#BerniesShot

An open letter on your “narrow path” and the announcement you could make to reignite your revolution and flip the election.

I’ve hidden the names of 14 multi-word Hamilton songs in this article. The first person to comment with all of them can pick one for me to attempt to perform, and I’ll respond with a video 👨‍🎤🎹🎶🤔💩❓😬

Dear Bernie,

As the feverish terror of the Great Depression engulfed our country, FDR offered the most famous admonition in presidential history: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Today, the economic depression baring its fangs is just one head of the COVID-19 hydra. This time, fever strikes individually while our collective isolation constrains any hysteria to our homes.

It seems like FDR was right to be confident given historians across the political spectrum ranked his presidency ahead of Washington’s and second only to Lincoln’s. I’m also a pretty big Franklin fanboy.

Roosevelt’s defiance of fear was neither a denial of the exigency of the threats we’d encounter nor a suggestion that recklessness serve as a response. Rather, it is a reminder that we are a nation that will always rise to the occasion — that to submit to fearmongering would be an insult to revolutionaries who defied a monarch and the slaves who fought for freedom. Tragically, a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is a choice between the cocked revolver of ignorance and the paralytic poison of complacency.

Bernie, you say you have a “narrow path.” So do we. The fate of your campaign is intertwined with that of your country, and the fork in the road that leads to our narrow path is quickly approaching. If your campaign does not change direction, you will miss it, and so will we.

A few days after speaking at your coronavirus roundtable, on the 52nd anniversary of MLK’s assassination, Reverend Barber diagnosed our nation’s imminent “spiritual death.” The man you called the “heir to the vision of Dr. King” was unambiguous about what we need to do to stay alive:

I find Reverend Barber’s voice so comforting and reassuring, I’ve started replaying his sermons while falling asleep. Results have been mixed; I get startled when he starts talking about plutocrats and yells “SIN!” 😴...🤑👑 👿=>😱

“We cannot delay. We cannot succumb to those forces that say we must put off the larger systemic concerns until this public health crisis has passed.” — Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II

Even before Trump’s COVID-19 response assured thousands of unnecessary deaths, you regularly called him the “most dangerous president in American history.” Therefore, the remainder of this letter will take a break our overtly racist president, and instead address the 2020 incarnation of the “white moderate,” whose willingness to defer justice to a “more convenient season” would make him perhaps an even graver threat in the eyes of Dr. King.

Unemployment claims per U.S. Department of Labor.

Amid a pandemic and an unprecedented spike in unemployment claims that dwarfs 2008’s by an order of magnitude, Joe Biden says he would veto your Medicare for All bill that would ensure we are treated even if we lose our job. He says he’d “want to know, how did they find $35 trillion?”

Biden may not be a genius, but even he understands that we don’t need to “find” $35 trillion when we already pay twice as much as Europe for inferior healthcare. Joe is conning everyday Americans into subsidizing industry profits by warning them of a potential tax increase without explaining they’d save an average of $3,000 each year.

Even before the coronavirus, more Americans had been killed by healthcare lobbyists like Biden’s right-hand man than by every war in U.S. history combined. As a champion of universal healthcare since 1987, how can Joe be your “friend” while he funds his campaign by bartering with the lives of millions of Americans facing a deadly virus without the jobs that gave them health insurance?

Even the Americans who survive COVID-19 will face the existential threat of climate change. You support the Green New Deal, which invests $16.3 trillion to transform our country’s energy supply and strengthen our economy. Joe’s plan would barely invest 10% of that over the same period. As someone who understands the magnitude of climate change, how can Joe be your “friend” while his investment in our planet is a rounding error compared to what we need to avert global catastrophe?

Given Biden’s promise to fundamentally change nothing, his position on the Trump-to-Bernie spectrum likely approximates many of his other policies as well.

Despite being relentlessly smeared by the media with almost no one in Washington on your side, you still have a chance. You have votes from millions of Americans across the country. You have millions more waiting to join them in upcoming primaries. The coronavirus hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of your supporters; we are more eager than ever to fight for a leader we can believe in— for you to don the mantle of your movement one last time.

The fact that Hillary is more likely to be the nominee than Sanders (as of 4/6) even when she doesn’t run explains a lot about what happened in 2016.

You have a brilliant staff who doubtless understand your path better than anyone. You have 914 delegates to Biden’s 1217, which means he still needs 46% of the remaining delegates to secure a majority. According to RealClearPolitics’ Betting Odds, that is far from impossible; Biden’s chance at the nomination dropped almost 10% last week and is hovering just over 80%. Yet as of today, somehow your own odds at the nomination trail those of Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo… what’d I miss?

Since the DNC can technically nominate anyone, Clinton and Cuomo are presumably hypothetical stand-ins for Biden in the event he is unable to serve, which self-interested observers appear to find increasingly likely. But as an actual primary opponent whose virtual rallies have offered real solutions and strong leadership, why aren’t you his closest rival?

Every time you say you’re “assessing” your campaign, people wonder why if Bernie doesn’t even believe he can win, why should they? In fact, any suggestion that you’re running for any other reason than to win is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No ones knows if you will win. What I do know is that you can win. History has its eyes on you, and unlike today’s pundits, it won’t fault you for trying spare us a vote for Scylla over Charybdis. Whether or not Joe is your friend, he is neither a friend to the millions who have died as a result of the broken healthcare system he perpetuates nor the planet those who remain will depend on.

Joe “Scylla” Biden (left) and Donald “Charybdis” Trump. Also, another narrow path.

It hurt to watch your attempts to make those distinctions come so close to succeeding, only to be thwarted by an establishment desperate to preserve the status quo. They may not believe you’ll be back, but we do. This was never going to be an easy fight. Dr. King himself warned us that “the arc of the moral universe is long.” But when does it bend toward justice?

“It depends on us, on the choices we make, particularly at certain inflection points in history; particularly when big changes are happening and everything seems up for grabs.” — Barack Obama, 2016

Even backed into an electoral corner, Bernie refuses to question Joe’s cognitive fitness despite multiple prompts and clips of other Democrats doing so👼🏻😮

Your campaign, and our country, is at one of those inflection points. Big changes are happening. Everything does seem up for grabs. It’s time for the good guys to stand up and take it for once. I admire your benevolence more than you’ll ever know, but the path America is on is about to lead us off a cliff. I know you’ve been searching for the perfect moment to jump in and save us without any risk of hurting Joe, but there’s no more time to wait for it— the only moment left is right now. So what comes next?

Hold a virtual press conference for a major campaign update. Mainstream outlets anxiously awaiting your concession will vie to attend. Tell them this.