The news that Bernie Sanders, at 77, has decided to run for President of the United States, and that in a day he had $6 million in campaign funds donated - smaller donations - more voters - reached me this morning. I was cheered by the news and read around the subject via various news services.
Lots of Democrats are declaring themselves. Marianne Williamson, a New Age preacher, declared her self some weeks ago in an eloquent YouTube video I watched. There are so many candidates that televised debates might be limited to two nights and twenty. (How the twenty would be determined, I do not know.)
A criticism I heard is that he is "too old," (though probably in better health that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was during his campaigns and four terms of Presidency and though probably in better health than John Fitzgerald Kennedy ever was, though much younger.) The stigma of being a "cripple" /disabled was understood at the time and in both cases the press/media conspired to not show the President in a wheelchair or with a back brace and only in recent years have health revelations been made about JFK. For those who suffer from pain and dealing with pain management or some other health issue that make them partially or fully disabled, knowing someone struggling also made it to the highest office is inspiring. Who a Presidential candidate of age or ill health chooses to run as a Running Mate - Vice President is always a question. One thinks "What if they die? What if there is an assassination?"
Yet I know of a 98 year old who is still walking three miles a day and others who carry the age of 77 well, while several of my friends over the years have died - of AIDS, breast cancer, leukemia, brain tumor, brain stroke, and massive heart attack, so much younger.
I wish the term Socialist had never been applied to Bernie Sanders. Our only four term President, FDR, instituted so many governmental funded work programs and programs that many people have come to depend on ("The New Deal") including Social Security. Though he apparently offended members of his wealthy class, I suspect polio gave him new associations and new understanding. Socialist? No way.
Sanders seeks to expand some, invent others. Let's think New Deal Continued.
Joe Biden would also make a good Democratic candidate, and main stream, not suffering the Socialist stigma, but I'm not sure I could imagine a Sanders-Biden or Biden-Sanders ticket.
I flash upon the last campaign when I was on a bus with passengers that represented the full diversity of Southern California. When I stated I was for Bernie Sanders a Black woman jumped out of her seat and yelled, "You have to vote for Hillary Clinton! You can't let the Republican's win." Some people think the utter chaos of the current Presidency as a result of the election of President Donald Trump was caused by too many people running as Democrats or Sanders and Hillary Clinton splitting vote. This looks to be right doing the math. As much as I feel traumatized and confused by the current Presidency, I hope to hell Clinton stays out of this race.
Ultimately, people must ask themselves WHY THEY ARE OK with so very many people enduring poverty and limitation. People must ask themselves WHY SO MUCH SPIRITUAL SICKNESS in a so called country "Under God." I can't make them. But I hope this post will make YOU think!
Christine Trzyna
MILLER CENTER ORG on FDR READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHERE WE ARE NOW.
From the site: Faced with the Great Depression and World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt, nicknamed “FDR,” guided America through its greatest domestic crisis, with the exception of the Civil War, and its greatest foreign crisis. His presidency—which spanned twelve years—was unparalleled, not only in length but in scope. FDR took office with the country mired in a horrible and debilitating economic depression that not only sapped its material wealth and spiritual strength, but cast a pall over its future. Roosevelt's combination of confidence, optimism, and political savvy—all of which came together in the experimental economic and social programs of the "New Deal"—helped bring about the beginnings of a national recovery.
