The After-Bern
Elections will take place in less than 50 days. A president will be elected. This president will either be Donald J. Trump or Joe Biden. The former presidential nominee is the 45th and current president of the United States of America. Many people despise him — and for good reason. I loathe him myself. I’m completely transparent about my political philosophy. I believe this to be the way in which the best circumstances for the most amount of people is achieved without jeopardizing just and equitable practices.
The name that isn’t going to be included on the presidential ballot is Bernie Sanders. In 2016, he failed to oust Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States of America. Bernie again failed in 2020 to emerge as a new nominee for which Americans can vote for on 3 November 2020 — a tragedy in my eyes.
That tragedy is not without others following suit. 5 million acres of California earth has burned to ashes, Black people continue being killed at the hands of government entities without logic and ethics or recourse, and a national pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people and even more, have been displaced and forced to start a new life — all of this took just 12 months.
This is the After-Bern I’m referring to. The absence of Bernie Sanders on the presidential ballot on voting day is a reckoning that I hope compels all humans who are subjugated to live within U.S.A. borders to rebel, resolve, and reimagine a new beginning. Bernie, for me, was an old white man for whom the trust was honest and true, but most importantly, it was the beginning of a new imagination.
All of the presidents of the United States of America, for more than 230 years, have been selected as white men by people of all colors, sizes, gender, sex, and beliefs. If and only if a Black man was to attain leadership of this country would things begin to shift to favor non-white people. That occurred — mildly — in 2008. Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America. Things changed. There was hope. There was a vibe. We were far removed from a perfect world with him in office, yet that notion created humility humans who navigate the path from pain to pleasure and prosperity with an intrinsic poetic demand that calls out contemporary community standards that neglect the undeniable, unidentifiable, and invaluable human experience.
His role endured in earnest, for two terms — eight years. Then came 2016; the year of hate and ridicule and prejudice and disillusionment and fanaticism and corruption and, of course, racism. The country the patriots call the United States of America forget — along with their non-white counterparts — that these maladies have existed prior to the country’s modernity and inception of its government and will continue to persist long after this presidential election.
The botched genocide on behalf of white, Christian Europeans, used the epithets mentioned above as an engine in their functioning of exercising evil acts as a means to rule and conquer without despair. Nevertheless, that foundation still rests beneath our surface, only slightly now with Trump as president. There are gaping holes and monstrous cracks in the foundation where opportunities to react and respond lay bare. Indeed, there is an opportunity to be agents of change, but the question is to define change and envision the future that proceeds onward after 2020.
The After-Bern renders a democracy that is rife with existential fatigue and a nihilist sensibility overwhelms and subdues millions of Americans because the two presidential candidates are not supremely dignified politicians — one is a corrupt, racist business tycoon and the other is an underwhelming, impotent legacy congressman without foresight.
So, henceforth are options that dictate culture and politics in an immediate, personal, and direct fashion. A resident in a community wields more power and influence than is naturally promoted and advised. This is intentional and systemic. To illustrate, city council members must answer to the demands of their constituents. The committee on public safety ensures communities remain safe and comfortable for all who live and visit. The committee on education is charged with providing the necessary measures to determine the education being offered in a community is as near to excellent as possible and absolutely fair and credible. Judges who sit in court and interpret the law and dictate an individual’s due process maintain order in society, therefore gifting a person with freedom and liberty or punitive recourse that deletes free will.
Being active and advocating for civil sovereignty is a fundamental right in and of itself. Unfortunately, too many persons avoid researching and studying who is running for any elected position in their community. They stand in the fold unaware and unwitted. Half — and always half — of elected officials possess narcissistic tendencies. That leaves the other half of elected officials to work for the people and stand by the people who vouched for them in the first place. Local elections are substantially imperative comparatively speaking. Local politics are significantly a higher priority than the global debauchery that we call the presidential elections.
But the After-Bern has gifted us a crucial standpoint — elevating women to the second-highest position in office, Vice President. Kamala Harris is bi-racial, nonwhite, and female. Three converging identities that we have not yet experienced in politics, especially regarding presidential positions. As it were, American dignity and humility are still cultivating stewards of democracy.
