He will never be president. He will never be the hero the world needs but does not deserve. He will never pose dramatically on the barricades, never deliver the speech that propels the resistance to glorious victory from the wing of his f-15. We will never follow him to the gates of hell. Whatever "it" is, he does not have it.
It is 2017 and we are all struggling to breathe. We are all looking ahead, to the midterms, to 2020. We know we need to foster the talents of the rising stars, to lift up the people who will save us, who will right the ship of state in the nick of time, if it's not already too late. We put our love and our time and our energy into resistance, into the daily grind, into the campaigns of our future heroes.
He is no hero.
What he is, who he is, is smaller, and simpler. He is a man who cares about the intersection the pedestrians fear to cross, the sidewalks that are impassible to wheelchairs. He cares about public transit and bike lanes and lead pipes and innovative ways to pay for the mundane things a city needs to function. He cares about affordable housing and engaging the renter class in local politics, he cares about neighborhood beautification and neighborhood character and how systemic racism plays out in the local schools. He cares about the wild diversity of language and culture and religion and political thought in the crowded little postage stamp of the city limits. He cares about showing up.
He is unsuited for the revolution. He would collapse under the weight of a state or federal office, would falter in high stakes debates, would turn off voters in the vast swaths of Red America.
But he is perfectly right for the city council office for which he is running.
Will you be there when he needs you?
