Tony Brasunas

Friends, the peaceful revolution has arrived. Your participation is officially welcome. Whether you’ve been a yuge supporter of Bernie for months, been on the sidelines, or whether you’ve been supporting another candidate — today is probably the day you’ve been waiting for to jump on board and lend support to this revolution for a better country.

The stunning landslide in Nevada yesterday proves many of the greatest goals of the Bernie Sanders movement are not only achievable but are already happening:

• This movement now has received the most votes in all states who have voted, including predominantly white New Hampshire and diverse Nevada.
• In a race with seven major candidates, Bernie won an outright majority of the Latino vote in Nevada, with particular strength in union-heavy working-class areas of Las Vegas. This indicates that, yes, a multi-racial, multi-generational alliance of working class voters is uniting to support progressive healthcare, debt relief, and increased wages for workers across this country. There is no greater repudiation of Trump’s faux divisive populism than this unity campaign.
• Exit polls showed that a consistent 60+% of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada support Medicare For All. This support confirms that this is a winning position.
• Sanders won fully 67% of young voters, an astounding number in a race with seven major candidates. This is the campaign of today, and of tomorrow.

The freaking-out on the part of hosts on MSNBC and other corporate media is yet another indication that this Nevada win was meaningful. The established corrupt order is under threat. The attacks on Sanders in mainstream media will only increase in number and intensity this week, perhaps hitting a fever pitch just before March 3.

There may also be more election rigging and voter suppression over the coming weeks and months, but another thing we saw yesterday in Nevada is that concerted vigilance and widespread presence of election integrity volunteers can protect caucus vote recording, at least as far as we know at this point. There were inconsistencies and flaws in the system used to record support from each precinct, but nothing anywhere near the scale of the rigged Iowa fiasco.

Bernie might win in South Carolina next week, too, but it doesn’t matter much. He now leads in the polls in the largest states (California, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Massachussetts) voting just four days later, on Super Tuesday, March 3. With just a little growth in this campaign between now and then — and landslide wins like this typically generate more than just a little growth — it’s likely the Bernie Sanders campaign will extend this lead in earned delegates significantly. If you become part of this growth, you‘ll ensure the worst attacks on Bernie and the most disastrous types of voter suppression are averted.

If you’ve been on the fence this year, confused by the variety of candidates, or hesitant to lend your support to what has for years seemed impossible — an honest politician at the national level attacking systemic corruption, institutional racism, climate change, and wealth inequality in a consistent way and winning elections — might I suggest this could be a time to reconsider?

If you’re supporting a different candidate, that’s fine too. If you’re a progressive or an independent or simply want a strong unity candidate, might I suggest it’s time to also support Bernie Sanders? It’s going to take all of us together to win in November.

If you are inspired, do something small today. An email to friends, a post or a share on social media, or even donating some money or volunteering a couple hours. This is the time to join this great moment in whatever way you’re able.

From my perspective, what’s amazing here in 2020 is that I get to support both the candidate with the best, most progressive record and the candidate who is clearly the most electable in the general election.

These are fascinating times, friends, times for hope and determination, times when hard work in support of idealism can truly bear fruit for ourselves and for this diverse country we share.