Politics intimidated me.
If I were at a social gathering and people started talking politics, I would move to the other side of the room before anyone realized I was gone.
"Political" people always seemed a bit unhinged to me. It seemed they were all obsessed with conspiracy theories and had the scoop on what was "really going on" our government wasn't telling us.
I agreed with most our politicians were corrupt either by birth or design. I assumed they entered politics for the right reasons, but there was something in the water that transformed them into insular, self-serving automatons.
I felt vapid, anxious, disconnected from the very democratic system I was always told belonged to all of us.
I had two small children I worried were going to inherit a steaming pile of waste for a planet and bureaucrats who ignored it.
Would I be able to afford sending them to college? I wondered.
Probably not.
Would Social Security still exist when I retired-if I retired?
Would the market bottom-out again, worse than before, leaving me with a mortgage I couldn't pay and no retirement savings?
If my wife, the kids, or I got sick or were involved in an accident, would the medical expense impoverish us?
Circa 2014, I started hearing this gravely-voiced, Brooklyn-accented senator from Vermont on a segment of the Thom Hartmann program called "Brunch with Bernie", a weekly call-in town hall, where ordinary people with ordinary problems called in to ask ordinary questions.
What immediately struck me was Bernie's ability to actually answer questions in ways people could understand. He had bold solutions that were actual solutions, not fantasy. He drew from a fount of professorial knowledge and experience people did not associate with garden-variety politicians.
Where was the circular, specious rhetoric?
Where was the non-answer?
I think several times I actually blurted out loud, "Who is this guy?"
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