Bernie Sanders' New Ad Will Make You Question What Sort of America You Want to Live in
One built on division, or one built on unity.
By Jack Holmes
Feb 11, 2016
Aside from the usual critiques—"It's too expensive! You can't get that through Congress!"—one of the more popular lines among the Bernie Sanders naysayers is that his rhetoric is too narrow. Is the scope of his message wide enough, they ask, to take him through an entire campaign in the way that "Hope and Change" did for Obama? With two brilliant, decisive pieces of political advertising in a row, his campaign has demonstrated that it's willing to draw a bigger picture, one that goes well beyond billionaires and healthcare.
This ad, titled "Together," is an appeal to a shared American experience and set of values that is completely removed from demographics and money. Like his previous spot, and his campaign more generally, it's banking on the idea that those shared values can create a movement that transcends racial, ethnic, religious, and even ideological lines to insist that government serve the masses. Whether that's a fantasy or not, and whether Sanders is the one to lead that movement, I suppose is up to all of us.
Poster Comment:
Billionaires and healthcare? Healthcare is important because of the aging baby boomers. Billionaires I could care less for. I'm just a peon ex-truck driver with some now minor health problems.