“Every few generations, there comes a leader who bends the arc of history. Historians will write that about Bernie Sanders.”
— Ro Khanna
Yesterday I happened to catch a brief clip of Ro Khanna speaking in California, introducing Bernie Sanders. Khanna spoke about a “new progressive era” in the United States and explicitly named Bernie Sanders as someone who was essential for that vision to be realized because of the inspiration and leadership he has provided for tens of millions of us over the last ten years. Sanders is currently traveling throughout California building support for a billionaires wealth tax.
It was good to be reminded of Sanders’ decades of leadership as we collectively move into the closing sprint toward November 3. As difficult as these last 20 months have been under Trump’s attempts to erase our progressive legacy and to turn the clock backwards many decades, history may end up reporting that their attempts to destroy US democracy in service of the billionaires provided the impetus for the coming together of a mass progressive political force that played a critical role in saving and changing our deeply wounded human societies and ecosystems, “saving the world.” That is a distinct possibility.
Here is what I wrote about Bernie in May of 2015, having worked with him for many years before in the difficult task of building an independent and progressive political movement in the USA: “Bernie has been a consistent voice for low-income people, working-class people, the middle class and our threatened ecosystem. Earlier this year he co-sponsored with Senator Barbara Boxer a major piece of climate legislation, a ‘fee-and-dividend’ bill described as a ‘gold standard’ type of bill by The Nation magazine.
“In comments made by Boxer at the press conference announcing the introduction of this bill, she referred to Bernie as a straight shooter, someone who didn’t play political games. I remember thinking at the time that for Boxer, immersed as she has been for so long at the highest levels of a pretty corrupt two-party system, that was high praise indeed. It was as if Bernie had been an inspiration to her.
“This strength of Sanders as an outspoken champion of the oppressed and beaten down, at the same time that he has shown his ability to navigate and have some impact even on Capitol Hill without being corrupted, is an additional reason why he really is the progressive left’s best option for 2016.”
In 2015 Bernie was appearing on television calling for someone with progressive politics to step forward to run for President. Eventually, he came to the decision that he was up for the task. After public consideration, and requesting input, on the question of if he should run as an Independent, something he had always done in his Vermont campaigns for elected office, or in Democratic primaries, he decided on the latter route, and he came close to winning against Hillary Clinton. Instead, she lost in November, 2016 and Trump won.
Bernie and others of us refused to give up, continued to fight on issue after issue. He also formed an organization, Our Revolution, to continue to work on major issues, and he consistently called for and supported other progressives running for much more local, or state, offices. Among others, AOC began her political career soon after.
At the age of 85, Sanders has played a huge role in helping us get to where we are right now in October of 2026, in a good position to defeat Trump and the MAGA’s on November 3. If and when that happens, if and when we keep at it up until then, until we “run through the tape,” we can appreciate that the progressive movement stood strong during this time of testing. And we can just keep going, building upon our victories, literally giving hope to people all over the world. A new progressive era: that is a very clear and reachable goal, not far-off into the future but much sooner than many of us have thought possible during these two years of serious testing.