Sincerely, Bernie

There have been boatloads of speculation about the success of Bernie Sanders in this election, so much that I no longer open any facebook post that has anything to do with him. I don't need convincing, and I am exhausted with the energy emanating from campaign youth. Yes, there are all of us who are disaffected and ready for any change; yes, there are Hillary haters looking for another path; and certainly there are those now becoming convinced that an old outlier Socialist might actually have a shot and have switched.

But none of that explains the quantum of youth, the young piling onto this bandwagon as if it were going to drive them right up to the White House doors! And I wondered about that, especially given the enormous disappointment these almost-same young people have experienced with their man Obama, who they shouldered into the Oval Office only to find that he never did put his money where his mouth was. That was a hard lesson.

I have not even really watched Bernie speak, because it didn't take long to see that I know who he is. I know where he came from, and I know what he fought for, then and now. He has been on the outskirts of my political awareness all these years as the outsider on the inside, one of us who hung in there, and it only took assuring myself that he had not been terminally purchased to make up my mind. Because, and this is what I think is so revolutionary to the Youth of America, he is sincere. It may be that they have never, ever, seen this on the national stage before. They may not have seen it at ALL before! I can count on one hand the times that I have, and I have lots more years than they do. SinCeriTy, a drug that has been out of fashion since Gordon Gekko.

I recall with some embarrassment a moment in a bad Cheech Marin movie when I realized that sincerity had disappeared from public discourse altogether (barring some scathingly funny comedians without whom I might have given up altogether). 1989's Rude Awakening follows the return from exile of two old hippies on a mission to save a world they don't, after 20 years, even recognize.  Taken to a coke-fueled movers-and-shakers party by his old girlfriend, Eric Roberts tries to "talk" to guests, who run screaming from this mode, which, even in a bad comedy, was more than familiar to someone who was there.

I teared up, noticing for the first time in my own busy life that my generation's attempt at real communication, however flawed we were, was a shining artifact of the past. People no longer wore their colors, afraid to show, much less say out loud, who they really were. The hippie ideal of sincere action had been refuted, overturned, rejected, and in fact stomped to death in the stampede for money and power. Greed is good. Clothes make the woman (if she has the right corporate logo on her ass). It's just business. My tears were for our loss.

So I wonder at the fascination and devotion this old man fires in the hearts and minds of the young.  I wonder if the Sanders Youth of America are on SCT? Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?