the mists of memory, and yet it is still more than two months until the Conventions, and almost SIX MONTHS until the election!!!
How on earth are we going to survive? Next month I shall be going to Paris for four weeks, but thanks to the Internet, there is no escaping the Primary season. When I return to Chapel Hill on June 14th, there will be yet another month before the start of the Republican Convention. There is a limit to how often I can seek solace in the statistical analyses of fivethirtyeight.com and The Princeton Election Consortium.
The very best I can realistically hope for is four dreary years of Hillary Clinton, during which all of us on the left struggle to bring pressure for some sort of useful reform and against more military adventures. It is almost enough to make an old man take up golf [a good walk ruined, as Mark Twain described that awful game.]
I think Bernie has a supererogatory duty of benevolence to create an on-going national movement to which we can commit ourselves. It is the least he can do to make up for having given us hope.
Sadly, in an interview with Rachel Maddow (I think 2-3 days ago), he said he hasn't made any plans for a future progressive movement...
ReplyDeletereally? That is awful if true. I cannot believe it. We shall see after the entire primar fight plays itself out.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience social movements can and will create their own leaders, if the force of the movement from below is there.
ReplyDeleteI'm in no position to judge if there is a real potential social movement from below awaiting its moment to explode in the U.S., but if there is, whether or not Sanders heads it is a detail.