Bernie backer builds support, bakes brownies

DES MOINES, Iowa — When you walk into Dartanyan Brown’s house, there’s brownies on the counter and soup on the stove.

On the day of the Iowa caucuses, there’s also a Bernie Sanders sign in his yard.

Brown has made his house a staging office and training ground for canvassing for the Sanders campaign.

“That’s what democracy looks like,” he said. “That’s also what democracy smells like.”

The 70-year-old thinks of it as things coming full-circle.

“I’ve been gone for 30 years,” Brown said. “When I came back, I said, ‘Where are my people?’ And it was gratifying to find them coalesced around this movement, around Bernie.”

A lifelong musician, Brown graduated from high school in Des Moines in 1967 and went to college at Drake University. After living near San Francisco for 30 years, Brown came back to Des Moines to take care of his mother and teach music classes.

He’s seen Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro come campaigning. It didn’t take Brown long to decide that Sanders was his choice for 2020.

“The consistency of his viewpoint … is clear, always, and he manages to see the entire fabric of the American experience,” Brown said. “We have the people, and I think that at this point in history, that needs to be the deciding factor.”

When the Sanders campaign came asking for help, Brown was all too happy to oblige.

College students and high schoolers have been looking for ways to get involved with the Sanders campaign. Brown has even gotten calls from middle schoolers who are interested in helping out.

“It’s been totally inspiring to see kids from around the nation … intent on making a change,” he said.