Thank You, Bernie Sanders.
By: Jacob Berkowitz
Tags: 2016 Election, 2020 Democratic Primary, Bernie Sanders, Medicare For All, 2020 Presidential Race

“I don’t like Hillary Clinton,” I said to a couple of friends. “I’m still holding out hope Joe Biden ends up running.”

It’s funny how much can change in five years.

But I was just 19, not politically active and still saw Barack Obama as the paragon of what a politician should be.

Then my friend brought up a relatively unknown senator from Vermont.

Naturally, I googled Bernie Sanders later that week, watched one YouTube video and became an avowed Democratic Socialist sworn to end the evils of Capitalism — one of those dreaded Bernie Bros hell bent on tearing the fabric of American society apart piece by piece.

At least that’s how the media paints the millions who joined their voices with Bernie’s and dared to ask for more from their government. In reality, my story as a Bernie supporter is much like any other.

I watched a few videos, looked up a brief summary of his career but didn’t take him seriously for quite some time — my appreciation for Senator Sanders was a slow burn.

In fact, initially, the most attractive part of Bernie Sanders for me was…his voice. I didn’t think he could actually become president, so his policy positions were secondary. I was more excited to close my eyes and imagine Larry David on the stage debating Hillary Clinton than I was about tuition free college or a $15 minimum wage.

I saw the similarities long before Bernie and Larry went on SNL together. PHOTO: Saturday Night Live.

The phrase “single-payer healthcare,” changed that.

I had no idea what “single-payer” meant, which surprised me given I’d spent the previous summer working customer service for a health insurance sales company.

I understood the insurance industry intimately, how sales worked, how plans were different from one another etc. But the thought of a different system to administer healthcare never occurred to me.

When I first heard Sanders’ stump speech on the structural issues of our insurance-based healthcare system, it changed my perspective on politics entirely.

Suddenly, all those calls I got from people who hated their insurance plans made sense. Whether it was people with pre-existing conditions who couldn’t get covered, people struggling to pay outrageously high medical bills or people unable to find a plan with their doctor in-network, they all had the same problem — the system was simply designed to fail.

Why else are we the one of the only developed nations that forces its citizens to pay for healthcare?

Why else is medical debt the most common cause of bankruptcy in the United States?

Why else are healthcare costs twice as much per capita here than in countries with universal healthcare?

Why else do we pay up to 10 times more for pharmaceuticals than citizens of other countries?

Why else do tens of thousands of people die every year because they don’t have health insurance?

Those are the questions Bernie Sanders forced me to grapple with, and the answer was easy: so clowns in suits can make billions off the suffering of the poor and sick.

I was, and am, infuriated by this realization. Not only for the injustice of it all, but because it affects me personally.

I’m a brain tumor survivor. If surviving and recovering from brain surgery weren’t difficult enough, my insurance and medical bills will cost significantly more than they do for most of my peers until I finally reach Medicare eligibility at 65.

Me around 24 hours after brain surgery. I’m smiling because I had yet receive my medical bills.

In the United Kingdom, Canada and practically every other first-world nation, the idea I should pay significantly more on medical bills is preposterous — only in the United States does it make sense to punish me because the Universe thought it’d be funny to place a rare brain tumor in the head of a child.

And I was one of the lucky ones.

When the shroud of our absurd healthcare system came off in 2015, I was dumbfounded.

“How could the government let this happen?” I thought. “And why is Senator Larry David the only politician advocating for a commonsense change?”

Well, Bernie answered that question too. The insurance industry makes billions in profit every year and spends more on corporate lobbying than any other industry, including the gun lobby and fossil fuel industry.

It was kind of obvious, looking back. How else could they convince politicians to employ a barbaric system that not only costs lives, but significantly more per capita for the American people?

Everything clicked after that.

Now I knew why the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United was such a disaster: Corporate America’s limitless ability to fund politicians in both parties to do their policy whims was a tumor in the system, and it was only growing.

Over the last few decades, the United States government has paved the way for corporations to union-bust, monopolize and upcharge the American people. The housing market crash and subsequent recession of 2008 was the perfect example of what occurs when corporate greed goes unchecked, and yet nothing fundamentally has changed since then — just a continuous cycle of bailouts and tax breaks for the ruling class in our society.

This increasing emphasis on corporatism has only weakened our society:

Income inequality has reached unprecedented levels. The national minimum wage hasn’t been raised in 10 years while CEO average pay has skyrocketed. The environment is on the verge of climate catastrophe. People are dying or going bankrupt due to a lack of health insurance. The United States is falling behind the rest of the developed world in education. Trade deals like NAFTA have resulted in the loss of millions of American jobs overseas. The military industrial complex and prison industrial complex peddle in human misery for profit.

And yet, nobody in my lifetime had proposed comprehensive solutions, or even acknowledged, to most of these serious issues until Bernie Sanders forced himself into the national spotlight.

These issues are well-documented and affect millennials and gen Z far more than they do the rest of the country. With just one man actually trying to solve them at the federal level, is it really so surprising we’re fervent in our support for Senator Sanders and his policy proposals?

Bernie isn’t perfect, all his supporters know this. But he’s the only presidential candidate we’ve ever seen who:

1. Marched in the Civil Rights movement (and was arrested for it).

2. Stood with LBTQ+ activists in the 1970s, long before it was popular. (By contrast, Clinton and Biden were anti-Gay Marriage until the 2010s.)

3. Never took a dime of corporate or Super PAC money.

4. Actively spoke against the Iraq War, which is now seen as the biggest foreign policy disaster in recent American history. (Biden enthusiastically voted for it).

5. Focuses on policy over personality.

6. Speaks to issues that actually matter to younger voters.

7. Has acted honestly over a 40-year career in politics.

I wish I could fit all the reasons I support Bernie Sanders, but it’s impossible to completely detail my political journey over the last five years in just 1500 words, so I won’t try to.

Maybe I’ll write thoughts on specific policy proposals another time, because that isn’t the purpose of this particular essay.

Now you know my origin story as a Bernie supporter. So, I’ll turn my attention to the man himself.

I know the odds of him reading this are slim, but without a healthcare plan that covers mental health this is the best therapy I’ve got:

Thank you, Bernie Sanders.

You brought so many issues in American society to my attention. You’re the only presidential candidate in two cycles who managed to earn my trust through your record on the right side of history, consistency and policy proposals. You’ve broken every conceivable record for grassroots funding, and I’m proud to have contributed a few drops in your ocean-sized bucket.

You detailed a Medicare-For-All bill that has officially set the standard and paved the way for a single-payer healthcare system in the United States — something I will spend the rest of my life advocating for, if necessary.

You have given me faith that our government and economy can work for all of us. Despite your loss in the 2020 democratic primary (regardless of the ridiculous odds against you and the transparent bias of the mainstream media), you won the marketplace of ideas:

Ideas like Medicare For All, raising the federal minimum wage and a bold plan to combat climate change are a huge part of the political zeitgeist because of you.

Most importantly, you and your policy ideas inspired a new generation of young people to enter the political process — you won voters under 45 in the democratic primary and won decisively among millennial and gen Z voters.

Opponents, critics and haters (as ridiculous as it is to hate a kind old man who spent his entire life advocating for the poor and powerless), are celebrating the end of Bernie Sanders. In some ways, they may be right: there’s a zero percent chance you will be president of the United States.

But those who truly think this is the end for Bernie Sanders or our movement are dimmer than the United States’ healthcare system.

You may never become president, but you inspired a political revolution; a movement in which the younger generations of this country will continue to demand change. Your campaign slogan was “Not me, Us,” and you referred to the movement as “Our Revolution.”

You spent your life and 40-year political career jamming your foot in the door for us.

We’re going to kick that door wide fucking open.