As part of our local Arizona for Bernie work, I often table at a monthly arts festival in Phoenix called First Friday. It’s a lively mix of drunk people and young people, and we tolerate the former to reach the latter.

Last month a young and drunk person wandered over, aggressively caught my gaze, and told me as if revealing a decisive truth: “Bernie’s old.” He immediately looked to the other end of the table, eyed three young women signing our pledge sheets, and realized he had mistimed the approach. So I offered what I thought would be some consolation: “You’re not wrong.”

Hearing himself patronizingly affirmed of course only served to enrage the young man into laying out the stakes of his initial claim, which, sadly, is in the back of many people’s minds. “No one wants to vote for someone who they think is gonna die soon.”