I've been pretty quiet this cycle. And pretty much every cycle since 2008. I was stoked with the Obama win. Happy and satisfied that we had a smart, classy, passionate philosopher president in the white house, slowly and carefully letting the GOP eat itself alive from the inside. I haven't had a lot to complain about. Sure, I could complain about $500 premiums for crappy insurance, but I understand the big picture is worth it to me. I could complain about continued drone wars, gitmo, TPP, Wall Street, domestic surveillance and so many things that are still so broken. I could, I should, and I will. But I have been quiet because I have continued to have faith that the man at the table is doing everything he can to play the best cards he can with the hand he's dealt.
But this year, the Sanders campaign showed us a glimpse of the Obama legacy that will endure. He showed us the city that will be built on the highways laid by the Obama presidency. Health care is a universal right. College education is a must. The end of oil is not up for debate. Income inequality is an existential threat to democracy. Black lives matter.
That got me excited. It got me working and donating. But it also got me woefully discouraged when democrats and their broken party apparatus, in their choice of candidate, took a look at many of those goals and said, "not yet".
And just like that, I was a PUMA. I read, with disgust, diaries and retweeted rehashed nonsense about how Bernie "lost" this blogger or that diarist because of his intransigency and unwillingness to throw in the towel. Always, with a little probing, you'd find that those folks never really cared much for Bernie in the first place. I defended Bernie. Defended his right to take his message to the convention.
But then he did it. By staying in and fighting on beyond all math and certainty, he not only brought his message to the convention, but wove it into the platform and made Hillary embrace it. He gave his cause a viable pathway forward. He masterfully bridged the divide between passion and caution. Between old and new. Between progressing and protecting what we have.
In short, he led. And in that moment, when Bernie the candidate had to become Bernie the leader, he became two different entities. One is Bernie Sanders, the grizzled politician who, despite soaring rhetoric and difficult compromise will, no doubt, continue his movement and be a productive thorn in the side of the establishment for years to come. The other is Bernie™, a disembodied caricature of petulance kept alive by those who will never be satisfied, people who will forever let the best be the enemy of the good, who will cut off their face to spite their face. The permanent PUMA class.
I'm firmly behind the first Bernie. The one we saw last night on stage. But that second one. The one in the stands who booed Elizabeth Warren and two of my comedy idols? Yeah, I’m done with that guy™.