Of course Bernie Sanders is inspiring. Of course he is refreshing. Of course he is all of that and more. But I can’t help feeling that continuing his candidacy is regrettable.
He must know by now that he has no chance of being the Democrats’ choice for President. You don’t have to be a political wizard to predict the outcome of today’s “Super Tuesday” primaries. Sanders will win Vermont, and he might win Minnesota – perhaps even Massachusetts. And that’s it.
After that, it will be all downhill for Bernie.
But you know he won’t quit. He will keep trumpeting his income-inequality message as long as people are listening. And they are.
Not just listening but emptying their pockets. They showered him with 40 million of their hard-earned dollars last month.
And that makes me want to cry.
Think of what the Salvation Army could have done with that money!
Or St. Jude’s… or the Shriners… or any of the deserving groups that help the poor and the sick.
Yes, I know. Electing a President who will help the poor and lift up the oppressed would do more for those in need than even the best private charities. But even so, why spend everything you have on the primaries?
Every dollar spent on the primaries is one less dollar available for the general election. And Hillary is going to need every penny we can scrounge up for her come November. I’m sure you can imagine how corporations and right-wing organizations will spend to keep her out of the White House.
The ones who benefit most from the tsunami of advertising cash generated by America’s election campaigns are the giant companies that own America’s media outlets.
The corporations are publicly traded, and you or I could buy stock in them. So you might say we can all get a piece of the pie. But that’s not exactly how it works. Media giants may be Partly owned by the masses but they are controlled by a few super-rich stakeholders.
So here’s the thundering irony of the Bernie Sanders campaign. The nickels and dimes contributed to buy ads for Bernie further enrich the one percent he is campaigning against.
He has become an unintentional channel for the distribution of America’s wealth from the pockets of the poor and middle class to the treasuries of the super-rich.
