The Revolution and the Disconnect
Aside from celebrity, name recognition, gender, party loyalty, low information and disengagement from the political process, aversion to the unfamiliar, fear of rocking the boat, and the desire to stay within the confines of one’s comfort zone of faux stability – besides all of these, there are still reasonable people that don’t get the revolution.
I’ve been thinking about the disconnect - why don’t politically informed and engaged liberals and progressives, highly educated in policy even, connect with Bernie’s message? It’s not denial of the dangers of neoliberalism, they know full well what is going on. It has to be more than cynicism too. Not that skepticism isn’t a problem, doubt that Americans will show up to back Bernie after the election and we are back to the daily grind of governing is not unjustified. But there is something else.
Even when there is tacit agreement on what the problems are, there is a difference in agreement in how we fix them. These differences are subtle until we discuss strategy and the outcomes from them. Incremental change on the surface is the result of what we have been doing, but at a cost. Slow progress that happens on the surface while the ground shifts rightward under our feet is no progress at all. But I digress…
The disconnect is in the framing.
Bernie frames the nation as an interconnected collective while some liberals and progressives view the nation as an intersected collection of people. One is a gathering of multiples while the other is a single group in and of itself, everyone inherently linked together in constant and symbiotic relationships. A successful revolution is a hard thing to pull off when individuals are out for themselves – herding cats is impossible. But when you view the nation as a single entity, a revolution is an easy sell. It’s actually not that hard to do, coming together for political change.
Historically, we have tried to be both a collection and a collective with varying degrees of success, but today it is becoming less and less possible to do so. Bernie’s liberal naysayers appear to think we can still do both.
Tribal unity is not the same thing as community.
Skepticism masked as realism is how most people live, which is somewhat understandable. I suspect it is also why the poc that don’t want to rock the boat don’t trust the revolution. If everyone is out for themselves, why on earth would I expect that guy over there to care about my issues? Why would I care about his?
I argue that the majority of progressives and liberals do care, we just don’t believe change is possible.
Low voter turnout and a lack of citizen engagement (democrats don’t show up in off year elections, for example) is supported by history. White liberals not showing up for black causes, on black terms and fully conscious of racial politics, is also supported by history. What else is a realist (*ahem*, a cynic) to believe?
These are fair criticisms, we shouldn’t disregard them. If we want them to switch their votes to Bernie, we need to give them a reason to have faith in us. We will come together for the cause, not just our tribes. How can we prove it?
= new reply since forum marked as read
