Thank you, Bernie

Thank you, Bernie

Thank you for being the first political figure in my lifetime who truly represents me, everything I stand for, and everything I dream in my wildest dreams for my country and the world.

Thank you for changing the conversation in this country.

Thank you for giving eloquent, clear and inspiring voice to everything I’ve believed since I was 19 years old and had long since given up on a presidential candidate ever actually fighting for.

Thank you for the validation that came from learning, when I was 19 years old, that the new mayor of Burlington, Vermont was a democratic socialist, just like I had only months earlier realized I was, after discovering it on a college group study trip to Europe. You were the only person in America, let alone the only politician in America, who even knew what I was talking about, let alone shared that world view with me and identified as such.

Thank you for making “single payer healthcare” a kitchen table topic that doesn’t instantly get laughed out of the room.

Thank you for being a true social change activist, and a successful one, dedicating your entire life to effecting social change and trying to bring America to economic and ethical health.

Times may—hell, they do—seem very, very dark right now. It may seem like we will never get to the America you and I, and so many, many others (I know now that there are many of us, thanks to you and our movement), want and understand that we desperately need to get to for the aforementioned economic and ethical health of our country. But you know the old truism: it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Bernie, you have started something that no one can now stop. You have inspired people and gotten people to think, you’ve put ideas out there and sparked people’s imaginations. No one can undo that. And now we go on. Not me, us. From the deepest, most idealistic, imaginative and hopeful depths of my heart and soul, I thank you, Bernie.