My brother Ethan has been receiving texts from the Bernie Sanders campaign, inviting him to online meetings or some such (he doesn’t really read them). When he doesn’t respond, he gets follow-up texts asking him “Do you mind telling us whom you’re voting for?”
He did respond to that one. He said he was an Elizabeth Warren supporter but will now be voting for Biden.
He got another text asking something similar. He decided to offer a full response:
Hi Anne. I am not now, and have never been a supporter of Bernie, and if investigated by HUAC, in spite of Bernie’s nostalgia for the days of resistance to [Joseph] McCarthy and [Martin] Dies, Jr. [first Chairman of HUAC], I will resist the temptation to wallow in the tar pit of the illusion of ideological purity.
So.
I, too, have a message for Bernie. I’ve been reading about the supposed “generation war” between young progressives who are avid Bernie-ites and us old(er) “progressives” — I much prefer to call myself a liberal — who are not.
Putting aside my reluctance to appreciate the wisdom of radical societal upheaval, I like Bernie’s ideal agenda and am happy to support politicians who will be pragmatic in installing it.
We like all that.
What we don’t like is Bernie.