Well, we can see now how that went. Like many millennial or apocalyptic visions, it lacked the element of the hard – incredibly hard – work of forging peace among people and nations far more attuned to their own needs and prerogatives than those of the world. Flowers stuck into menacing gun barrels are a lovely, touching image, as are crowds reaching skyward or sitting in circles chanting, but they rarely translate into legislative or executive action.

However...however. In the current situation of the United States – assaulted by a tricky, deadly, and persistent pandemic virus; exhausted by increasingly nonsensical blather from above; seething with competing interpretations of and solutions to our problems; threatened by foreign economic and political powers that appear to have overtaken us; flat on our backs from unemployment and sudden unexpected poverty; newly unable to get access to health care; I could go on, as could you. But in all of this there may be, as Lee observes to Longstreet in Gettysburg – there may be an opportunity here. Lee, with a little help from the Union Army, blew it in 1863. In 2020, we may not be able to afford to.

A group of us senior citizens who routinely gather, during more nearly normal times, at the tables in front of the coffee shop on State Street met instead this morning on benches and folding chairs beside the currently dry fountain by the Vermont College of Fine Arts. It was a perfect morning to be out enjoying each other and the balmy temperatures. I forget just how – perhaps it was a provocative question that triggered it – but one of us who’d obviously thought about it, exploded (I’ve cleaned it up a bit), “How is it that the greatest, richest, most powerful nation on earth can go flat broke in the period of one pay check?”

He had a point. The United States, though its poverty levels and food insecurity often have been cited as worrying, has appeared to be humming along in good shape. The rising stock market has obscured the situations of millions of Americans skating on economic thin ice. It’s probably unproductive to try to blame anyone or anything for sustaining this illusion; but when we hit some serious bumps, the wheels quickly fell off our fragile vehicle. Car payments, college loan payments, rent, groceries, utilities, health care insurance – items beneath the concerns of the wealthy – were within a week or two beyond the resources of the bulk of our population whose physical and economic activity keep us afloat.

Now, if I were a Bernie-or-Bust American, I wouldn’t be burning up the Internet with anger and threats about my vote in the coming election. I’d instead be meeting with like-minded voters in my precinct, planning for the coming few months, and keeping my powder dry. For in the crippling effects of the virus and the exposure of the structural weaknesses of our current system lies great opportunity. If conspiracy theorists want a bogeyman to rail about, Senator Sanders offers a substantive target for a change.

It’s as if he knew all this was going to happen. It’s possible that only about half the millions of lost jobs will still exist if the economy eventually recovers its feet. It’s certain that hundreds of thousands of workers previously covered by their employer’s health insurance will be left uncovered. It’s likely that some data-based reforms will be adopted in our overburdened prison system. If ever there was a chance, a respite, to radically rethink and reset our political and economic culture, this is probably it. As Patrice Cullers, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter puts it, “At the local, state, and national level, this is a moment when we can collectively transform how our country relates to the most vulnerable.”

No doubt such negotiations are already afoot behind the scenes, and the results will be seen at the Democratic convention – if there is one. The sides in the coming election are pretty well set. Unless the right pulls a rabbit out of a hat, they’re stuck with a candidate who appears to have no idea how to unite and focus the country. The left seem to think this is an election for Student Council: all bland smiles and nothing new. It’s critical that Bernie’s delegates and arguments be incorporated into the campaign of what used to be the party of the working class, and that the choice of its vice-presidential candidate betray a willingness to embrace genuine change. It’s time for a harmonic convergence within the party that will articulate rational measures to lead us out of our current anomie and confusion. We must remember that if we’re not crazy enough to believe we can change the world, we never will.