I Feel the Bern!

There's No Right Side to Wrong

I often wonder why I subject myself to This Week on ABC. It’s become a ritual in masochism — an hour of corporate blather dressed up as journalism, a parade of right-wing venomous gaslit nonsense casually aired without the slightest pushback from the newly promoted Jonathan Karl. He wears the suit of a moderator but serves as a feckless traffic cop letting propaganda blow through red lights. I imagine the producers up top, cowering under the looming spectre of Trump and Musk’s digital shock troops, terrified of offending their sponsors — a fear that mutes their moral compass.

Then there’s ICE’s acting head of Immigration, Tom Homan. If central casting needed a goon for a Coen Brothers flick — maybe the one who drags you out to the woodshed behind a diner and takes your teeth out while you’re screaming innocence — this is the guy. He shows up like a bullet through the plate glass and somehow still gets treated like a voice of authority. It’s bleak theatre.

So why do I stay tuned?

Yesterday, I waited for Bernie Sanders. Eighty-three years old and still standing for what matters — against corporate tyranny, the oligarchs, and the charade of democracy in decline. Bernie didn’t come to banter. He let Karl swing the usual softball-cross-examinations, all masked as “tough but fair” journalism. But Bernie didn’t flinch. He stayed on message — the same righteous drumbeat we’ve heard a thousand times, and that’s the point. Truth doesn’t require reinvention. And when Karl reached for one more pointless gotcha, Bernie cut the mic with plain honesty: “Look, I’m tired. I’m 83.”

That landed like thunder.

Because I get it. I'm climbing those years too. And watching Bernie haul it across the country alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — rallying rooms packed with the young and the restless — is nothing short of heroic. Just walking those steps to the stage takes more energy than most of us wake with. But Bernie keeps at it. Not because it’s easy, but because the alternative is surrender.

It makes me think of 1969, Fort Knox, basic training. Cold as death. We're ducking ditch to ditch, M-1s in hand, slipping through mud and ice in a mock pursuit of the invisible enemy. Then it’s classroom time — indoctrination hour. The instructor launches into the usual "us vs. them" drivel. I raised my hand. "Why are we in Vietnam?" He froze. Then spat the line: “To stop communism from coming here and taking our land.”

I followed up: “Isn’t ninety percent of the country farmers? How would they get here? By boat?”

Silence.

That night, I got summoned to the drill instructor’s quarters. Sergeant Fruehauf. I’ll never forget his name. He looked rattled. Said, “Don’t embarrass me again like that.” Then… softened. Said, “Please.” That moment — frozen in time. Then we talked. He admitted he didn’t understand the war either. Just following orders. Said, “I know you’re a hippy, and you’re against this war, but could you keep it to yourself?” I saw the man behind the uniform — not a patriot, not a zealot. Just a scared worker keeping his head down and protecting his future.

That’s what Bernie never did. Never laid down. Never kissed the boots of the powerful. While others cower or accommodate, he rises, again and again — sore joints, tired bones, gravel voice and all.

So, yeah, Bernie was tired yesterday.

So am I.

Every damn day.

But that’s no excuse to lie down and play dead. Not when there’s so much left to fight for.

There is no right side to wrong.