I was disheartened by the news of Bernie’s campaign resignation yesterday. I understand he had virtually no chance to win the Democratic nomination, and that strategically it makes sense to suspend the campaign to solidify support behind Biden to better take on Trump in November.

But I also find it cruelly ironic that he was the one who continuously advocated for healthcare equity, and now Americans are suffering a healthcare catastrophe. And once the coronavirus crisis is over, the climate change crisis will start (it hasn’t ever stopped). Bernie was the one who emphatically called for action to fight climate change. I hope there will be no irony there.

9/11 might be the most historically significant day of my lifetime. But this coronavirus pandemic, and the climate change crisis, will be the 2 most important “events" over the course of my life—hopefully. I say “hopefully" because these 2 crises are already more than we can handle right now. I believe we can overcome them, and I hope in doing so no other crisis will come close to the same level of severity. Bernie understood the importance of these problems.

Do I believe Bernie got screwed by the DNC? Yes I do. Biden’s 3 main competitors—Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Steyer—dropped out immediately before Super Tuesday and endorsed him, while Bernie's main competitor, Elizabeth Warren, who had performed the most poorly (against expectations) of all 4 dropouts, stayed in the race. You think this was coincidence? It’s also pretty amazing the DNC did the same thing as in 2016—how well did that work out?

But at the end of the day, Bernie didn’t get enough votes. Despite what happened with Super Tuesday, it was essentially a head-to-head showdown between Bernie and Biden, and Biden came out well on top. Not enough people voted for Bernie for him to win the nomination, it’s as simple as that.

Politics is tricky. It seems now in our society we think we can vote for a person, they’ll do the work for us, and we’re done. In theory that sounds great. But the size and scope of our nation means that doesn’t happen in practice. This is a big, diverse country. People disagree about a lot of things, and that disagreement is spread across geography, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, age, and culture, among other things. If we want something to change, we need to be that change. We can’t rely on elected officials to magically solve our problems. We must change our attitudes and behaviors to solve them. It requires collective action.

Thank you Bernie, for what you brought center stage. Whether people agree with you or not, healthcare and climate change have taken their rightful place as issues we cannot ignore. You have inspired millions of Americans. Now it’s time for active citizenship, for us to change the world. What kind of world do we want?