An elegy for a revolution that never happened. Bernie Sanders arrives at the Capitol on March 18, 2020.
The news could not have come at a worse time. One of my co-workers, a passionate Bernie Sanders supporter and a woman of color, was celebrating her 27th birthday. It was a brief glimmer on an otherwise gloomy day during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, it was Tuesday.
Just moments after she posted images of herself celebrating alone on Twitter, I scrolled down and saw a breaking headline: Bernie Sanders was suspending his campaign. Immediately, my entire timeline knew that this day was a wash before the clock struck noon.
Of course, I knew it was coming. Sanders had received support from 917 delegates compared to Biden’s 1,217. In Florida, a swing state, Biden bested Sanders by 40%. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 2,807 delegates and superdelegates compared to Sanders’ 1,893; it seems that we are back to where we started.
But what makes this moment exceptionally macabre is that in the midst of a global pandemic, where the constant sirens ring like death knells in major cities and our current president lies to the public and speaks of mortality as if he’s casually reporting the weather, this was the end of the campaign for a man who stood for Medicare for All. It stuns me into absolute silence if I think too hard about it.
I am not looking forward to voting in November. I lost my optimism back in 2016. Hillary Clinton was not my candidate. I winced at the thought of her “superpredator” comment and how her former defense of the 1994 crime bill led to not only her husband garnering the presidency but also the destruction and severance of many Black and Brown people’s lives and their families. But I supported her instead of a White supremacist.
I’m a Black woman whose people have been in this country since before it became the United States of America. I’m as American as anyone can get, and I think about this country in terms of the collective good despite my misgivings, because what was the alternative: Donald J. Trump? When Ohio was called for Trump on Election Night in 2016, I heard a wail in the living room of the get-together at a friend’s Upper West Side apartment like I hadn’t heard since my stepfather died. Everyone, including myself, broke. Worst yet, I had to return to the Harlem apartment where one of my roommates, a Trump supporter, was sleeping peacefully. I moved out the following month. That was the only respite I could give myself, but it wasn’t much, because everything became much darker since then: the images of children being pulled away from their parents, the protests, the constant lies from the administration, the revolving GoFundMe links to cover medical expenses, the sheer exhaustion of a relentless ambush of news. The cruelty.
I was ready for it to be over, and I admittedly supported Elizabeth Warren over Sanders back when we had those choices. Yes, she is a former Republican, but she drew me in because she made a consistent effort to connect with Black women, particularly on our high mortality rates during pregnancy, which is important to me as someone who aspires to be a mother someday. As for Sanders, I wasn’t so much exhausted by his persistence but by a certain swath of his supporters.
While every candidate has their own share of bad-faith people, there are some “Bernie Bros” who are so liberal, so firm in their belief that they know what’s best for everyone, including those who exist outside of their (mostly) White, privileged sets in cosmopolitan cities across the country. This is the sentiment I saw when Biden’s flagging campaign got a huge boost from Black voters in the South, plenty of them old enough to remember when wanting to vote while Black was a death sentence. Yet they still voted for the man who cozied up to segregationists. Could it be because of Biden’s proximity to Obama? Could it be because Biden and his ability to pacify both the right and left is what some Black voters feel is necessary to beat Trump? It’s complicated and nuanced, but many Bernie supporters, especially on the internet, voiced their justified anger while simultaneously silencing the voices of the historically unheard. And there were missed opportunities. According to Adam Harris of The Atlantic, Bernie canceled a rally in Jackson, Mississippi, and did not attend the Bloody Sunday March in Selma after losing to Biden in the South Carolina primary. Sanders did get support from Jesse Jackson, but that support may have come too late.
There is enough blame to go around, but that will not put me or anyone else at ease. We could speak about what could’ve happened, or maybe the timing was off, but we as a nation do not have anymore time. Being in America is at times like participating in a death cult. Rent prices skyrocket, jobs are unsustainable, education is a treacherous path, and the costs of insurance premiums are indefensible.
When November comes around, I will vote for Biden with clenched teeth and a heavy heart.
So, yes, we’re left with Biden. I say this because I think about the people whose lives I’ve seen irreparably damaged or changed within the past three weeks, those whose lives could’ve been spared if Sanders were the candidate and could get his policies to fruition. I say this because I think about my friend who just turned 27 and whose family’s medical bills pile up. I think about our lunches together and how she kept my spirit afloat to fight as many other Bernie supporters have. And now I’m being pressured to “Vote Blue No Matter Who”?
Is this the best we have after four years of Trump and centuries of systematic disenfranchisement? A candidate who, like Trump, is accused of sexual assault? We cannot use Trump as the extremest case of evil while ignoring the flaws of other candidates just so we can beat him. What does that say about us? Will we continue to avoid looking because we feel like the means justify the ends—that is, beating Trump? And even if Biden wins, what does that say to Black women who could be Anita Hill, older voters who lived under Jim Crow, and the millions of Americans whose prescriptions and medical care are in jeopardy? Have we really won?
I recognize that Bernie Sanders rubbed many establishment politicians the wrong way. Hillary Clinton’s former staffers scheduled — and later canceled — a Zoom call to celebrate his exit. You have to wonder why anyone would be that gleeful about another’s demise if they didn’t find them threatening. It’s indicative of the pushback that many young people, myself included, were trying to fight against. We wanted not just a better future, but an upheaval. This virus has shown us just how terrible our safety nets truly are.
When November comes around, I will vote for Biden with clenched teeth and a heavy heart. I most likely will not watch the results in real time, because I don’t need the stress. But do not expect me to celebrate or grandstand about Biden and his presidency when I know too many people who would’ve benefited from Sanders or Warren as president. There were alternatives. Flawed alternatives, but alternatives nevertheless. And just like in 2016, the safer choice was chosen. We will pay for it, one way or the other.