Why I’m Supporting Bernie Sanders in the Nevada Caucus

It’s no surprise I’m supporting Bernie Sanders for president.  At the risk of overstating the obvious, I will explain the reasons why.

Now the eve of the Nevada State Democratic Party precinct caucuses coming up this Saturday, Feb. 20th, I’ll explain why I’m backing Sen. Sanders and make an argument he’s the best candidate in the race, not only for progressives but for our nation’s future.

In a culture where cynicism dominates the national dialectic, in which an overwhelming majority of Americans have lost faith in government — like so many others — I too hunger for a renaissance of optimism.  To realize this noblest ambition, authenticity and integrity matter.  Who is best suited to deliver on questions of authenticity and integrity?  I believe that answer is obvious.

Even critics who vehemently disagree with Sanders’ leftist political agenda widely acknowledge he’s bereft of the corrupting influences crippling much of our system of government, not only throughout his entire 35-year career as mayor, congressman, and senator but now also as a presidential candidate.  From the first day he announced his candidacy last May, his campaign has been consistently positive and entirely self-reliant, boosted by a record number of small-time campaign donations averaging just $27 — mostly contributed by working-class Americans for which that sum might actually amount to some measure of sacrifice.  Imagine that — individual citizen donors and campaign finance transparency as it was actually intended by our Constitutional founding fathers, before the mass political desecration known as the Citizens United ruling.

Sanders’s rise in the polls in recent months and his clear viability today as a serious presidential candidate railing against much of the mainstream establishment was entirely borne out of this populist grass-roots initiative.  Indeed, Sanders has received relatively little public support from the political and economic elites, a virtue he’s turned into an advantage and embraced as a badge of honor.  A vote for Sanders strikes a powerful blow against the “politics as usual” crowd and stamps a firm protest against the noxious strangulation of a rigged campaign system that’s unquestionably controlled by giant corporations, well-funded PACs puppet-stringed to special interests, and pestilent political insiders willing to say or do anything for a slice of power.  Regardless of political leanings, Sanders receives universally high marks as someone who is both trustworthy and incorruptible.  That’s important.

Read more here:  “IS BERNIE SANDERS TOO HONEST TO BE PRESIDENT?”

Sanders fully understands a reality that seems alien to far too many voters.  Fact:  We need government.  That’s why he’s determined to make government more efficient and accountable as the would-be chief of the executive branch.  Without intending to do so, he’s already transformed the American political lexicon, openly running as a pro-government reformer, an unapologetic leftist and liberal in the mold of an FDR and LBJ — two labels that have been used interchangeably throughout contemporary history, yet are eschewed still to this day by so-called proud Democrats who run for public office.  Sanders doesn’t run from who he is nor hide from what he believes.  Sanders insists that progressive virtues and values that gave us the New Deal and the Great Society should be defended, championed, and celebrated.  He knows, as I do, that virtually all of society’s greatest advances — from essential national infrastructure to social programs and essential services which have benefited hundreds of millions and led to unprecedented periods of prosperity — have occurred due to effective leadership at the highest levels of government combined with a willingness to take on new initiatives and fight for them when conservatives were vociferously opposed and labeling such investment in the nation’s future and its people as “creeping socialism.”

Read more here:  “BERNIE SANDERS AS THE S-WORD”

I am supporting Sanders because the longer time he stands upon the national stage during this presidential campaign, speaking to people of all ages and races in all parts of the country, the more his populist message will percolate in minds that would otherwise either be poisoned by the usual dreaded suspects or disenfranchised by misanthropy.

There’s a justifiable reason that Sanders enjoys his strongest support and highest percentages among younger voters.  It’s the young who have the biggest stake in the future.  Most younger voters have no desire to live in an unjust society where two-thirds of the population remain slaves chained to big banks for most of their lives; where unions get busted and good-paying jobs are outsourced overseas so CEOs can hike their bonuses; where crooked defense contractors and chicken hawks continuously spin webs of fear and perpetuate a permanent state of global war; where the rights of women and minorities and gay people are reversed by reactionaries; where criminal justice is openly for sale to the rich and where prisons are run purely for profit; where the richest get even richer while everyone else struggles to get by; where the cost of high education has quadrupled over the rate of inflation; where health care isn’t even considered to be a basic human right; and where the environment and animals are abused and exploited to their detriment, as well as our own.  They’ve had enough of the status quo.

I am supporting Sanders because continuing down the same path, now worsened by political gridlock, will almost certainly result in another disastrous economic crash, perhaps one even worse than what we experienced in 2008.  We’ve apparently learned nothing at all from the multitude of cons and crimes on Wall Street, and Sanders is the only candidate in this race willing to at least make an attempt to reverse the terrible disease that’s infected a very sick capitalist system, which makes no apologies for creating absurd levels of economic inequality and where half of this nation’s population is mired in hopeless debt.  By all metrics, the situation only appears to be getting worse.  Banks are now even bigger and more powerful than they were before the last crash.  What happens the next time when they go bust?  Another Great Depression?  Sanders is the only candidate in the race saying what desperately needs to be said — the banks have become way too big and should be broken up under the same anti-monopoly laws once used so effectively by Teddy Roosevelt more than a century ago in severing the trusts which held a stranglehold on the nation’s economy.  In their current state of grotesque deregulation, banks are nothing more than parasites feasting off the working class.

I am supporting Sanders because I am sick and tired of the United States acting as the world’s policeman.  He’s the only candidate who has pledged to prioritize rebuilding this country first, before worrying about the pointless reconstruction of unstable lands in faraway places nowhere near American shores which often seem to fall under enemy control and remain in a perpetual quagmire.  Sanders holds a common-sense approach to the Middle East as the only political leader of either party to question why we’re still working to overthrow Assad in Syria when the far more grave threat is ISIS (which continues to gain a foothold in Syria as Assad loses territory).  To his great credit, Sanders is also the only candidate who opposed intervention in Iraq from the very beginning.  Shouldn’t judgment count for something?  As for Hillary Clinton, after supporting the Iraq War without question during her term as a U.S. Senator, she then made a remarkable election-cycle conversion over to the right side.  How convenient.  Meanwhile, the dogs of war, otherwise known as the Republican presidential candidates all agree they want to spend even more on the military (!) and escalate the wars we’ve already been involved in for 14 years.  Sanders is the only candidate who was right from the very beginning and is now willing to stop this madness.

Want more evidence?  First to back civil rights?  That was Sanders in the early 1960s.  First to support the ERA and women’s reproductive rights, as well as bring up equal pay for equal work?  That’s Sanders, too — initially as an activist, next as a congressman, then as a senator, and now as a presidential candidate.  First to support gay rights and marriage equality?  While Clinton was straddling the fence in the issue up until a few years ago, Sanders was openly at the forefront of the fight, always on the right side of history.

I could list several additional reasons why I’m supporting Sanders.  Yet, had there still been any hesitation whatsoever in my mind about the candidate I’ll be caucusing for here in Nevada, it evaporated instantly during last night’s presidential debate.  Clinton openly attacked Sanders for officially enlisting late in the Democratic Party as a member, admittedly just recently (in 2015).  Until this election, Sanders had been unaffiliated with either of the two major parties and was officially listed as an “Independent.”  Clinton used his Independent tag against him and lunged into attack mode, trying to cast doubts that Sanders is loyal to Democrats.  Shame.  Clinton appears to believe that loyalty isn’t determined by a lifelong commitment to real progressive issues, but a rather pesky party affiliation.

Frankly, let’s hope he’s not loyal.  The Democrats do not deserve his loyalty, nor ours as voters.  And neither do the Republicans.  The only difference between electoral systems within a totalitarian regime and what’s practiced here in the United States is that a dictatorship typically has just one political party, while America offers two.  That’s what parades as a “choice” in this mongrel of a democracy.  Well, the system and voters’ lack of real choices among candidates and opinions requires a total overhaul.  Sanders is the only candidate capable of doing the dismantling because he’s the only one who’s brought it up over the years, time and time again.  Fact:  The two-party system is a rigged political process that guarantees elites access to power.  The system inhibits outside challenges from beyond what’s considered to be mainstream.  America’s shameful history clearly proves this — it’s virtually impossible for someone who isn’t listed as a Democrat or Republican to get elected to high office.  Hence, in order to be politically viable given these obstacles, about a year ago Sanders had to make a tough decision and move into the camp where he feels most comfortable, philosophically speaking.  That party just so happens to be the same one he’s caucused with for many years as a member of congress.  He made a willing compromise born of necessity and realism, two qualities I believe he’ll apply to all executive decisions.  Clinton has become an impacted wisdom tooth within the Democratic Party, and for her to now tout herself as being independent-minded and more loyal than Sanders on the issues strikes me as terribly insulting.  Let me put it another way, in more practical terms — there are far more independent voters in this country than either Democrats or Republicans.  Who speaks for them?  No one.  So, they’re forced to chose between the lesser of evils.  What a farce.

Sanders is the candidate who has openly expressed that, if elected, his top priority will be revamping campaign finance laws and (I believe) overhauling the two-party system which is gridlocked and has a complete stranglehold on progress, with no end in sight.  Until the manner in which we elected members of congress (and state governments) is changed, nothing else will change.  The American voter has become stuck in an abusive relationship, only with two thugs holding baseball bats.  Electing anyone other than Sanders is essentially voting for more of the same.

Can Sanders win the general election if he somehow gets the Democratic nomination?  That’s a fair question, and I’m still not sure of the answer.  However, his negatives are nowhere near the frightening levels of that of his opponent, which continues to be the Clinton albatross that just won’t fly away.  Certainly, no one expected a 74-year-old once self-affiliated socialist, born Jewish who now appears to be agnostic, who talks with a thick accent, and looks like a cross between Albert Einstein and your crazy uncle, to be neck-a-neck with the most powerful political force in the country, aside from President Obama.  He’s already accomplished what many thought was impossible.

I want this fight to continue.  I want his message to be heard and to linger in the minds of those who need to be lifted the most.  I want monumental changes in government and society that will ultimately only come about if someone of Sanders’ stature continues to fist-pound the lectern and airwaves and social media making his message part of our national dialogue.  Change comes in three stages — listeners, then voices, and finally action.  Sanders keeps the real hope of change very much alive and so long as he’s in the race, we’ll continue winning converts one new voter at a time.  Consider this a giant building block of hope for the future.

For this reason, I’m supporting Bernie Sanders in the Nevada Caucus, and hopefully beyond.

I’m Nolan Dalla, and I approved this message.

Reminder:  Nevada State Democratic Party precinct caucuses begin at 11 am on Saturday.  Most are expected to last a few hours.  All that’s required is — a person must be eligible to vote in the state of Nevada and will be at least 18 years old on election day, November 8, 2016.  Participants must also reside in the precinct and must be registered as a Democrat.  Independents and Republicans may register and/or change party affiliation on the day of the caucus.