Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People’s Politician

This ambitious if cumbersome account from poet Chiasson (The Math Campers) revisits Sen. Bernie Sanders’s early political career in Vermont. Sanders arrived in 1964, joining an influx of hippies and draft dodgers that shifted the political landscape of the Republican stronghold. Chiasson explores Sanders’s role in this scene as a “perennial candidate,” initially in long-shot campaigns for the Liberty Union party before his surprise 1981 win in the Burlington mayoral race. The book covers a massive amount of territory, including hot-button issues of Sanders’s mayorship (GE’s weapons manufacturing; Sanders’s controversial visit to Nicaragua); other prominent, and usually eccentric, local personalities; and the author’s own experiences growing up in Burlington. Much of this is illuminating—elderly Democratic state representative Sadie White, who could whip up the nursing home vote, played “the decisive role in Bernie’s rise”—or amusing, like a recap of how Sanders’s “rinky-dink” spoken-word project, “We Shall Overcome,” became a novelty hit. Most intriguing is Chiasson’s delineation of Sanders’s outsider role within Vermont’s counterculture; as he explains, Sanders was “frustrated” with his fellow newcomers’ privilege and developed a class-driven ideology unique even among his lefty milieu. This new vision became the nascent seed for today’s socialist movement in the U.S., giving Chiasson’s dense account some historical heft. However, with so many digressions and details, only dedicated wonks will get mileage out of this one. (Feb.)