Bernie Sanders brought his message to Madison, Wisconsin two nights ago. In view of the tentative results of the poll in the right sidebar of this blog (which I'll discuss when voting closes next week), I decided I owed it to TYWKIWDBI readers to attend the rally to see for myself what this political movement is all about. The photo above was published in The Guardian yesterday. The camera angle is from the upper deck behind the speaker's podium. I have drawn a red circle around myself in the far upper right corner of the image; sufficiently enlarged, you can see about a dozen pixels depicting me wearing one of my Neatorama t-shirts. The rest of the photos below were ones I took at the rally.
Local news media had indicated that there would be large crowd, so I left home early because I don't have the stamina to stand for hours. I arrived 45 minutes before the scheduled start time, and even then had difficulty finding a good seat (as indicated by the position of the little circle). Fortunately for events such as this, visuals are not crucial, and the audio system in the auditorium was superb.
The Veterans Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison has a seating capacity of 10,000 for sporting events. By the time the program started, the building was full to the rafters -
- including seating on the coliseum floor, so the estimates of 10,000 attendees are certainly accurate and perhaps conservative. As Bernie Sanders was speaking, I took a photo toward the podium -
- which shows people standing in the entrance ramps (probably in violation of fire codes).
So much for the numbers. Now, who were these people? In terms of "diversity", the crowd is overwhelmingly white. The state of Wisconsin is 86% white, and this crowd was even more skewed. Beyond that, it was hard to me to see any other homogeneity. There were girls with purple hair and farmers with John Deere shirts. Lots of older people, but plenty of college-age students.
The most uniform characteristic of the crowd would of course be their political beliefs - liberal and progressive. I was startled, but not actually surprised, to see a man standing in the aisle next to me wearing an old Paul Wellstone tee shirt. Wellstone was a progressive and activist in the Minnesota Democratic party who died in a plane crash 13 years ago. Although Wisconsin's current governor (Scott Walker) and legislature are Republican, the state has historically been home to a strong Progressive movement, moreso in Madison - home of the University of Wisconsin - than in Milwaukee. I should think there is no doubt that Bernie Sanders chose Madison as a favorable spot outside New England to kickstart his campaign. Energizing a grassroots base here would also be useful because of the physical proximity to the adjacent state of Iowa, which holds an early and influential caucus when the poltical theater begins in earnest.I won't use this post to discuss the content of Sanders' speech, which presumably is a stump speech that will be repeated endlessly in the months to come. My interest was in the crowd's response. Knowing that apart from a few curiosity-seekers, everyone in the crowd was liberal/progressive, I knew that there would be applause when Sanders attacked Scott Walker and the Republicans, but I was surprised by the energy with which they responded to his talking points. He spoke about organized labor and the right of women to control their bodies and the cost of higher education and frequently about income inequality. But at one point he said if elected president he would have a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees that they must favor overturning Citizens United because Citizens United is undermining American democracy. The crowd went wild -
My photo is blurry because people were jumping up and down and yelling. I would expect that response from a small crowd in a Jon Stewart audience, but hadn't expected it from such a large mass of people. "Citizens United" boils down to the ability of wealthy individuals and corporations to influence American elections. Opposition to Citizens United is probably the ultimate populist emotional trigger, and this immense crowd responded enthusiastically. This requires a certain degree of political sophistication, and obviously people who attend rallies are expected to be more knowledgeable about issues. Whether this enthusiasm can be generated in a broader population remains to be seen. Ten thousand people in Wisconsin hope so.
For those interested in hearing Bernie Sanders' speech, here it is in its entirety. The embedded video will include an unneeded crowd-rallying introduction - most of you will prefer to use this link to view just Bernie Sanders. Or you can click the video below and move the progress slider to the 8:30 mark.
Is this the same Wisconsin that put Scott Walker in office now turning out in droves to support Bernie Sanders? I guess I don't understand the Wisconsin mindset.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same Wisconsin that put Scott Walker in office. With 52% of the vote.
Delete52% for the first election, 53% for the recall election, and reelected with a 6 point lead in 2014. That's all it takes to win, isn't it?
DeleteI'm not trying to be argumentative, but if 52% is a failure, then this guy is going to fail his way into the White House in 2016.
Never actually been to Venezuela, have you?
DeleteSocialism, it's done so much good for Venezuela and Greece, let's elect an elderly white man to implement it here in the good old U S of A!
ReplyDeleteSocialism works great in Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, etc. It's not a problem with the general concept of socialism, it's the implementation. Given that we have over a dozen working models in the world to work from and a few failures to show what not to do, we could do well if we can get over ourselves and learn from others.
DeleteSocialism works so great in Sweden that they have significantly backed away from it, electing a center right government for many years now. Some sort of socialism is here to stay, like Social Security, but no politician can seem to stop there, and Sanders certainly isn't flinching from offering "free" things to get votes. Without some sort of discipline, you ultimately run out of other people's money and go broke, like Greece, and soon, Italy, Spain, Portugal and maybe France. Nothing is free, but as you point out, we simply need to draw the line at what we really want to pay for publicly before we collapse the system. I have serious doubts we can pay for what we have committed to already, let alone the pie in the sky freebees that true socialists like Sanders want to offer in exchange for votes - and that is exactly what he is doing - offering to spend your money and mine that he will take by force, in exchange for votes.
DeleteSweden's elections in recent years have been dominated by anti-immigrant rhetoric and pushes from U.S. organizations and has little to nothing to do with a push against socialism in general in the country (except denying it to immigrants). Of course any politician is going to use victory to push their own agenda, even if that wasn't why they were elected.
DeleteThe reason that we're having problems paying for the obligations that we've already made is that we've passed tax cut after tax cut for rich and the one percenters in particular, leaving only the middle class to pay the bills for everybody, including the rich, instead of only themselves as intended. The rich are supposed to pay the bills for themselves and the poor in a progressive structure as ours has been since the 1930s. Our current system is more closely aligned with 17th century France than the United States at the height of it's power in the 1940s-1970s.
@cwswanson -
Delete"to spend your money and mine that he will take by force" Where do you get the "force" from. Sounds like scaremongering on your part.
Anon: The force is using the power of government to tax your money away. There is no resisting that, unless you'd like to spend time in the pokey. The more benefits the socialists promise to their voters, the more they will "define" you as rich, and come around to redistribute your wealth to those they favor. That's why you hear so much about "income inequality," since they have to demonize folk who have worked hard and acquired a bit of coin, to justify taking it away from them for their own purposes. It is scary, if you have anything to take.
DeleteThe Netherlands socialist? Ahahahaha!
DeleteI certainly hope he does take all the money from all the allegedly patriotic American corporations that make their profits from overseas workers, sell and make their profit here, only to stash their earnings away in foreign tax havens. And speaking of discipline (which you seem to be big on)- where did the Big Banks go to borrow money caused by their unmitigated capitalistic greed? And you never do mention all the other tax exemptions and corporate welfare given to the already filthy rich.
DeleteBTW- "Greece's deputy finance minister said on Monday Germany owes Greece nearly 279 billion euros ($305.17 billion) in reparations for the Nazi occupation of the country."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/06/us-eurozone-greece-germany-reparations-idUSKBN0MX1DO20150406
6 trillion spent on useless wars in The middle East. How much went to the military industrial complex robber baron club? What could that money have been used for?
DeleteI hear Greece has a good case for suing a big Wall Street bank and yes they forgave the Germans their debt for the rape of their country.
It's all so obvious but people have been so blind and brainwashed. I hope they are starting to wake up. I hope it's not too late.
I guess, like the rest of the country, I was flabbergasted that such a nominally lefty state such as Wisconsin could ever put a cretin like Scott Walker into high office. But never underestimate the power of gerrymandering. Sure, places like Madison may be bastions of liberalism, but you don't have to drive very far before you're knee-deep in Red State 'Murca. Thanks, ALEC.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I read an article that said that Walker would have been reelected if 100% of voters turned out. That suggests that his popularity goes beyond gerrymandering, doesn't it? Or am I mistaking how gubernatorial elections are run?
DeleteI read an article that said that JFK would still be alive had he not been assassinated.
DeleteFact is, Walker raised $30.5 million (much of it from multi-millionaires and billionaires), Barrett raised only about $4 million.
I feel like I've seen this movie before in 2004, starring Howard Dean and John Kerry. Damn, that Kerry had nice hair, didn't he?
ReplyDeleteI miss Wisconsin - go Bernie!
ReplyDeleteOn Wisconsin, on Wisconsin... This makes me so happy. I have been so disappointed in my former home for electing and re-electing Scott Walker. Go Bernie! BTW, I was a Republican, as was everyone in my family, for many years. I guess we were Eisenhower Republicans. The party left me, so I found a new home, as did every single family member (the last one to come over was my daughter the banker, now in Minnesota). The older I get, the more liberal and progressive I become.
ReplyDeleteUnless you think that a 73-year-old socialist from a tiny New England state is a viable presidential candidate, then all he's going to do is push Hillary into saying things during the primaries the Republicans will use against her during the general election - it won't actually push her left as she's already far to the left of anything she could ever possibly get through a Republican congress. Sanders denies that he's only running to push Hillary left - if true then he thinks a 73-year-old Socialist from a tiny New England state is a viable presidential candidate. So, either he's lying, he's delusional, or he's got a monstrous ego.
ReplyDelete"far to the left of anything she could ever possibly get through a Republican congress." ?? you seem to be conflating working effectively with Congress with getting elected. The two are separate considerations.
ReplyDeleteSanders is clearly a long longshot, but here is one scenario to consider - the Donald Trump wildcard. Suppose Trump continues to maintain his current strength with the broad (Republican) public and gathers some delegates during the primaries. Most of the other Republican candidates may consider him to be toxic to the party's image, and the party might exclude him from debates or malign him. He could then declare himself an independent candidate (if the rules and the timeline permit that). He was a declared Democrat from 2001-2009 and an Independent after that before becoming (nominally) a Republican. If he were to run as an Independent, he might siphon off 20-25% of the vote which could be enought to tip some of the swing states to the Democrat candidate. Then the only question left would be whether Sanders could defeat the big-money Super-PAC enriched campaign run by Hillary and her corporations. That seems doubtful.
"In terms of "diversity", the crowd is overwhelmingly white. The state of Wisconsin is 86% white, and this crowd was even more skewed."
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the demographics of the voter turnout is in Wisconsin. I would assume that it's 90%+ white. I wonder if the attendance at the rally closely matches the voter turnout.
"Income equality" sounds good until you realize that you are considered one of the "evil rich". "Free college" sounds good until you realize that you are paying for it in your 90% income tax rate.
ReplyDeletei am going to have to tell you that anything sanders said wasn't a stump speech. everything he says is basically the same thing he's been saying all along, and he usually speaks without notes.
ReplyDeleteand by "all along" i mean this is pretty much the same stuff he's been saying since he was mayor of burlington, only the state of the american middle class has gotten worse and we weren't in the neverending war back then.
unrelated to his speechifying, sanders also flies coach and does his own shopping. i know this because i have been behind him in line at the store.