Media pundits, when they declare that Bernie won’t win, want us to believe that our history has been foreordained. The pundits, it seems, have been granted supernatural powers, powers that allow them to know exactly what the future holds for us. We need not bother creating our own future, since the pundits have already written it for us. We can just stay at home and watch the future that has been predicted for us unfold on our television screens.
The pundits passively predict our future. We spit on their predictions. We will go out and make history. Activists know that history isn’t written until after it’s been created. Hence the word Active-ist. Not Passive-ist.
When people say that Bernie won’t win, they are observing the American scene from a comfortable distance and declaring that the American people simply do not have the ability to alter the current political dynamic. We have reached a dangerous juncture in our nation’s history when many people seem to have completely given up on the possibility of influencing their future.
When we the people for Bernie Sanders say Bernie will win, we are saying that we are active agents involved in the making of our history. We have not given up on the possibility of creating our future. We the people for Bernie Sanders believe that if we elect an activist like Sanders to the highest office, we will be creating a better future.
Many of the targets of the billionaire class’s assault on the 99% don’t yet want to rise up and vote their oppressors out of office. Many of us feel like staying home on election day and cursing the system. But passivity will give way to activity. As the Bernie Sanders movement picks up more and more momentum, apathy will give way to enthusiasm. The pent-up anger and latent idealism of the 99% will find an outlet in Bernie’s campaign.
It’s remarkable to think of the extraordinary amounts of untapped power that we have available to us with our vote, and yet so many of us, the majority of us in fact, refuse to enact that power on election day.
We often hear the refrain that even if Bernie Sanders were elected President, nothing would change. He would only be gobbled up by the system and forced to compromise his beliefs. According to this line of thinking, it makes no difference who we elect President, the system is so rotten that every President is forced to sell out the minute they reach the Oval office.
History suggests, however, that Presidents do matter. I don’t think anyone could argue with the fact that Abraham Lincoln, and FDR, for example, made a substantial impact on the course of history. It’s ignorant to say that Presidents are nothing but a bunch of interchangeable sellouts. It’s also dangerous - the wrong President can make things much worse even than they are now.
So we are faced with two options. We can either use the political process to our advantage, and vote for the candidate who most closely aligns with our ideals. Or we can stay at home, curse the system, and wait for the day when the system is overturned in its entirety.
Personally, I think it is entirely possible to use the political process to our advantage. I believe we can take ownership of the system. I believe that Bernie Sanders will not sell out when he becomes President. I believe Bernie Sanders will be a revolutionary President because he will be an activist President. I believe it is critically important that he wins. I believe he will win. And I believe we are making history.