Former United States Senator -- and presidential candidate -- Gary Hart wrote a piece back in April that didn't get nearly enough attention -- and his first sentence affirms my support for Bernie Sanders. It is incredibly powerful. Read it and pause for a moment.
If the presidency were to pass back and forth between two or three families in any Latin American nation we would call it an oligarchy.Is a campaign between a Democratic Hillary financed by millionaires (and billionaires!) and a Republican Jeb! financed by millionaires (and billionaires!) really all that American democracy deserves after 239 years? Is this what our soldiers fought to defend from fascism on the killing fields of Europe? Is this kind of "democratic" politics worthy of the union that Abraham Lincoln gave his life preserving? Is this really what our founders imagined for the future of our Republic? Bush-Clinton-Bush-[Short Obama Break]-Bush/Clinton?
Think long and hard: if you saw that kind of succession of leaders in another country -- Brazil, Guatemala, Egypt, China, Nicaragua, Paraguay or Argentina -- wouldn't you just laugh and dismiss the politics of that country as anti-democratic, anti-republican full-scale nonsense? A "banana republic"?
I support Bernie's social and economic policies, and truly believe that they will raise our collective standard of living, but I am also incredibly scared about the legitimacy of our politics, our credibility as a representative democracy, if we fall into the trap of re-electing presidents from the same families over and over again -- assuming, like Matthew Yglesias does, that they will win -- only because we cannot even begin to imagine a political force overcoming elite power and elite wealth.
We should not submit ourselves to oligarchy. We, as individual citizens, have power, we have agency. We, too -- not just the millionaires and billionaires -- can determine the future of our great nation.