From Bernie Bro to Completely Berned Out

I was young, I was in love, and I felt like anything was possible. No, this is not the start to a paperback novel at CVS, this is my relationship with Bernie Sanders. What started as a relationship with so much potential, soon digressed into a bad taste in my mouth. Let’s start all the way back in May.

I loved Bernie Sanders at the beginning. I really did. You are talking to the proud owner of a “Feel the Bern” shirt and a “Bernie for President” mug. I even gave an extra ten bucks on top of that; for a poor college student, I spent a lot of money.

I got on the Bernie bandwagon right from the beginning. I liked what he had to say. As a young person in college, the promise of free college tuition and an improved job market was very appealing. At that time I knew he had no chance of winning, but I did not mind throwing my vote and some cash away on an idealist. I was part of a revolution! Maybe I would tell my kids about it someday. The understanding was, after Sanders inevitably lost, I would throw my support behind Clinton. But then the unexpected happened; Sanders gained traction. He was rising in the polls, he was getting more airtime, and all of a sudden there was talk of an upset. My sixty dollar contribution might actually pay off!

While drinking coffee out of my #feelthebern mug and decked out in my Bernie shirt, I sat in my dorm room on Facebook reading every article about Sanders I could find. I reveled in how well my candidate was doing; I couldn’t get enough. I was constantly liking and sharing the articles that sung his praises and supported my belief that he could win. Within a very short time, what was once a fairly diverse news feed, became filled almost exclusively with pro-Bernie and anti-Hillary content. I lived in this Bernie bubble for months.

Recently, I was sitting in the dining hall of Emerson College with my buddies, having a healthy political conversation about the latest Sanders polls, when I said something that came as a surprise to the rest of the group. I said, “Well, I didn’t like it when he said that Planned Parenthood was part of ‘the establishment’.” One guy responded, “Well yeah, but he back-tracked on that, he changed his mind.” This was true, but then it occurred to me, if it’s okay for Sanders to change his mind, why isn’t it okay for Clinton? I was hearing all of these things on facebook about how Clinton has changed her mind on so many issues and therefore she is a liar and not trustworthy. How was this logical? And how could they just completely dismiss the comment Sanders made? Planned Parenthood is an organization that is the only source of healthcare to millions of women — among them, the poor, the rural, the young, and the desperate — and it provides care to these patients without regard for their ability to pay. It’s an organization that is constantly attacked by the right, with millions and millions of dollars spent on trying to destroy it, while its staff works under threat of violence every day for simply performing a desperately needed service. That’s the establishment that we’re fighting against? I started to think I might be on the wrong side.

This became highlighted when, a little later, another of my friends said “If Bernie does not win, I am going to vote third party or even Republican. At all costs, we can not have Hillary.” I thought, “Really? Have we become so petty that we would rather ‘bern it down’ and hand the presidency to someone like Trump, than vote for the person recognized by Sanders himself as “on her worst day…infinitely better” than any of the GOPers on their best? All out of spite?” Of course I didn’t say this, because to be a part of ‘the Bernie revolution,’ dissent is not welcome.. I had already been called “not a real believer” by several other Bernie supporters after making a less than scathing remark about Clinton‘s foreign policy experience the week prior. I didn’t want to deal with that again.

But it continued to bother me. Where was the logic? Where was the truth? Were we just supposed to blindly agree with whatever Sanders said? Were we not allowed to actually discuss the issues? Was his opponent, who voted the same way he did 93% of the time, really the enemy? I was realizing that maybe they were right; maybe I wasn’t a “true believer” after all.

For me, changing my mind as a voter is like breaking up with a girlfriend: it is not something that should be taken lightly or rushed into, but if you are not happy, you have to weigh the positives and negatives. I did exactly that. I thought about it for a long time. I was staying up at night thinking about my future with Bernie and if that would make me happy. I realized I was turned off by him. All the negativity had worn me out; I had stopped seeing Sanders as an empowering idealist but rather an angry old guy who was one sentence away from talking about Wall Street, not matter what the topic. Clinton on the other hand talks about many issues and has evidence to back up how her plans could work. I like the fact that she had more foreign policy experience than Sanders. If it was three in the morning and North Korea was about to fire off a nuclear bomb somewhere, I don’t know if the non-interventionist Bernie Sanders would handle that situation well. I also like that Clinton can work across the aisle. She’ll compromise to get us moving in the right direction, rather than hold fast to ideals that have no chance of getting us anywhere. With so much gridlock in Washington, I trust her to get things done. The more I looked into Clinton the more there was to like.

Looking back at my time with Sanders I do not regret it. I still like him, I still agree with him on many issues, but I don’t think he will make the best president. And in all honesty, I got turned off by his supporters. Trump supporters say a lot about Trump, Cruz supporters say a lot about Cruz, and Sanders supporters say a lot about Sanders. There was too much anger for people who do not agree with them to make me comfortable that their candidate would be able to compromise and make progress. I still plan on keeping my Sanders shirt and mug, but I just put in an order for a Hillary shirt this afternoon.