There were lines snaking through the skyway into RiverCentre.
I parked several blocks away and walked to the eastern end of the center, next
to the Ordway on Rice Park. The queue at that end wound around the corner and
stretched west for about two blocks.
In classic Minnesota style, I thought about asking if this
was the Bernie line but didn’t. I just went to the end of the line and picked
up from the conversations that it was, in fact, the Bernie line. Breaking out
of my Minnesota habits, I spoke up when a girl behind me said she hoped Trump’s
candidacy was just a media stunt. I said that was probably “wishful thinking,”
although it did feel like a “terrible dream.”
The line lurched forward a few times, but, like the girl
said, we didn’t know if anyone was in charge or if they would tell us whether
the place was full and they had stopped letting people in. The girl was a
college girl studying singing at McNally Smith. I answered her questions about
how caucuses work, based solely on the Bernie campaign training session I’d
attended a month before.
We eventually filtered in through the doors and headed for The
Legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium. People were streaming in to the main floor or
climbing stairs to the balcony. A young woman in a lanyard and Bernie t-shirt
briefly shouted instructions for us, which was the extent of the crowd control
I saw. This was a very well-behaved Minnesota crowd though, so no draconian
tactics were called for.
I went to the main floor and found, luckily, a lot of room
to move around. There were tons of people sitting in the balcony. Somebody said
this was the overflow room, which was pretty impressive. I’m horrible at
guesstimating, but they said it was 5,000 in Roy Wilkins and 10,000 in the main
hall. I can buy that.
It was already 7:45 by then, but before the stroke of 8
Bernie showed up in the Roy unexpectedly. A rock concert-like scream rose up
from the mostly college-aged crowd, alerting us to his arrival. Keith Ellison
took the stage, followed by Bernie and his wife. “This is the overflow?” Bernie
asked incredulously to a roar of approval. He favored us with a few remarks
before moving on to the main hall.
The official program started with a five-minute speech from
a Somali-American college girl wearing a hijab. Then came a brief intro by
Keith Ellison before we got to the main course.
There was nothing incendiary in Bernie’s speech (unless you
belong to the Mainstream Media, or “MSM,” as I like to write). There was no
palpable anger in the crowd, aside from the occasional, emphatic exhortation
from a lone person punctuating some of Bernie’s more “radical” opinions. There
were many smiles on the faces of the people there and laughter originating
thence.
Yet still, as Bernie launched into his spiel, I had a sense
of foreboding, as if I were attending just another political rally, just
another group session of yearning for someone to save us from ourselves. I
couldn’t help but think: “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. This isn’t how
democracy works. We’re not supposed to wait for a savior to bring a preordained
platform down from Sinai for us to rubber-stamp. He’s just a politician; he’s
not an avatar of our hopes and dreams whose soaring oratory can lift us above
this mortal coil to an astral plane.”
It also kinda felt like a late-era Roman emperor promising
to keep the barbarian hordes at bay for a little while longer. We’ve listened
as the Republicans’ rhetoric has become monstrous in its ignorance, violence
and hatred. Perhaps we’re finally reaping the harvest grown from the seeds of
death and destruction we’ve sown around the world. How much longer can we hold
back the blood-dimmed tide?
My anxiety was eventually eased by Bernie’s repeated calls
for a mass movement to enact his platform. As he kept saying, millions of us
will have to “stand up” and “come together” to implement the social democratic
(not technically “socialist”) policies he’s proposed. The Washington Consensus,
funded by the wealthy and constantly reinforced by the MSM, considers these
ideas radical and even dangerous, and the Establishment will fight tooth and
nail to keep them off the table.
There was a big sign waving in front of the stage that had a
painting of Bernie with fire for hair. It was a fitting tribute to this man
whose hair often seems to be on fire. I'm sure that's central to his appeal in
these days of fear, anger and economic insecurity.
The crowd cheered and booed at the appropriate times,
although we sometimes cheered for lines that sounded like boo lines, which I
found a bit confusing. I clapped, “whoo”-ed and booed a fair amount; he was, after
all, saying things I agree with. He went on for about an hour and managed to
keep it pretty interesting without coming off like an “angry old man.”
After it was over, we exited to the strains of David Bowie’s
“Starman,” an apropos tribute to the recently deceased musician. It reinforced
my perception of this as a typical political rally, but I was too encouraged by
the happy college kids surrounding me and my fondness for the song to worry
anymore.
On the walk back to my car, I overheard a woman saying that she
felt an opportunity to really engage people that night had been lost. I had to
agree with her as 15,000 like-minded people returned to our daily routines. If
we want this night to mean anything, we’d better take Bernie’s message to heart
and stop treating politics like a spectator sport.
