Radical Coziness

I can't say the following thing with 100% surety, as I know there are many, many, many, many, many other people who, like me, love Bernie Sanders with every fiber of their being.  Yet I can say that it is *likely* there is no one, but his own family, who loves Bernie as much as I do.  I love what he stands for--both policy-wise and character-wise, what he has courageously fought for his entire life, how he's not afraid to stand alone, yet always reaching out a hand to bring others along.  I could go, and have often gone, on and on about Bernie, Bernie's platform, and why I love Bernie.  Suffice it to say here, though, for the purposes of this post, just to recap for anyone who has only known me for two seconds:  I love Bernie Sanders.  He is one of my handful of true heroes.

So it is funny that I, of all people, somehow missed this whole Bernie-mitten-meme viral phenomenon this week, yet I all but did.  I say "all but", because I kept hearing snippets, fragments, little laughs and smiles and references on the news, to Bernie and Bernie's mittens and some Bernie meme, and I kept thinking:  okay, what are they talking about?  I don't know why I didn't follow up earlier by checking into it, but I didn't.

Today, though, one of my friends had a photo of Bernie in homemade mittens as her profile photo, and it hit me:  oh, that's Bernie, apparently at the inauguration.  Apparently, to people who never lived in Vermont, it is hilarious that he would wear mittens to the inauguration.  But to Vermonters, it's like:  hey, they're WARM, okay?  What's the big?  They're warm, they're cozy, they're even cuddly, none of those are bad things.  You've heard of bringing sexy back, right?  Well, now Bernie's bringing cozy and cuddly back!

If you ask me, our country could use a healthy dose of cozy and cuddly right now--let's hear it for radical coziness!!!

What's bugging me is the projecting going on that, oh, he looks "grumpy".  During the 2016 and 2020 campaign seasons, anti-Bernie people kept trying to create the false narrative that he was always "angry"--which is totally not anything resembling what or who or how Bernie actually is or acts, and now it is "grumpy" because he actually was practicing good physical distancing in the midst of a pandemic.  I myself have been attacked--nothing short of that--for gently keeping six feet of physical distance from people who apparently didn't get the memo and/or didn't understand the memo, simple memo that it is, and/or are in denial about the truth of the memo, re:  we are in the middle of a lethal, highly airborne, global pandemic.  Keeping six feet of distance is the opposite of "grumpy":  it is LOVING.

So, let's review, Bernie is LOVING, and his mittens are cozy and cuddly.  I think those are three things that we need desperately right now and I hope, and have confidence, that Joe Biden will work with Bernie to weave a lot of love, coziness and cuddliness into the fabric of all the policies of the Biden administration!  So long live Bernie and his inaugural fashion and seating choices, and this photo/meme!

We need a little Bernie, right this very minute...