Of all the rhetoric spewing from Bernie Sanders in his town hall meeting with Chris Hayes last night — the latter of whom, sorry to say, spewed barely inquisitive softballs — I found the senator's inexplicable indifference to his fellow revolutionaries the most intriguing.
The intrigue emerged from the plight of one John Fetterman, the militantly progressive mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania who's now obscurely running for the U.S. Senate. "Obscurely," for his fellow, high-profile revolutionary has failed to assist. Chris Hayes: "I had him on the show, an interesting guy. The town has had a really hard time because of trade, because of the steel industry essentially dying. He endorsed you. He says he feels basically like he's sitting there with a corsage, waiting for the Sanders mutual endorsement."
Sen. Sanders? Well, he couldn't be bothered: "Well, I honestly don't know John and I've heard just a little bit about him. What we are trying to do now, we have
endorsed and gotten some money to some candidates and I hope they win. I just don't know enough about John, to be honest with you." And that ended that.
Yet more than a week before, Slate's Michelle Goldberg and others among the progressive commentariat were learning and writing about Mayor Fetterman. Here's Goldberg:
Sanders often says that his audacious agenda depends on a political revolution, one that would sweep progressives into office behind him. So far, however, he’s done notably little to make that happen. It’s not just his failure to support Fetterman; he hasn’t gotten involved in any Senate races. He made his first congressional endorsements just last week, sending out fundraising emails for three female House candidates.
Sanders's notable little-ness in fostering the very revolution his program purports is as confounding as it is intriguing. It's also as audacious as his agenda. Whenever the senator is cornered (a rarity) on the unavailing congressional possibilities of his program, he rails about the latent power of the forthcoming political revolution. And whenever he's cornered (a rarity) on his sizable failure to materially support that revolution, he mutters vaguely about "some money" and "hope." He then launches into more platitudes about the evils of campaign finance — against which he could strike a blow, were he to spread more of his own money around.
It's a shell game — which Mr. Hayes, disappointingly, allowed Sanders to once again play. For Hayes wouldn't want to annoy his progressive viewers who are feeling the Bern. That's a ratings = money thing; and there are, it seems, as many limits to bold progressive journalism as there are to Sen. Sanders's material magnanimity.
The rest of the Sanders interview was such a study in circumlocution, it makes one wonder why the Berners despair of triangulating Clintonesque gibberish. Paladin-of-the-People Bernie essentially told democracy to go blow; even though he'll lose the popular vote to Hillary, his would still be "the stronger campaign in taking on Donald Trump," thus the nomination should be his. He could work with Republican legislators, he said, for he knows how to compromise, so yes his revolutionary agenda would have some real life; yet in a subsequent segment he conceded that he'd encounter the same obstructionism that President Obama has. He answered a question about his most-regretted congressional vote mostly by offering a litany of votes he's most proud of, while slamming Hillary for those she should be ashamed of. And he "answered" Hayes' question about ultimately endorsing Clinton like a Philadelphia lawyer — the evasive contortions of which are too lurid to repeat in polite society.
I'm no political revolutionary, but it seems to me that any progressive revolution should begin by being honest and straightforward with those it urges to revolt. Rather than inspiring an entire generation of inveigled pseudoprogressives, the shell-gaming should be left to pseudoconservatives.