About an hour after Saturday nightâs Bernie Sanders Debate Watch party kicked off in Brooklyn Heights, a woman named Daniela Gioseffi enlightened me about the Vermont senator: âDwight Eisenhower, a moderate republican, was more of a socialist than Bernie Sanders.â
We were chatting during an early commercial break when Gioseffi, a local Bernie evangelist, paraphrased a line Sanders first delivered in a May interview when he playfully compared himself to âradical socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower,â under whom the marginal tax rate was 92 percent.
He joked about the Republican president again when defending his lofty tax plans during last monthâs debate (âIâm no more socialist than Eisenhower.â)
Now Gioseffi tried it out rather earnestly, adding that the âmajor mediaâ have made âsocialismâ into a dirty word.
Gioseffiâwho mentioned on several different occasions that she had authored 16 books, including editing the American Book Award-winning anthology Women on Warâwas among some 15 people cheering on the self-identifying âDemocratic Socialistâ candidate in the back room of a Brooklyn sports bar.
Here, 61-year-old Robert Dannin, another local Sanders supporter, had organized one of many Bernie Debate Watch parties around the country.
âTo me, Bernie Sanders is the best opportunity for a peaceful revolution in this country since Martin Luther King Jr.,â Dannin told me. âHe doesnât look or talk like him, but the objectives are the same. Social and economic equality. You canât have one without the other.â
For Gioseffi, America was now nothing more than an âoligarchical corporatocracy,â and climate change a graver danger to humanity than ISIS. There was, she warned, âlittle time to save habitable earth.â
The Bernie fans assembled were a relatively tame crowd of academics and creative types ranging from age 23 to 75âGioseffi, at 75, being the oldest and least tame.
They drank wine and snacked on chips and guacamole; shook their heads when Hillary Clinton rambled on; giggled uncomfortably at former governor Martin OâMalleyâs repeated reminders that he, too, is running for the nomination.
Hearty laughs were reserved for Bernieâs charming gruffness (âMy name was invoked!â), and a round of guffaws for his âNo, I think they wonâtâ reply when asked if corporate America will like him as president.
They were relieved that Datagate was over and done with just minutes after the debate startedâa few minutes too long, frankly, given that they thought the debacle was clearly an attempt attempt by DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to sabotage Sanders.
âI have no evidence, but I wouldnât be surprised if this was all a dirty trick,â said Josie Dannin, Robertâs wife. âCome on, the day before the debate?â
Gioseffi called Schultz a âa stupid, ignorant womanâ and a âdestroyer of Democrats,â not just Sanders, because she only scheduled three debates. âSheâs doing a terrible thing for the truth!â
Nothing fires up Bernie fans quite like the truth. Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be a consummate politician and a preternatural liar, they say, but Bernie Sanders speaks the truth.
That was the refrain among young Sanders supporters I met at an early Bernie party in July, recited invariably along with his promises for âfreeâ everything. He doesnât spout bullshit! His policies havenât changed since the â70s! He has nothing to hide! Those who didnât know much, if anything, about his policies championed his authenticity with even greater gusto.
Indeed, many of these ardent Berners were voting for him solely because heâs unpolished and speaks his mind instead of pandering to the mainstream.
Donald Trumpâs unfiltered bluster was crucial to his early appeal as wellâand, terrifyingly enough, has become ever more appealing to those with a soft spot for fascists.
Most Bernie fans would never admit to the parallel between the two campaigns, though one young man in Brooklyn Heights bravely went there.
âThe policies that the establishment is supporting are not what the country wants, and you see that on both sides of the aisle,â said Ben Miller, 24, who works as a video editor for a health-care company. âThe establishment is supporting things that are causing problems for the country, like the banks that are too big to fail.â
The end of the debate was subsumed by the beginning of an internal one at the Bernie Party in Brooklyn.
Gioseffi was telling me again how the âmajor mediaâ were smearing Bernie for being a socialist, and Mark Weller, a fortysomething math teacher at a public high school in Manhattan, mounted a gentle counterpoint.
âI totally agree with his theories, but I think his political presentation could use some work. I think he should have spent more time differentiating himself from your average socialist. The major media may not want to listenââ
âThe major media isnât giving him any time,â Gioseffi interrupted. âThey have given him eight minutes compared to hours theyâve given Trump!â
Weller said: âWe disagree on something, is that OK?â
"Well, youâre blaming Bernie!â Gioseffi fired back. Nothing was OK. âThe major media does not cover Bernie. Thatâs a fact!â
Weller, reading glasses perched on his forehead, demurred: âI actually think that that the thrust of his message about economic inequality is clearly the most important issue of the day and the issue that distinguishes him from other Democrats.
âHowever, I think he could broaden and deepen his critique of inequality beyond just the big banks. Itâs the whole financial industry. Itâs the upper echelons of corporate America.â
Gioseffi was not to be soothed. âThe major media has deliberately censored him and wonât let him on. Because the major media is controlled by the corporations and the big banks and the fossil fuel industry!â
And so it went on, Gioseffi voluble in her opinion that Bernie Sanders was the best candidate that ever ran for president. It seemed a faith as dogged and resolute as Sanders himself.