What is the Change the Democratic Party Wishes to See?

Photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/beaninspirer/31112732101/sizes/m/

By Ernie McCray

I look at the Democratic Party and I just have to shake my head – for how it holds back from doing truly great things.

But I happen to be a democrat. And that’s not because of the party itself, but because of my experiences with so many individual democrats over the years.

I mean they’ve been in the vast majority of people whom I’ve marched with, in my activism, carrying signs ranging from “Free Huey!” to “Give Peace a Chance,” chanting questions about what we wanted and when we wanted it, with the answer always being: “Now!”

Democrats are my peeps. But the Democratic Party? That’s a whole other thing.

The democrats I’ve been in the streets with are both dreamers and doers, folks who really adhere to Mahatma Gandhi’s hope inspiring point-of-view that “You must be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

The party, on the other hand, likes to pursue matters in moderation, likes to take it slow, play it safe, like a runner at first base who won’t stray far from the bag because he’s fearful of being picked off – and gets picked off anyway. “Nothing ventured. Nothing gained.”

Hey, here they are today up against a president who has sucked the very life out of our democracy like a deranged vampire digging his fangs into his victim’s neck and what are they doing? Playing moderate games of some kind.

They want to sic somebody on the monster who won’t go too far, who won’t rock the boat, someone who will stay close to the old status quo before the White House became a symbol of woe.

Behaving so, they have desperately, along with the likes of CNN and MSNBC with all their “Breaking News,” tried to undermine the campaign of a man like Bernie Sanders who has tried to be the change he wishes to see – for years, with passion, with unwavering persistence and bravery.

He’s too “radical,” they all say, a commie, a socialist, a man who hates the Jews and loves the Palestinians.

His triumph in the Nevada caucus has been likened to a Nazi Germany victory.

“I’m scared to death of the man’s campaign,” a well-known party luminary exclaims.

Billions of dollars have been spent as a symbol of one man’s disdain for him.

“Nobody likes him” claims the last democratic candidate for president,  although he has very successfully mobilized a wide cross section of Americans: poor people and people who have previously showed very little to no interest in politics and people who feel disenfranchised and suspect that their government doesn’t care about them.

For years now he’s taken young folks in his embrace in his movement, helping them to understand that they can be the change, that they must be the change, if health care is to ever become a right; if diversity is ever to be considered a strength in our society; if the economy is to ever work for everybody; if facts and truths are ever to matter again.

Achieving such goals, as the Democratic Party has proposed, takes boldness. And Bernie is teaching young people how to stand strong and go after what they want, letting them know that they will have to go against the grain of the direction our politics has been taking in order to make the changes that will be needed to repair the damage that has been inflicted upon the nation.

“But he can’t win,” they say and to that I say “Trump won” and he’s about the most hideous human being who has ever come our way.

Why can’t a decent man beat this monstrous man with all the resources and millions of people in the party who can knock on the doors of citizens’ homes and/or reach out to them via telephones and cell phones and join Bernie on a path he’s been meticulously paving towards a victory?

It all leads me to wonder that if a man who speaks truth to power as effectively as Bernie does isn’t the Democratic Party’s cup of tea, what kind of change does it wish to see really? I don’t have a clue.

But we shall see.