Dear Patch,

Watching last night’s Democratic debate was like going to a dinner party you hoped was going to be better than it was. It’s not that the people there weren’t nice; it’s just that nobody said anything all that interesting.

I was in Fairfield, Iowa, talking to caucus voters about things that the moderators from the corporate media weren’t going to touch at the Democratic debate. No one at the debate was going to talk about how the corporate aristocracy in this country actually works, why we have so much more chronic illness than do our counterparts in other countries, the overwhelming challenges and vulnerabilities of millions of Americans children, or why we do so much more to prepare for war than to prepare for peace.

No, those things don’t belong on that TV reality show because the debates, like all reality shows, are not really reality. They’re theatre scripted by the political industrial complex, casting politicians in the role of show ponies, promising everything and delivering little but the same old tired conversations that everybody knows we’ve all heard before.

Meanwhile, our democracy is under assault. Trump is still president. Another school shooting robbed us of our children. And the same old same old politics won’t even begin to do the trick next year.

But hey, the show must go on.

Unless we the people stop it. We the people have the power in our hands, and it’s time to use it. It’s time to burst out of the box that exists for no other reason than to feed the campaign industrial complex. All the “We had to limit the field” nonsense had nothing to do with political necessity, and everything to do with the DNC’s intent to control the process. That is NOT democracy. 

It’s time to disenthrall ourselves of the idea that only those who the DNC have selected for the debate stage should be seen as viable candidates, and only the topics that the mainstream corporate media prescribe should be discussed as serious issues.

I am staying in this race to talk about things that strike at the root of what’s wrong in this country. I’m talking about ending an aberrational chapter of American history and creating the space for a new one. I’m talking about what it will take to initiate a season of repair. And I’m talking about them in a different kind of way. We need to do a whole lot more than convince people next year; we need to inspire them, or we will lose.

I feel deep affection for a few of the people on last night’s debate stage. The problem is not them. The problem is us. It’s time for us, the American people, to change the conversation from symptoms to root causes in a way that the political media establishment does not want us to do. 

But this is not a moment to simply do as we’re told. 

Something big is emerging in America today, much more powerful than the sterile political conversation that is sanctioned by the DNC. The way to defeat a new and never-before-seen force in American politics is to create our own new and never-before-seen force in American politics. It will take nothing less than that to win next year. 

The 2020 election is going to be bold and dramatic. And so am I. 

Marianne

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