In troubled times such as these, the mind searches for a salve.
Perhaps the existence of a Bernie Sanders musical will help. It's called "Feel the Bern — A Musical Of the People, By the People, and For the People," by Meira Marom, and it made its one-time only debut in Burlington, Vermont over the holidays.
There was a decided holiday theme to some of the numbers, like "Santa Bernie."
Santa Bernie,
Please slip some healthcare under the tree, for me...
Been a pauper all year;
Santa Bernie, so hurry to the White House right now!
We weren't there, but a Village Voice writer reported that two characters put up a banner as a backdrop, reading: "Joyous NotMeUs."
Might catch on with Christmas card makers.
The setting is a post-apocalyptic landscape in the year 2032. Just around the corner. The east coast is gone, or rather Cleveland is the new east coast. Christmas is no more and has been replaced by the holiday "NotMeUs." Sanders is a Santa-like figure.
From the Voice:
The musical seems to suggest the world we might have had today, if only things hadn't gone so wrong. It's a world where posterity does, in fact, thank us for the things we've done. A world where single-payer healthcare is common sense. Where windmills and turbines and big solar panels are lawn decorations. It's also a world that looks an awful lot like Burlington, Vermont.
Marom, an after-school program teacher, started out as a Bernie poet, before graduating to the musical form.
Read more about her and her whimsical, wishful musical creation here.