Bernie Comes to Texas

By Curtis Singleton

On Sunday a legitimate miracle occurred—8,000 people in Dallas and over 5,000 people in Houston showed up to hear Bernie Sanders speak.  You know, Bernie Sanders, the Socialist senator from Vermont?

And the rebel-red state of Texas, the state that brought us the Bush dynasty and teachers carrying firearms?!  In this humble reporters opinion, that’s about as astonishingly newsworthy as landing a man on the moon.  However, check the ticker tape that is google.  Search the name Bernie Sanders under news and see what you find.

You get dozens of articles about ‘just how black’ Sanders is or about how the NRA got him elected, but you have to look hard to find anything about the Miracle that happened in Texas on Sunday.  The articles you do find are either local Texas news or political blogs.  So, my question is, why aren’t major media outlets covering this unbelievable news?

When I arrived at the Sheraton in Dallas Sunday afternoon, I was oblivious as to what I’d find.  My cynical side suspected there would be a few dozen fringe folks there brandishing homemade signs and screaming ‘Alex Jones’ style conspiracy slogans.  Instead, I was met by a well organized and orderly sea of Texas diversity, slowly ebbing its way into the ballroom where Sanders would be speaking—eventually overflowing into the lobby, which too became full to the brim.

To pin what the typical attendee looked or acted like would be impossible.  There  were elderly, middle agers, and youth a plenty.  They were black, hispanic, white, and they were well dressed.  They were the 99%—the middle class that has been suffering the greatest in this country for the last two decades.  They were the people that Bernie Sanders is out there campaigning for.  It was no surprise to see such a huge turnout in Minneapolis, New Hampshire, or even the impressive numbers of Iowa.

Yet, when Sanders got over 13,000 in Phoenix, that really amazed me.  As I watched his speech live on Saturday night with my family I kept thinking, oh my god, is the rest of America watching this??  Are the major media outlets absolutely freaking out over this underdog tale coming true?  Was Hillary Clinton finally scared, and did the Koch Brothers maybe, kinda’, sort of think perhaps Sanders did have a point to his tirade against the 1% that are holding the economy, the media, and election process in this country hostage?

Despite the fact that 13,000 Americans showed their support to Mr. Sanders in Phoenix, all the major media could caterwaul about was the disruptions from earlier that day by ‘Black Lives Matter.’  I still thought perhaps it all was a glitch.  After all, outfits like Politico and Salon, along with a handful of local media did focus on the real numbers.  Then the miracle on Sunday occurred, and what has been since the Reconstruction era a heavily staunch Republican state—a state that witnessed the assassination of one of our greatest progressive luminaries—a state where Democrat is a dirty word, and very little reasonable political discussion is tolerated outside of choosing the more radically Christian Republican candidate or the more moderate, socially progressive Republican candidate, is allowed, suddenly, on Sunday that all faded away.  And what remained was the real face of Texas, and surprisingly, that face looks a lot like the faces across this dynamic nation of ours—faces that are ready for change—and not talking point, phony slogan type change.

Bernie Sanders change.

So, the cynical side of me is not at all surprised that political pundits on twitter and major news media prattle on the outskirts of the relevant news because the real news that Bernie Sanders is making is too big for them to handle—it’s just too big for them to write about.  The truth is, people like the Koch Brothers and other extremely powerful billionaires do pay a lot of salaries out there, and getting paid, is a lot more important to most professionals, than getting the truth out there.