Bernie Sanders is not perfect. Nobody is.

Just about everyone who knows me, on line and off, knows I’m a die-hard supporter of Bernie Sanders. I have been pretty much ever since he came into my awareness as a contender for the Oval Office. Yeah, that Oval Office, the Presidency of the United States of North America.

I’ve defended Sanders against criticism from both the center and the right. He’s a socialist. A Communist. A pie in the sky dreamer. He’s too old and white. He’s a racist, or a misogynist, or both. He’s not even a Democrat. The list goes on.

Most of the criticism has been adequately addressed, from my perspective. A lot of it has actually been debunked by facts, like John Lewis saying he didn’t see Sanders at Dr. King’s march. Debunked with a simple photograph of Sanders in the crowd, marked with a red circle around his head, clear as day once you’ve seen it. Or the pictures of his arrest and his being chained to a black woman while they both, along with many others, protested segregation on student housing in Chicago when he was a lowly student.

Add to that the fact that his strongest supporter, both in 2016 and2019 campaigning again for the Presidency, is former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, an unabashed black woman. And joining her as co-chair of his campaign is Ro Khanna, a man born of immigrants from India, who is very clearly not a white man. He’s also supported by southern rapper, Killer Mike, and long-time actor Danny Glover, among many other people of color. That should, by rights, lay to rest the idea that he’s racist, misogynist, and has little support among non-white folks.

But all this, and more, keeps being brought up, no matter how many times it’s debunked. And quite often by the same people who ignore the debunking and keep hammering away at denigrating the man.

All that being said, I was recently made aware of one of my own failings in support of Sanders. That is my apparent lack of criticism for anything he does or says. The person who pointed this out specified that it’s in context with the fact that I’ve criticized the records of a few of the other candidates for President, both now and in 2016. Primarily the top contenders. Hillary Clinton, of course. Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren. Kamala Harris. They all leave a lot to be desired as potential, or formerly potential Commanders in Chief.

The man who pointed out my failing as I’ve described is a centrist. As such, I tend to take what he says with a very large grain of salt. I’ve been going back and forth with him for months on this issue, to no avail. I saw him as unreachable. He claims to like Sanders’ policy proposals, especially Medicare For All. But he keeps telling me the American people aren’t ready for it, and it won’t pass. I disagree, of course, based on polling results showing a clear majority like the proposal.

So, for most of a day, I thought about what he said. I couldn’t help it, the statement was eating at my brain. And I realized he was right. I’ve been trying to live by certain philosophical teachings, including those of Mohandas Gandhi, who said, “The friend you must cultivate is that part of your enemy that knows the truth.” And Malcolm X, who said, “I am for Truth, no matter who speaks it.”

My fault, I think, was in not applying those basic truths to my interactions with others over Sanders’ quest for the White House.

This man, whom I shall not name, on top of stating that I never criticize Sanders, also asked me to name one thing I find troubling about my preferred candidate. He did it without being overtly sarcastic or snarky, two things I admittedly don’t deal well with.

So, herewith is my view on what I disagree with Sanders about. This is by no means comprehensive, but it’s more than the one thing my unnamed debate partner asked for.

1. Sanders supported a candidate for office in Montana who was progressive in all ways but one. That candidate was against making assault weapons illegal for civilians. Should Sanders have withheld his endorsement? I honestly don’t know. But I’m inclined to think that the repeated statements that no candidate for any office has the ring of truth to it. This, of course, puts the lie to the oft-repeated idea that we progressives want a perfect candidate. In truth, we know there’s no such thing.

2. Sanders has, to my awareness, supported (past tense) the State of Israel to the seeming exclusion of the needs of the Palestinian people. It appears, as too many people seem to believe, that Israel can do no wrong, and if they do, then we still shouldn’t criticise their right-wing government on the grounds that it’s supposedly antisemitic. But those who say such things fail to recognize that criticizing a government is not nearly the same as criticising the people that government rules over.

3. Sanders has, perhaps rightly but maybe incorrectly, called President Maduro of Venezuela a dictator. As with everything else, there are at least two sides to the story. But he has failed to openly recognize the fact, pointed out by only one other Presidential candidate (Tulsi Gabbard), that we have no legitimate, lawful business trying to interfere in that country’s, or any other nation’s, internal affairs, unless there is a clear and present danger or threat to the United States or its citizens. Such is not the case. As John Bolton stated a while back, he’d like to have American oil companies get their hands on Venezuela’s oil, the largest deposits in the world. That may be in the interest of oil companies, but it has little, if anything, to do with the security of America or its people.

4. To date, as far as I know, Sanders has neglected to state a position on regime change wars. The only candidate to do so is, again, Tulsi Gabbard.

So, in spite of these clear perceptions of fault in Bernie Sanders, I still support his candidacy, and barring future potential actions on his part, I will continue to do so. He’s clearly not perfect; nobody is. But he’s better than any other candidate, including Gabbard, who has apparently backtracked on her support of Medicare For All.

People say that Sanders can’t win, that he can’t beat Donald Trump in the general election. Those same people say that he couldn’t have won in 2016. But almost all of the polling shows otherwise, that he would have most likely cleaned Trump’s clock, while most polling showed that Hillary Clinton was neck and neck, that she might win or she might lose. Yet the Democratic establishment put all their efforts into supporting her instead of him, because “it was her turn”, as if politics is a game where everyone gets a turn.

Now it looks to me like that establishment is operating on the premise of “anyone but Bernie.” Never mind who can actually beat Trump, don’t let Sanders become President. I dare say a lot of centrist Democrats will do as they did in 2016, when they voted for John McCain instead of Barack Obama, to the tune of 25% as compared to about 15% of Sanders supporters voting for Trump.

So given that fact, tell me who the real anti-democratic voters are.

© 9–28–2019