Democratic debate: How I learned to love Bernie Sanders

[Uncle Joe]

Opinion: The Democratic debate confirmed it — we’ve entered the ‘Bernaissance’

(snip)

And so my own “Bernaissance” happened slowly and then all at once this fall. A beloved Bernie supporter took the time to air his thoughts about why this is the right time for his candidate — gently. So I listened.

(snip)

He and his supporters gathered on a scorching unshaded high school basketball court at a rally in El Sereno last weekend. Hearing him address nurses and teachers and undocumented Americans with such vitality, in the midst of such a vital campaign, just weeks after a heart attack, was moving. “No half measures,” he insisted at the rally. “We don’t have decades,” he said about the climate crisis Wednesday night. Sanders has a sense of urgency that matches this moment and thoughtful policies — his devotion to which has been proven over the course of decades — to match that drive.

Live long enough and you’ll see your people fall; if you’d asked me 10 years ago whom I most admired, I might have said Aung San Suu Kyi. I don’t wave signs for anybody anymore. But on that hot Saturday afternoon, I heard Bernie. Wednesday night during the debate, I heard him. And when my students talk, I hear them. They want someone who will fight for them.

They deserve that.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-21/democratic-debate-confirmed-feeling-the-bern-bernie-sanders

[brooklynite]

1. As I've said before, I don't "love" candidates of any sort...

I support electable candidate who can do the most good.

[Uncle Joe]

3. All you need is love

(snip)

A radical politics of love is not passive. It does not license pushover politics. Recall that justice must be done before love can be completely realised. And sometimes love itself requires anger, conflict and confrontational action. There is no inconsistency, then, between a radical politics of love and the calling out of racism, or direct action against sites of racism, capitalism and oppression. Nor does a radical politics of love have to distort the meaning of love.

In The Human Condition (1958), Hannah Arendt articulated the worry that ‘love … is killed, or rather extinguished, the moment it is displayed in public’. She thought that ‘love can only become false and perverted when it is used for political purposes’. Arendt is undoubtedly right that we should be wary of love’s perversion or its manipulation for politics. And the enterprise of creating a radical politics of love certainly involves a creative reimagining of the expectations we should have within political relationships. But love is always, everywhere, a project of planting ambitious expectations within a set of defined relationships. A radical politics of love merely requires an expansion of the types of relationships to which expectations of love should be attached.

The real barrier to the realisation of a radical politics of love, however, is not the necessity of anger or the nature of love. The real barrier is the combination of a cramped ideological discourse and a paralysing cynicism that pervades so much contemporary political discourse. To open up a space for love in our time, we need to broaden what is regarded as politically possible in the face of such cynicism.

We can see more clearly now than ever the presence of emotions in politics, particularly negative ones. The way to respond is not to try to shut down emotions in politics altogether – to try, in vain, to insist on calm, rational discourse. The way forward lies in working out which emotions have a rightful place in politics, being clear about what we mean (and do not mean) by those emotions, and translating those emotions into political practice. That’s maybe, just maybe, part of how love could trump hate.

https://aeon.co/essays/it-is-time-for-love-to-become-a-radical-force-in-politics

[Loki Liesmith]

2. Meh

[myohmy2]

4. I'm not bashful...

...I LOVE BERNIE...(platonically, of course)

...why?

...in two words, "he's real"...Bernie is the real deal; what you see is what you get...and what you get is a dedicated hardworking smart Progressive politician trying to better you and mankind...and I like that...

" And when my students talk, I hear them. They want someone who will fight for them. They deserve that. "

...yes they do...isn't it strange how the worried and struggling younger generation seem to wrap their arms around Bernie?...putting their love, dreams and hopes in Bernie's applecart?...he's real...

...they know he's real and when Bernie becomes President he'll do his 'all' for them and their future...and they also know if Bernie can't do it, it can't be done...

...but when Bernie says 'yes', you've got to believe...

...I do...

[Uncle Joe]

5. Well said myohmy and I do as well.

[myohmy2]

6. thanks, Uncle Joe...

...when it comes to Bernie, what's not to love?

...