The Illustrious Beside the Dunes Political Endorsement Post
Hello! Welcome to Beside the Dunes in 2020! It’s…it’s been a while since I put anything here, because I’m working on a book, and that tends to take up a lot of my writer-brain. More on that when it’s done, I suppose.
For now: this! It was going to be a Facebook post, and then it got long-winded (I know) and increasingly heartfelt (I KNOW!).
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I don't get "political" in public spaces like this very often - because it's a fucking nightmare, [Facebook] is a panoptic hell we should really all just get away from, etc etc - but with the Democratic Stuff really kicking off in just a few days here and with some friends throughout the country, i'm gonna say the following:
I think you should vote for Bernie Sanders. Yes, he is old. Yes, he is loud. Yes, he seems to be /very/ angry with the Way Things Are these days.
...but, honestly, if you're not angry with the Way Things Are these days, I don't think you're paying enough attention. It's fuckin' rough out there, friend. There are scores upon scores of stories of people, just trying to live their lives, constantly burdened and beaten down by the machinations of a relentless, bleeding, churning Goliath hell-bent on ruining people like you and me until every square inch of its gleaming, festering form is soaked in the detritus of our ruin.
I get it: I am a cis white dude telling you to vote for the old white guy. it's a tired cliche at this point. but I'm not saying you should vote for him for my sake. Again, for the record: I'm a cis white dude, I'll be fine, I rolled the easiest combination in the book.
I'm saying you should vote for him for the people who aren't like me, a twenty-seven hipster dipshit who can’t control the volume of his voice.
The people who don't have great, good, or even salvageable insurance; for those people, who an unexpected hospital stay could ruin their life, because our medical industry is IMPOSSIBLY broken. Those same people, who avoid going to the doctor because they know it will be something they can’t afford. They stay off medications that could change their lives for the better, because - again - they can’t afford them.
Two fun, related facts: I lived with depression for years and years, completely unmedicated, because I was afraid that my insurance would go up as a result. I didn’t go to the doctor for a full year for a tumor on my NECK, because I was terrified of the bill that would come with just the act of getting it looked at, let alone a biopsy and surgery.
The people who are saddled with catastrophic, ruinous student loans from a system that is built and designed to force teenagers into paying them off for decades or longer. Did you pay off your student loans? Great! I’m genuinely happy for you. There’s millions of other people who don’t have the opportunities or, let’s face it, the luck, that you did. Being proud of paying off your own loans and thinking others should have to pay theirs isn’t cool, it’s predatory and you’re part of the problem.
The people who toil, endlessly, day in, day out, for starvation wages, because our national minimum wage hasn’t gone up from seven dollars and twenty five cents in the last decade. Do you know what seven dollars and twenty five cents will buy you these days? Not a lot!
The people who, against all odds, are still fighting to make things - their lives, the lives of others, the world - a better place, who feel like something is fundamentally Wrong with…<wild gesticulation> I dunno, all of this.
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I know what you’re thinking: “But I like this other candidate! What do you think about [Other Candidate]? They seem like they’re doing the right thing!”
Truth be told, at the start of this primary, I was super in on the Warren train. Gung ho, hell yeah, that lady’s gonna make it gonna happen. For like, seven seconds, I considered Buttigieg, but consistently felt like there was something fake about him (I WAS RIGHT, FOR THE RECORD). For the rest of the field, it’s just…why?
Bloomberg’s a fucking billionaire trying to buy the election and he should be sent to the Blade Zone. Every billionaire is a moral failure.
Klobuchar abuses her staff. Disqualified.
Tom Steyer has his heart in the right place when it comes to realizing climate change is, like, a fucking catastrophe, but he’s a billionaire, and that’s worse (see above). Eat the rich. Sorry, Tom.
Joe Biden…exists. He’s too fucking old. The best parts of his entire campaign have been that “You Just Posted Malarkey” meme image and the Joe Biden E1 episode, both of which really have nothing to do with him directly. Seriously, Joe, I’m worried about you. Go home, Jack. Take a nap, y’know, go hang out down at the dollar store with Corn Pop and the whistle stops.
Pete went full goddamned rat mode. That dude is so profoundly hollow. All of his broad strokes, big ideas speechwriting is so painfully, brutally vapid. Listen to that dude talk - actually listen to his words beyond the cadence he just blatantly ripped away from Obama - and try to explain anything of what he’s talking about. It’s “Big Word, you know, Inverse of that Word, pause, why is that? Well, let’s talk about that…” He took the entire Obama campaign profile, fed it through one of those fake AI script generators, and has been coasting on clean presentability and the money of billionaires ever since. The whirlwind of support around the most milquetoast dude in the world is b a f f l i n g.
And, then, Warren, genuinely the most heartbreaking of this list. I still think her heart is in the right place. I do! The problem is…she’s touted herself as a progressive candidate: big, bold, structural changes, a shift in the way we view things…and then, on the most crucial of those proposals, she has backpedaled. Medicare for All? Well, eventually. People are dying now because they can’t afford insulin. Within the last week, super PACs have spent nine million dollars promoting her. Her condemnation of that very thing is still on her website. It’s gutwrenching! It’s aggravating! In her pursuit of victory, she has embraced so many things she has made repeated, bold claims to get rid of. To quote a They Might Be Giants song that is actually about racism but applies here, “You can’t shake the Devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.”
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I can’t force you to vote for anyone in particular. But I can tell you who I think has a chance to actually, truly bring about some meaningful change here. There’s one person who is building - has built! - a genuine movement of people across generations, social circles, and ideologies. There is one person who hasn’t completely backpedaled on committing to their biggest ideas. There’s one person who hasn’t been whining for weeks and weeks about people being mean to them on the Internet and, at the same time, thinking they can go up against Trump and his goonswarm. COME ON.
I think you should vote for Bernie goddamned Sanders.
I know I’m going to.
