Well, it is looking like we will have two choices in left-of-center candidates.
Hillary Clinton invites us to trust the status quo, to settle into stasis.
Bernie Sanders incites us to revolution, to radical change.
Hillary suggests we settle for working in partnership with The System for what is probable.
Bernie foments an uprising against a rigged system for what is possible.
Hillary affirms we participate in practical incremental reform.
Bernie asserts we join a rebellion against the patient progress that has left us in this mess .
‘Delegate equivalents,’ whatever-the-hell ever those are, give Hillary the lead out of Iowa but actual votes in New Hampshire will probably give the lead to Bernie.
So, it appears that we can choose a future that is yet to unfold or a future that has already happened. Back to the future is not an option for me.
Of course, to even think of the other Party is to long for a nostalgic past that looks like Reaganomics, sounds like Jim Crow and resembles the ‘Mission Accomplished’ of ‘W,’ ‘shock and awe’ and all.
I find it almost incomprehensible to imagine that anyone would consider anything that even resembles what we’ve had in the Bush-Obama continuum.
OK, Hillary has served well as Senator and as Secretary of State, and I do really want a woman as our Chief Executive, but the former First Lady is not the female who portends any change in our national identity. I’ll take an ageing, male, liberal Jew who sounds like he dozed off when FDR was President and awakened only recently to discover that nothing has changed in half a century.
Sanchismos 
Great piece, but then I totally agree.
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Thanks, C. Joseph, I hope I write for a significant majority.
Amen! Unfortunately we’re going to undo the changes of FDR if we keep the oligarchy in place.
The progressive reforms of FDR, LBJ, etc. – which trace back to the trust-busting policies pursued by Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, et al. (both initially Republicans, BTW) – have already been largely undone by the neoliberal establishment in both political parties since the Reagan Revolution of 1980. What Bernie Sanders is trying to do is reverse the damage already caused.
Hillary Clinton is fundamentally a corporatist and member of this neoliberal establishment. Like Barack Obama, she is “progressive” only on the margins of this new socioeconomic status quo. She wants to help disadvantaged people, but not to the extent of upsetting America’s hierarchical apple-cart. It’s appropriate to see her as “Republican-lite” or “compassionately conservative.”
Bernie (accurately, IMO) sees the system as broken and in desperate need of structural repair. That’s quite a contrast between the two Democratic Party candidates.
I could not have said it better! Thank you Robert for your affirmation of my humble opinion.
My pleasure. 🙂
Let’s hope we are not so self-destructive.