Is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) inevitable? Not exactly. I do see him continuing to rise. But if he pulls in up to 30,000 in Oregon and Los Angeles during the long hot summer and wows them at the Iowa State Fair, it does not mean he will go all the way to the White House. It does however, mean that the world, our world, is changing fast.
The race to 2016 is certainly led by two mavericks, Sanders and the eternal egotist Donald Trump. This is the way the world begins again. Say goodbye to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Say goodbye to Jeb, George and family. The Eastern Establishment today, pressing them forward beyond their times, recalls the record industry in the early Sixties pushing Perry Como and Andy Williams when the Beatles had landed.
{mosads}Bernie and The Donald are icons of new beginnings going smash-mouth against the tradition. Bill Maher correctly says that Trump is the anti-Romney; that he brushes things off. Former Republican nominee Mitt Romney might be seen as the more authentic standard of a conservative tradition, while the Clintons and Bushes are merely nostálgicos; agents of past irrelevant to the present and future, who won’t let go.
But with Trump, conservatives today might be seen as transcending the “authentic standard” of Romney’s balance for a new beginning. The same should be said for Sanders and the Democrats: Picture the historic cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in which the old Beatles are pictured as Madame Tussauds wax dummies at their own funeral at the bottom, and the new Beatles rising in colorful creation for a new dance of awakening above.
The Democrats might visualize their own Madame Tussauds wax figures today as Bill and Hillary, the Republicans with the three Bushes. But surely a great awakening is ahead for liberals and conservatives both, as it was back then for America, and Sanders and Trump are avatars of the rising awakenings.
But it does not mean that Sanders and Trump will go to the finish line and although their rise will continue — Sanders should pull crowds of up to 100,000 by Thanksgiving — their roles in time may be seen as inspiring new political and cultural collectivities: Conservatism is entering a creative metamorphosis. It is impossible to see who will rise with it as it hasn’t been created yet. But it is not that difficult to see who the rising agent will be in the lineup of 17 or so who want to be president. In my opinion, next to Trump, no one in that lineup can compete with Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She is the anti-politician who follows in Trump’s wake once the comet passes.
Similarly, Democrats face a great awakening ahead as the old water carriers are sent off to the wax museum of time past and forgotten. Sanders leads the way. But there is something missing from this picture. Where is the Democrats’ own Fiorina? That surely is Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She is now and has been, since the first time she appeared in the public limelight, the new and sparkling visionary, bristling with animation, who will bring liberals forward.
Trump and Fiorina bring forth a kind of yin and yang from which, in the Tao tradition, the 10,000 things that are brought forth can make the world again. Sanders by himself is not enough. He needs Warren.
History at this moment, after eight years of a very popular and able president — thankfully a normal person, a gifted person and one to fulfill a specific destiny in America’s unique racial history — would tend to favor Republicans. Democrats need more than Sanders. They need to build a new political culture post-Obama, post-Clinton, post-Kennedy. Warren, with Sanders, would be the creative basis for that new beginning.
Consider the fall, then the spring with a new Democratic lineup starring Sanders, Warren, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. It forms a fully created quaternity in which the world, as we know it in this new millennium, can begin again for the Democrats.
Conservatives, thanks to The Donald, have already left the Bush nostálgicos behind. They are ahead of the Democrats in this. The Democrats, as quickly as possible, need to put the past behind them and that past, fraught with discord, malfeasance and corruption, is the Clintons. Then start again with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Warren is the key. For the Democrats’ future, she is the key to everything.
Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.