Thoughts on Yesterday

So this is what defeat feels like.  Not losing a race or a game, but actual defeat.  Not with a bang, but a whimper.  Surrender.

My head always knew it had to end in defeat, from the moment I donated my first dollar last year.  But we flew so high and worked so hard.  Chasing people down with a clipboard, in a parking lot, while circulating petitions for delegates.  Calling voters in Iowa.  Dialing numbers for hundreds of phone bank callers, in dozens of states.  Pounding the pavement, with sore feet, sometimes in the rain, to knock on doors in different towns.  A true volunteer community.  Not hired guns, but real people, from all walks of life.  Young, old, black, white, brown.  A benevolent, committed community that wanted a better country and believed you could make revolution with peace, love and hard work.  We started to believe in our own magic.  Tied in Iowa.  Landslide in New Hampshire.  The crowds, despite the media black out.  Michigan!  So close, in places like Missouri and Illinois.

Once it became clear that we weren't realistically going to pull it off, the reaction of the volunteer community, at least the team that I belonged to, was to stick together and keep the movement going.  The emotion, even in an on-line setting, was powerful the weekend before California.  Nobody wanted to log off.  Nobody wanted it to end.  We'd been a part of something, a community, on a daily basis for six months.  And while many naively, I think, thought the nomination was still within reach, even those of us who saw the writing on the wall wanted to keep the organization going, to elect truly progressive candidates and to force our positions onto the Democratic Party's platform.  We were repeatedly told, by Sanders himself, that we had 1900+ delegates and were going all the way to the convention.  I don't think there is another way to interpret that but that we would force floor fights on our platform planks, if they failed in committee, and that Bernie's name would be placed in nomination and that there would be a full roll call vote.

Bernie had said from the beginning that he would support Hillary, if she were the nominee.  I never dreamed that meant prior to the convention.  I assumed that after the vote, he would get up on stage and say something to the effect that he was keeping his word to support the Democratic nominee, Trump is a pig and he recognized that not all his supporters would follow his lead but he was endorsing Hillary and asked them to do so too.  That would suck, but losing always does.  Some of us would vote for her, some not.  Some would be vocal in opposition, some not.  We would remain united having come through the fight and then, if she was elected, resist her every effort to renege on campaign promises and present her, over the next couple elections, with an increasingly progressive Congress and party.

But, this!  Throughout the day, yesterday, you could witness the movement splintering.  Bernie endorsed her before the delegates had a chance to vote.  Our delegates aren't party insiders with the financial wherewithal to just hop off to Philadelphia.  That trip, for Bernie delegates, will be a hardship.  Many had to plead for help through crowd sourcing sites.  On Twitter, on Facebook, on the Slack channels of the campaign, it no longer felt like a revolution.  As I said, in March, you can't have a revolution march behind one of those it seeks to overthrow. 

The splintering is real.  Many instantly declared their allegiance to Jill Stein and the Green Party.  Many were just confused and adrift.  Some were taking a wait and see attitude before deciding whether to vote for Hillary.  Some were saying they'd vote for her over Trump.  Many were saying we'd followed Bernie this far, had worked for him, believed in him, and since we think he's a good man, were obligated to follow his advice. And some said they'd now vote for Trump.

Those last two disturb me.  I understand, but do not agree with, those who say they will vote for Hillary out of fear of Trump.  I do not understand surrendering one's own thought process and judgement to anyone, even one for whom we have fought so hard. ...And how on Earth can one have been part of this campaign and turn around and vote for a billionaire demagogue who, at one point, blamed our campaign for violence at his own rallies?

There is plenty of time to argue over what to do in the privacy of the voting booth.  My distress and sadness, today, is that yesterday seemed like a surrender.  In a rush to placate the party, and get a few progressive platform planks, our campaign was handed over to the very Establishment that we revile.  The convention will now be, not a battle for the soul of the party, but the coronation of an individual.  Yes, Bernie's name will probably be placed in nomination, pretty words will be spoken and a roll call allowed.  But, it will be for show.  Everybody will know Bernie's delegates are voting for a candidate that has already conceded.

I got into this because I wanted a candidate that I could vote for, rather than the lesser of two evils.  I opposed Hillary for years.  She was a carpet bagger who rode sympathy for her trials as First Wife into the nomination for New York's U.S. Senator.  Her two most momentous votes were in favor of the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.  As Secretary of State, she supported illegal warfare, the TransPacificPartnership and fracking.  Since leaving the White House, she and Bill have accumulated a net worth in excess of $110,000,000.00.  Of that, Hillary has a net worth of $31,000,000.00+.  Neither of them hold a job that pays that kind of money.  Corporations that have, for years, expected her to be elected, have paid Bill and her to make speeches as a means by which to funnel them money.  They've gotten rich by peddling influence.  Two years ago, I was annoyed by all the 'Ready for Hillary' ads that would pop up on my computer.  Then came the counter punch, 'Ready for Warren'.  I would have worked and voted for her.  She didn't run.  Bernie took a look at the process, determined an Independent couldn't make it, and decided to throw his hat in, as a Democrat, to say what otherwise wouldn't be said.  I understand why he went that route and have no regrets about participating in the campaign.  My affection for my fellow campaigners and Dialer Monitor Team members is everlasting.

I've followed Bernie a long way, but I can't follow him to Hillary.  I always knew we'd part ways.  I just thought we'd make it to the convention, all together, whether figuratively or literally.  Even in defeat, I thought we'd go down swinging.  Now, after yesterday's surrender, our delegates will be witness to a coronation, much like a conquered people are forced to watch the parade of an occupying army. 

Mike Royko

My first memories are of walking down to the Wallgreens, in Jacksonville IL, and buying my dad the Chicago Daily News. I would stop, on the way back, and read Royko's column so I wouldn't have to wait for my dad to be done with the paper. From the beginning, Royko's angle always seemed to be that the system (Chicago Daley machine) was corrupt and that its corruption had real life, daily, consequences for ordinary citizens who were, for the most part, immigrants or first generation Americans. The vast majority that he wrote about were the Eastern Europeans that reflected his own background. But, he was clearly immersed in the Greek Town world as well.

Royko seemed to view the Machine as a criminal enterprise, like the Mafia. The pressure, like that placed on store owners to place political signs in their windows was not unlike the pressure placed by a protection racket. Fail to comply and a visitor from code enforcement or the liquor board would show up.

I think the quality of his work and his perspective changed as he went from paper to paper and wife to wife. However, his courage and reason for switching papers was undeniable. There was no preventing the Daily News from folding. The real conundrum was when Ruport Murdoch bought the Sun-Times. Royko had declared he would work for neither the Chicago Tribune or Ruport Murdock. However, he viewed Murdoch as an actual threat to journalism itself, so wound up at the Tribune.

In his book, Boss, Royko directly attacked the Daley machine, prefacing each chapter with a quote from the transcript of the Chicago 7 trial. It was one of the very few books my father and I shared. I was, I think in early high school. I remember him saying that he hated me reading something with that kind of language in it (the Daley quotes, I suspect, particularly the retort back at Sen. Abraham Ribbicoff, at the '68 convention, which Royko interpreted as, “Fuck you , you Jew son of a bitch; you lousy motherfucker, go home!”). But, he thought it was important that I read it. My Greek immigrant father viewed Royko as a knight defending people like him. 

Royko had the clear eyed view of the cynic, regarding the system. But, he never seemed to shake his belief that it was supposed to work. In that, he reminded me of my other favorite writer of the time, Hunter Thompson, who was also cynical and also could not shake his belief in what constitutional government in this country could be, if kept out of the hands of the hucksters. Thompson believed in the Constitution and Royko believed in the voters.

I remember the column he wrote the day after Jayne Byrne (at the time, the anti-machine candidate) defeated Michael Bilandic. “You did it!” He was so proud of the people of Chicago. In that one moment, they had united, stood up and beat back the forces of darkness.  He turned on Byrne, almost immediately, as she turned out to be an opportunist.  But, the column he wrote the day after Harold Washington was elected was another example of good will and hope over cynicism.