The Case Against Counting on Revolution
Nothing is more insufferable than a a True Believer.
No amount of pragmatism, realistic thinking, common sense will dissuade he who has decided to believe in something so inflexibly as the zealot. This nation was conceived by crackpots, most of our greatest achievements were accomplished by misfits, the country’s history is riddled with random nut jobs with dreams. That said, having a civil conversation with one is comparable to shaving your genitals with a broken Wild Turkey bottle.
It’s arguable that slavery would have taken far longer to abolish we’re it not for a John Brown, a noted head case and crank with a true belief that slavery was against the Laws of God. I can only imagine a dinner party with him would be worse than enduring slavery itself.
Emma Goldman believed strongly against the rising prices of food, women’s inequality, and free speech and was a firebrand for these causes and fomented great changes in the Progressive movements of her day. She espoused dancing but I’m almost certain it was at the expense of the rest of the gang.
The Weatherman were so vehemently against the Viet Nam war, they blew up both banks and a few of their members for their strident faith in their revolutionary view. Solid ideas, lousy execution. Best to avoid the spinach dip and maybe bring your own sangria, right?
Today we have Bernie.
Like Daniel Shay, he has amassed an army of civilians and voters in lockstep to his righteous cries of revolution on an economic scale. Like George McGovern, he has collected a virtual rainbow of believers, most whom the current model simply does not work for or which they cannot find a toehold within. Like Jim Jones, his followers tend to be just that...followers…but followers who somehow attach their own agenda to his more egalitarian (and perhaps overly sympathetic to communist dictators) socialist message.
“Castro tortured political prisoners, imprisoned nuns, executed homosexuals, but he had a literacy program” is a heck of way to campaign for the hearts and minds of swing voters.
Whatever you think of Sanders (I happen to love the guy but find the most angry of his crew to be just a bluer shade of asshole than those wearing MAGA hats) and however you intend on voting (I’d seriously vote for a turd with Groucho glasses if it was the Democratic nominee), the obstacles against the revolution you may seek are almost a guarantee that the shoving a Far Left Progressive agenda down the throats of most non-extreme Americans is going to die on Capitol Hill.
Out of 535 Congressmen, Congresswomen, and Senators, there are currently 96 who even list themselves as Progressive. That includes only one Senator out of 100. Unlike the Republicans, Democrats and Progressives are intellectually incapable of writing President Sanders the same blank checks that Trump has received. Which leaves Commander-in-Chief Sanders doing what he’s done for most of his political career — railing and ranting against the evils of capitalism without making so much as a dent in it.
Combine that with the fact that most of the people feeling the ‘Bern’ aren’t feeling it on the level of a monk lighting himself on fire in front of a tank but more feeling it like the angry gig economy 30-year old with a laptop and free wifi at the local Starbucks, I wouldn’t count on the revolution.
Which is all fine.
The first term of Trump was filled with so much pissing and moaning about nothing, we aren’t at all prepared for how bad things can get with a second term. It could be horrifying (instead of mostly embarrassing and kind of infuriating that he just won’t go away).
Anyone not Trump is good for me but it would be a nice side benefit if our incoming Democrat president had at least the possibility of enacting a few policy changes.
I’m less interested in revolution than I am in evolution and that evolving shit takes a long time and a lot of patience. Trust me, if you aren’t at least as old as Bernie, you haven’t had to practice that much patience in your life. A bit of expectation management might be in order before we inaugurate the guy.
