IN A dismal primary season, the enthusiasm and moral purpose of Bernie Sanders’s clamorous supporters has been uplifting. Reflected in the vast crowds that have flocked to hear the crotchety senator from Vermont, and the vaster sums he has raised—over $210m so far, mostly in donations of less than $30—it suggests that America’s democracy remains vigorous. It is also a tribute to the clarity and justified outrage with which he has described problems from corrupt campaign financing to choking student debt. Yet all things have their measure, and the outpouring of Bernie-love offered up by a crowd of 20,000 Sandernistas, at an open-air rally in Oakland on May 30th, seemed mostly inane.
As Mr Sanders clambered onto a wooden stage, wearing his customary $99 suit, with a face burnt purple by the sun and broadly grinning, his adorers screamed and showered him with flowers. “Bern-ie! Bern-ie!” they chanted, yelling louder whenever the senator waved or chortled to acknowledge the adulation of which he, a septuagenarian social democrat, is such an unlikely object. Feeling the Bern has become for the most devoted Sandernistas an all-consuming pleasure;...Continue reading
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