Change Does Not Happen from the Top Down

The American presidential election is becoming exciting. The main election will take place at the end of this year, but it already has so much more energy than our general election, which is only two months away. While the weight of the general election and the presidential election are surely different, that country across the Pacific, filled with a completely different range of principles and ideologies, interests me more than this country where people are suddenly ranting against President Park.

After the Iowa caucus, the first stage for the American presidential election, the idea of majority support disappeared. Supposed “majority candidates” from both the Democratic and Republican parties would now feel embarrassed to call themselves as such. In the Democratic primaries, Hillary kept first place by a difference of only a few votes, but she has received the verdict of “technically defeated” in reality from the media. After the Republican Party’s Donald Trump handed over first place to a 40-something Cuban-American first-time senator who was way behind in the polls, he became the recipient of rational doubts about his popularity being a bubble.

“Rational” is a subjective expression. The reason for me making such a judgement as I see fit is based on the faith that a society where a person like Trump dominates is definitely not a rational society. A homeless person was holding a sign with the threat “Give me a dollar or I’m voting for Trump,” showing the extent of Trump’s irrational claims. A society where such a candidate receives over 25 percent of the support cannot be normal. (Trump won 24 percent support in Iowa, and in Europe, that is about the limit for candidates from popular ultra-right parties.)

While Trump has proven that America is a normal society (each region would be different, but I think it would be difficult for the overall support to be greater than the one in Iowa), Bernie Sanders piqued my interest more. He is an aging politician with no party affiliation who has been a lone advocate of socialism for 40 years in the United States, which is the headquarters of capitalism. And he is a Jew who unabashedly puts down “Judaism” in the religion section of his profile (he inherited the faith from his parents, but he is not a devout believer.)

So how can somebody like that serve four terms as the mayor of Burlington in Vermont, eight terms as the state representative for Vermont, and two terms as the senator from Vermont? And how did he manage to raise his rate of support from 1 percent nine months ago to nearly 50 percent, thus becoming a presidential candidate who is threatening Hillary? The U.S. is one of the few countries on Earth where socialism was not able to take root. I introduced the idea in one of my previous columns, but John Steinbeck explains it this way: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

But that explanation is no longer the truth. Currently in America, the only people who think of themselves as embarrassed millionaires are the wealthy minority in the top 2 to 5 percent (wealth is a relative concept). It might have been exaggerated a little, but like Sanders said, it is due to a system “where you have 99 percent of all new income today going to the top 1 percent.” That is why so many people who feel like they cannot become millionaires and are angry about economic inequality, where the wealth gets concentrated among a small minority, are going nuts over Sanders. Even The Washington Post, which criticized his claim that “too big to exist” Wall Street banks must be dismantled as being unrealistic, has now written, “It’s not because Sanders has caught up with the times as much as the times have caught up with Sanders.”

He was able to avoid being labeled a populist despite making such claims because of his principled politics, where words have matched actions for a long time. As an example, immediately after the decision to initiate the Iraq War in 1991, with no one listening to him but the speaker of the house, he stoutly made a speech in the middle of the night at the House, worrying about the calamity of war and demanding a peaceful resolution. He was captured on video, which has become a hit on YouTube and helped make Sanders who he is today (it is in contrast to Hillary, who was wavering between yay and nay). Old records that show his consistent principles are becoming known more and more through social media, prompting people to heed Sanders’ words. The irony is that the latest information technology has become the weapon for the oldest politician.

As the ballot count was reaching its end, Bernie asked the audience, “Here is a radical idea: We’re going to create an economy that works for working families, not just the billionaires!”

To achieve this goal, he believes the key is a political revolution that will change the old political system, which gets thrown left and right by those holding economic power. That is the reason why Sanders has refused massive Super PAC donations from interest groups such as corporations and labor unions, in contrast to Hillary, and only receives small donations from grassroots individuals. Eighty percent of Sanders’s donors contributed less than $200, and this 80 percent delivered to Sanders $20 million last month. The day after the caucus, he collected $3 million.

While they call Sanders a socialist, by European standards, he is much closer to being a moderate. Even looking at his political activities as a representative and senator, he matched the Democratic Party in nearly 95 percent of legislative votes. Being a citizen himself, he is simply a politician who represents regular citizens, especially the middle class. (The photo of him reading a report in the middle seat of an airplane’s economy cabin is popular on social media.)

He declares, “Change does not happen from the top down. Real change comes about when large numbers of ordinary Americans get involved in the democratic process.” Even if Sanders does not become the president of the U.S., his principles, which powerfully resonate in American society, will somehow find their way into American policies. Having such politicians makes me even more envious of the U.S.