1 year later. This is my first ever Medium article. I…
By: Jelina Liu
Tags: Hope, Mariame Kaba, Bernie Sanders, Radicalisation, 2020 Presidential Race

This is my first ever personal written piece. Until now I’ve only written diary entries, screenplays, fictional stories, essays for school. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just wanted to try and process. I’ve never been very good at verbalizing how I feel, so I hope this will help me. I have a lot of emotions swirling around inside me. I have that feeling in my stomach like I want to cry, but I can’t. This is pretty much how I felt for the rest of 2020. Perhaps my body remembers.

1 year ago today on April 8, 2020, I awoke to texts from friends that Bernie had dropped out of the 2020 election. I immediately resented the texts. They felt like taunts. Text after text came in. Small bullets piercing the wall I immediately put up after receiving the first text. I tend to try and distract myself from things rather than confront them, but these texts made reality unavoidable. I put my phone down beside me on my bed, and felt nothing. I felt completely numb. I went on social media, saw some “thank you Bernie posts” on people’s stories. Just another story among hundreds that most would just click through without seeing. I went to class.

I felt nothing.

Instead of crying, the grief was like a dark cloud. In the background. Bearing down on me. Heavy. An anvil on top of the depression I already have. The pandemic had just started, and I was being suffocated with the feeling that nothing would get better again.

The days after were some of the worst days I’ve ever experienced. I fell into a deep, numbness for months and months. On top of this was the pandemic, transferring colleges, and the depression I’ve been fighting since high school. I took myself off social media. I became desensitized to politics and world news. Simply put, it was a shit storm of existential proportions.

I felt like an empty shell.

There is nothing like putting every last piece of yourself into something and seeing it being ripped away from you, in real time, by people who couldn’t care less if you die or live. By people who couldn’t care less if the poor starve, if people have to choose death over medical debt, if the future generations will barely survive, not truly live, in a world choked by smoke, floods, and death. By people who look at the younger generation with disdain, who see politics as merely a game and scoff at the idea of holding oligarchs, often their friends, accountable (and no, I’m not referring to Republicans). People who spent more energy, time, and money to shut down Bernie than they’ll ever spend trying to defeat the Republicans that they claim are their enemy. And when the liberal establishment does “confront” Republicans, it’s simply political theatre. But that’s what brings the views in, right CNN? #Girlboss.

Many of you are thinking: you’re overreacting. Two months ago I posted some notes about how I was feeling a year later, and was met with DMs from a girl who said that it was Bernie’s fault that Trump was elected in the first place. All I could think to myself was: WTF? I remember almost having a panic attack. I had just poured a little bit of my soul out for everyone to see, and this was her response? (A response that was irrelevant AND not factual). Talk about reading the room.

But let me clarify.

Like Bernie says, “Not Me, Us.” My grief is and was not necessarily for the man himself, but what the man had inspired. A multiracial, multigenerational movement that allowed me to meet so many wonderful people and allowed me to have some hope for our future, for once.

I thought of James, a Bernie volunteer who had hosted phone banking parties while hooked up to a breathing machine, knowing he would die soon. Every breath was a struggle for him. I thought of Al Johnson, whom the New Hampshire campaign office was named after, and how he had continued to make phone calls for Bernie even while on his deathbed. I thought of strangers on Twitter who had poured their hearts out about the struggles that they and their families were experiencing — one person’s father had chosen to forego Parkinson’s treatment because he did not want to bankrupt his family. He chose to pass away instead.

How could you read a story like and not be radicalized?

I thought of working class people from all over the country who had given up on electoral politics and voting (understandably so) but had chosen to get out the vote for Bernie, who gave them hope for the change we desperately need. I thought of indigenous people in America who have been screwed over and ignored by president after president, but saw that Bernie was different.

I thought of the long nights I spent with the campaign. The tears of joy, the tears of frustration. The friends I made, the feeling of solidarity and togetherness that I can’t quite put into words. Not to be cliché, but it truly was the people that made my experience. I, someone with anxiety, depression, and severe social anxiety, began to welcome conversations with strangers, because of the campaign. I sought them out. These one on one conversations became the crux of why I believed in Bernie and the movement he sparked.

Tim Ellis’s Medium piece explains best the general feelings that Bernie’s exit prompted about existence, the planet, the past and the future. Things that all go beyond just one man and one presidential election. If you have the time please take a detour and check it out:

https://medium.com/@djdynamicnc/how-it-feels-ed526fde51d2

BUT.

Looking back on April 8, 2020, one year later, I’m also grateful for that day, something I never thought I’d say. It was both a negative and positive turning point. Without it, I would have continued to rely solely on electoral politics. I would not have seen the bias that corporate media has towards progressives. I would not have seen how little they cover important issues such as the climate crisis. I would not have realized that there is much more nuance to why working class people voted for Trump than what is presented by the liberal establishment. I would not have realized that race and gender are used to divide the working class.

I would not have realized that it should not be red vs blue, but the people vs the oligarchy.

I definitely would not have understood the concept of radical love.

I would not have dove headfirst into grassroots community organizing, which I now believe is the root of social change.

If Bernie hadn’t been forced out of the 2020 presidential election, I would not have become radicalized.

So both a thank you and a fuck you to the DNC.

So to those who say “it was just a presidential race, you’re overreacting. Calm down.” No, it was so much more than that. It was a turning point for me in ways that April 2020 me would have never seen coming. It changed the way I see the world, the way I see communities.

2021 me is filled with both rage as well as compassion and love like nothing before. “Never lose your sense of outrage,” Bernie has said. Extinction Rebellion signs off their emails with “Love and rage.”

Let your rage fuel you and let your rage be motivated by radical love.

Mariame Kaba’s quote sticks with me:

Whenever I fall into despair, I will repeat this quote to myself.

Power to the people, always. Solidarity forever.

See you in the streets soon.