Bernie Sanders deserves tremendous credit for helping to wake millions of Americans from a deep slumber through his focus of important social justice issues.
For decades, he has been saying our political system is rigged, especially in relation to campaign contributions, the growing wealth gap, environmental protection, the lack of affordable healthcare coverage and mounting student loan debt.
He definitely served as a thorn for Hillary Clinton. He has forced the Democratic Party to embrace some of his presidential campaign’s issues.
Millions are disappointed that he has endorsed Clinton for president. Many feel he has gone to the dark side.
But the sad reality is that in politics the old motto applies: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
Some of us who supported Bernie Sanders felt he was truly independent because the average donation to his campaign was only $27 and he raised over $220 million, making him a viable candidate. Now many young activists and volunteers have learned a harsh lesson that is well known in community organizing: There are no permanent allies, no permanent enemies.
When President Obama was a young community organizer in Chicago, he used some of the organizing methods of Saul Alinsky, the founder of Industrial Areas Foundation and developer or key organizing models and strategies. Obama was a genius presidential candidate in part because he implemented key community organizing strategies into his first presidential candidacy.
By contrast, technology catapulted Sanders to national prominence and helped him to raise millions of dollars. Ironically, that may have also hurt him.
The old style of community organizing is hardly used anymore since campaign volunteers now believe that community organizing is just texting, tweeting, posting pictures on Instagram, and posting or forwarding information on Facebook. Even NationBuilder, a website software company, has adopted key organizing words and phrases into its job titles. Tech support staff members are called “organizers.”
If a campaign is to be long-lasting and effective, community organizers must be on the ground, organizing people, having face to face meetings, organizing forums and knocking on doors — talking to people directly and connecting with them in an authentic way.
I never received a door knock, phone call or piece of mail from the Bernie Sanders campaign, and I was a staunch supporter. I just kept getting e-mails requesting donations.
We have to face reality. We have a two-party system in the United States that dominates the political process. Either you join the Republican or Democratic party and play by its rules, or you pretty much come to the realization that you do not have a shot to win office.
For the thousands of volunteers whom Sanders inspired, the lesson here is that you cannot put all of your hopes and dreams into one candidate. Otherwise, you will be extremely disappointed once that candidate endorses the opponent and/or decides to join the opposition.
Politics is similar to “Star Wars” — good versus evil. But real life politics can be worse, presenting scenarios in which Luke Skywalker (Rebel Alliance) eventually joins forces with Darth Vader (Galactic Empire).
Bernie Sanders was our rebel. Now he has been sucked into the political system that he has been grudgingly part of for more than 35 years, and many feel deceived and disappointed that he is supporting Hillary Clinton and asking his 13 million supporters to vote for her.
Sanders is Luke Skywalker, Hillary Clinton is his sister Princess Leia, and they have joined forces. Now they will have to convince us that Donald Trump, is indeed, Darth Vader. Will the Hillary and Bernie duo be able to defeat Trump.
Stay tuned.
Twitter: @RANDYERTLL
Randy Jurado Ertll, author of the novel The Lives and Times of El Cipitio. Please visit his web-site at: WWW.RANDYJURADOERTLL.COM