Thoughts on Bernie Sanders’ Recent Clinton Endorsement

“I have come here to make it as clear as possible why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president.”

As the word endorse left his lips, a raucous cacophony of cheers of approval burst from the crowd, heralding the event many of us had been so proud to believe would never come. The fires of revolution had just received a bucket of ice-cold reality.

I had just watched Bernie Sanders endorse the Hillary Clinton.

Never Hillary. Release the transcripts. Still Sanders. Bernie or Bust. All the tag lines and hashtags of a year of campaigning jolted against what I had just seen. I had knocked doors for Bernie. My wife and son knocked with me. I attended rallies. I debated in person and online. Bernie had ignited a spark of hope, a fire that burned in our hearts that there was a way that Government, that reviled Conservative boogeyman, could actually be a force for good in our world. Indeed, that it should be a force for good in ways obvious to most of the developed world.

Bernie had been honest. His genuine demeanor and frank defense of his policies swallowed my doubts whole one by one until a dream of what could be sat hungrily in their place. A year ago, at the birth of the campaign, I began to voraciously read his policy proposals. I read countless arguments and counter-arguments. I read the news morning and night with the kind of excitement and zeal of one who believes that in a world of injustice, there was still hope of righting some of the wrongs that were larger than I could ever hope to be. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a world where the all-mighty dollar was not the sovereign tyrant over decency.

Bernie embodied that decency. Bernie embodied that humility. He wasn’t Gandhi, or MLK, or our own political Jesus Christ. He was a man that said, “When you hurt, I hurt.” He was a man who had spent his entire career fighting for the common man, fighting for social justice. He was pushed into the public arena by the strength of his convictions.

He ran for President because he gave a damn. He had always fought clean, and his run for the White House would be no different. For me, Bernie brought the social issues that have been festering in the background to the light of day and said, “there is a better way.” His simplicity was sharper than any eloquent flourish of speech. It rung the call of possibility steady and true.

And now it rung for Hillary.

I hope that Bernie feels some of the crestfallen sorrow that many of us feel. I also hope he maintains some of the pride and dignity of the campaign he ran, that we all ran. He went from a political unknown to a rolling snowball-turned-avalanche that directly challenged and contested one of the most powerful politicians of an age. I hope his family knows how grateful we are for what he ran to represent. He raised more money from small donations than any politician in American history. The widow’s mite put him toe-to-toe with deep-pocketed special interests that routinely pull the strings hanging from the limbs of the people’s congress. for a brief breath, we had a chance to cut those strings once and for all.

Bernie said throughout his campaign that it wasn’t about him, or me, or any one person. When we come together, we can create policies that actually address the issues facing the people of our country. What did his campaign accomplish? He vitalized the youth of an entire nation. He pulled Hillary over to supporting a Public Option, a 15$ minimum wage, and free tuition at public Colleges and Universities (for those coming from families making less than $85k a year — which limit increases incrementally up to an eventual 125k cap). No, it isn’t Bernie’s platform. But no one can deny that those policies are progress towards Bernie’s revolution.

I don’t know if I can vote for Hillary. Bernie never asked me to vote for her before, and I hope he doesn’t ask me to now. But this isn’t about Hillary, or even Bernie. It’s about the vision of America he championed, and whether we can determine which course forward will bring us closer to that vision. It’s about the local level, it’s about staying engaged with Bernie’s ideas and vision, a vision that is larger than any one person. It’s about changing our country because we’ve now been woken from a deep sleep, and we intend to stay awake.