In the days and weeks following the election, I found myself sinking deeper into the what if narrative and started stalking Bernie on social media. I was delighted to see he had released a new book that outlined his platform in detail and provided a postmortem on his campaign. So, I quickly downloaded and have spent that past two weeks listening to the audio production (narrated by Bernie himself and Mark Ruffalo) during my commute.
The first half of the book provides some back stories on Bernie’s life and career and then dives straight into his presidential primary campaign. One thing I have always appreciated about Bernie is his honesty – no matter how brutal the truth is. He assigns sainthood to no one (except, perhaps himself at times, my only complaint). To be perfectly honest, this was likely my least favorite part of the book. I had already lived through the campaign process and this was like ripping open a closed wound and pouring salt into the now fresh wound.
The second half of the book, read by Mark Ruffalo, was a complete outline, in detail, of the progressive platform. It contained statistics, solutions, causes and, did I mention actual solutions to the problems faced by every day Americans. Real solutions … such a novel idea.
Several times in the book I was moved to tears. Why? Because Bernie gets it. He truly knows and understands the real struggles that ordinary Americans face every single day. He writes with passion, compassion and empathy as he tells stories of single mothers, coal miners, fast food workers – the under paid and under represented.
What he also knows and understands is how corporations and the 1% are guiding American politics. He discusses, in detail (shocking, I know), just how destructive their lobbying and political activism is to American democracy. If you don’t know the details of how Walmart is the largest recipient of government welfare, you are in for a shocking and rude awakening.
In Our Revolution, Bernie takes corporate America to task and he doesn’t apologize for his hard stance and definitive defense of working Americans. Most politicians today are so far removed from Middle America and the working class, but not Bernie. He took the time to listen and he actually paid attention to their stories and struggles.
I doubt many reading this are on the Right, but if you are and want to understand where Progressives are coming from, I recommend this book. Further, if you are one of the members of the DNC who attack and bemoan the “Bernie or Bust” voters, take the time to check out this book, at least the second half. The policies and positions he outlines are important and they are crucial to rebuilding the democratic party.