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Late night Bernie campaign memory (pardon the thread):
Early in the campaign I started getting the inevitable political survey calls you get during campaign season. Of course no one under 50 does these things so I decided to give Bernie some love and representation on it.
Early in the campaign I started getting the inevitable political survey calls you get during campaign season. Of course no one under 50 does these things so I decided to give Bernie some love and representation on it.
A couple of questions in I started getting a bit frustrated because the surveyor required me to describe myself as either liberal, moderate or conservative. When I answered socialist he had to put me in the liberal category because that's all the survey parameters provided.
Then I started getting questions about how favorably I viewed the candidates. This was back when everyone under the sun was running, so I went through the whole rogues gallery of characters, pretending I could tell either of the guys from Colorado apart.
We get to Bernie and I get some follow up questions because I rated him as my most favored candidate. I answer like 3 or 4 open-ended questions where I get to explain in detail why he was my most favorable choice. Then we get to old bug eyes himself: Tom Steyer.
I rate Steyer as unfavorable and get some follow up questions and then more...and then even more. It quickly becomes apparent that this is a Tom Steyer push poll. So I stop the question and I ask point blank, was this survey paid for by Tom Steyer?
The surveyor then delivers a half-hearted, scripted, "have to say this to save my job" spiel about how they are a third party who does not reveal its clients but those clients could potentially be candidates. The guy practically winks at me through the phone.
I've worked in call centers so I know what's up. He's just there to earn a living and he's towing the company line so I don't antagonize. He's also typing everything I say, he's not rushing the call, and they want my real answers. So I just start roasting Tom Steyer.
I do my best to stay calm and make sure the guy on the other line knows none of this is about him. But I go hard on Steyer. I say I think he's at best a stalking horse and at worse an oligarch trying to buy our democracy. I say his ads are brain pollution including this survey.
I attack the very heart of his campaign message: that Trump is a bad billionaire and the solution is a good billionaire. I say I don't want a billionaire president. In fact I don't want billionaires to exist. How does a silicon valley investor know anything about poor people?
Now here's why I'm telling this story. At some point in this screed I realize I'm not JUST an asshole on the phone. At some point I can hear that I'm now on speaker and there are multiple people on the other end howling with laughter. AT me? I keep going. No. WITH me.
It hit me that their job was so dull that just by being straight forward about what an absurd phony their client was, I entertained them for a bit AND they got paid to listen to me. My quiet rage turned to joy. I finished up and laughed, happy I could bring them some levity.
Now thinking back though I'm angry again. Steyer was a joke to most of America, but in SC he helped hand the primary to Joe Biden. People who don't live here didn't get it. He almost won 15% of the vote and the data showed 2/3 of that would have likely gone to Bernie.
Without Steyer, Bernie may not have won SC but he'd have come in a much closer second to Biden. Steyer had this fun dancing w/ Juvenile and I had mine with his bullshit survey. All his staff & consultants were in it for the money. He left SC & we haven't heard from him since.
Now we have a mass eviction crisis, a looming economic crisis, hundreds of thousands dead, and no mandate to change a damn thing. Where's Bernie? Fighting like hell to put money in people's pockets. Where's Steyer? Tucked away in some palatial estate trying on new goofy belts.
So when the inevitable moment comes for Steyer, if I'm still alive myself, I'm going to drive to California, find whatever ridiculous eco-friendly ziggurat he and his other-worldly treasures are buried in, and I'm going to down a nice bottle of whiskey and piss on his grave.
