Travels during a US presidential Election season

I've been attempting to put into words what traveling in the US during this ridiculous primary season has been like. As well as my feelings about being a tepid/cynical Bernie Supporter.
I went to a Bernie Sanders rally in Portland the other week, yes it was the rally with THE BIRD!


The rally was huge (although interestingly not full), filled with pep and bigger cheers for marijuana legalisation then an end to mass incarceration.
I cannot describe how weird it was for a non event to be met with a standing ovation and then to get home and find said event all over the news around the world. (I'm talking about the bird not Bernie generally). I am genuinely still confused as to why this is a big deal but people are still trying to persuade me there is some deeper meaning to it. What a fucking spectacle?!
And that's what this whole primary season is, a spectacle! The endless news cycles, the reality television style conversation about lives and behaviour of the candidates as opposed to policy and. Actual people. And this is by no means limited to the right although they've reached a whole new level. 



Me at a HUGE Sanders rally, somewhat warm but not feeling the Bern
 
But going back to Bernie mania and my cynicism. All my experience of organising and politics tell me big rallies are feel good but achieve very little. But the energy and passion from sanders supporters is fascinating, almost cult like. People really believe this man can change a thoroughly broken political system. Everything in real progressive politics says you need movements that campaign for ideas not just people and although Bernie talks great ideas his supporters need to be campaigning for his ideas at all levels of government, through formal campaigns, community organising and direct action.
In his speech sanders mentioned the fast food workers who went on strike for a living wage, this is the kind of action needed for political change! Does electing an old white politician to the most elitist office in the US bring about this kind of radical change? History tells us no, LBJ didn't pass the civil rights at on his own, it was the tireless work of anti racist organisers that laid the groundwork that allowed him to do so. A Bernie supporter might say, well yes but having a liberal president makes this all easier. Yes it does, but without the groundswell then Bernie will be as stuck during his first 100 days as Obama was with healthcare. 


The big man himself

 In my mind Bernie should be telling his supporters to go out and organise, in their communities and around their ideas, using his platform to create progressive movements that, win or loose, outlast him.
Would Bernie supporters get on board with this? Maybe some, but overwhelmingly I think Bernie supporters are not as radical as they think. It's easy to support a guy for president who talks a lot about young people, the political class and free college tuition, but we have to remember that millenials are not a liberation group whose mere existence is an act of resistance, and that Bernie is part of a political class just a liberal one and for many college is a pipe dream let alone graduating a decent public high school. I can't help but think that many Bernie supporters are much more interested in cheering at the right moment and sharing a fb post than putting in the hard slog that many lgbtq, women, people of colour and low wage workers are already putting in to organise and change the system around them.


#MillenialsforBerningHilary

 
However I have also met some incredibly dedicated activists and organisers involved in supporting Bernie who don't deserve the label of clicktivist and to an extent they have made me truly excited about such a radical candidate standing for president.
I really really hope that the energy of this movement can be captured to focus less on one individual and more on the amazing ideas he espouses and the work that needs to be put in to make them a reality.

 
Guy who dressed up as Jeremy Corbyn for the Bernie Sanders rally, JK, he had no idea who Corbyn was.