Bernie Sanders' rise shows voters want someone with courage, principles and the right priorities

We’re living through unprecedentedly dangerous and discouraging times in America. While more than 43% can’t cover basic living expenses, the 400 wealthiest have more money than the bottom 204 million combined. Extreme weather events are becoming the norm. The nation's public schools, once considered the equalizer between rich and poor, black and white, are seeing re-segregation thanks to under-funding and an education secretary hostile to public education.

The Statue of Liberty’s raised arm welcoming the world’s poor and freedom-seeking with a torch might as well be replaced by a fist. And we've been taken to the brink of war with Iran.

Against that distressing backdrop, I was buoyed to be standing on a platform in a Des Moines Marriott ballroom on New Year’s Eve watching 1,300 Iowans go giddy with excitement when a 78-year-old speaker took the stage.

“This will be one of the most momentous and pivotal years in our country,” exhorted Bernie Sanders to the college students and teachers, retirees, professionals and laborers of all hues. “In which we end corruption and greed in Washington and begin to build a government on principles of love and compassion.”

Love isn’t a word you hear often on the presidential campaign trail, especially since Marianne Williamson and Cory Booker dropped out. It’s not a word you’d associate with the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, who isn’t given to sentimentality. You expect plain talk about unfair systems, whether he’s telling you that “Women do not need 80 cents on the dollar. They need the whole damn dollar,” or that the pharmaceutical industry is ripping people off. And you expect authenticity.

This time you got all three.

Sanders has been thinking and talking about these issues for a long time. This time they're getting him real notice. Multiple polls now show him leading in Iowa. A new Emerson College poll has him as the only Democrat who would beat Donald Trump in a general election. He has repeatedly shown he won’t be bought by the corporate money he critiques. A recent fundraising letter asked for contributions of $2 and change.

“This will be the year in which we don’t just defeat Trump but begin to transform this country!” Sanders bellowed, describing an America where every worker earns a living wage, and everyone is guaranteed a debt-free education and health coverage, through Medicare. No one spends more than $200 a year for medicines and federal spending is redirected from weapons and mass incarceration toward education and jobs. This America will fight climate change by transforming  to 100% renewable energy. Oh, and it will allow pot to be sold legally in every state.

That combination of what some call "grumpy old man" and hippie dreamer, scholar and "one of us" is part of Sanders' appeal. Significantly, it also appeals to some in Trump’s base, as 2016 surveys showed. Like Trump, Sanders speaks to the struggles and frustrations of those feeling left behind in this economy. The difference is in where he puts the blame — on corporate greed rather than on America’s growing diversity.

Not surprisingly, Trump packed his Cabinet with millionaires; 10 members are collectively worth $2 billion.

There's some suggestion Sanders might have beaten Trump if he'd won the nomination. He came within a hair of winning Iowa. A number of his supporters were said to have voted for Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, which is hard to fathom, except that part of it was out of anger at the Democratic National Committee for skewing debate schedules and more in Clinton's favor.

Hopefully this time the party will let the momentum go where it goes.  

The enthusiasm on New Year's Eve reminded me of Barack Obama’s reception speaking at Hy-Vee Hall during his first run in late 2007. There were 18,000 people there, but many, including me, had gone primarily to see Oprah Winfrey. I’d already engaged with Obama in editorial board meetings without feeling the spark.

But that day was electric.

“Momentum is a hard thing to quantify,” I wrote afterward. “It almost has to be understood viscerally. …  he (Obama) had them mesmerized. Some cheered and waved signs in the air. Some hugged one another, and some even got teary. It was as if no one could quite believe this youthful but commanding man, who spoke their language and echoed their dreams, might actually run America.”

SANDERS:Create a government that represents the working class

REGISTER EDITORIAL BOARD: Elizabeth Warren for president

Sanders is 78 and recently suffered a heart attack. Some fear he's too old to be president. While it's a reasonable concern, he seems to have rebounded with even more vigor and even empathy. Some Democrats write him off as being too left. Americans tend to shudder at any mention of “socialism,” which just underscores the extent of corporate control dominating our collective mindset. When 40 million are going hungry, we make socialism the boogeyman! And it’s unlikely we’ll see U.S. corporations nationalized any time soon.

Meanwhile, France, long associated with pleasure and good food, manages to also provide high-quality, universal health care to all its residents. Health expenditures are about 11% of its GDP. Compare that with 17% in the United States. We could dip into our military budget.

Elizabeth Warren, whom I also admire, favors universal health care, and shares other Sanders priorities. But Sanders' foreign policy principles also set him apart from most of the candidates. While they begin the conversation with America's security, Sanders wants the same for all countries. He's guided by global human rights, diplomacy and concern for the planet. In    the recent CNN/Des Moines Register debate, only he and Tom Steyer said they would not sign onto a trade treaty that doesn't commit to lowering fossil fuel emissions.

He also recognizes a Palestinian right to a homeland, and has spoken out against Trump for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying it undermines prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. He calls for an end to Israeli human rights abuses. 

Other candidates of both parties hold up America’s friendship with Israel as sacrosanct, regardless of what it may be doing. But there is a growing movement, supported by the group Jewish Voice for Peace, to condition U.S. aid to Israel on its recognition of Palestinian human rights. 

If real courage is measured by being there before something is politically popular, and being guided not by counting the votes but by principle, Sanders has it on so many issues. He has what it takes to defeat Trump and make America work for all of its residents.

TO READERS: An earlier version of this column omitted Tom Steyer as a candidate who said at a debate in Des Moines that he would not approve a trade treaty that doesn't commit to lowering fossil fuel emissions.