I’m a young liberal and I’m 100% voting for Bernie Sanders
Why no one who feels the Bern is going to jump off the camper van anytime soon
Every single Hillary supporter I’ve spoken with tells me that Bernie is un-electable.
I got it into my head that I knew what they meant. He’s older. He’s white. He’s a he. He’s one of the most liberal presidential candidates of the past decade. Too liberal, they say. He won’t pass anything, not with Congress looking the way it is, they say.
And hey, what do I know. I’m a 22-year-old liberal who grew up composting in Los Angeles. I don’t even work because I’m a masters student studying economic and social history in England. I’ve studied the history of global inequality and developmental inequality. I am socially liberal on every issue across the board. Hell, as a fourth grader, I wanted Gore to beat Bush because the former was vocal about climate change. In the same year, I told a Whole Foods bagger that paper bags were better for the environment than plastic. Yeah. That Whole Foods.
I am damn proud of how liberal I am. It’s how I view the world. It’s how I live my life.
But when did ‘too liberal’ become a shackle? What did it become something to avoid?
A normative set of politics is about chipping away at the institutionalized injustice facing the majority of people. If anyone still believes that all humans are born equal, read a history book. Read any book. Watch the news. That’s a fucking fantasy. John Rawls wrote, in his Theory of Justice, that ‘the natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular positions. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.’
I believe that politicians have a constitutional responsibility to bettering the lives of the American people. Not just the wealthy, not just the educated, but all lives. But a quick glance at the news will reveal that on all fronts, whether economic, social, or cultural, the nation is falling into disarray.
The rising concern with sexism, bigotry, economic inequality, xenophobia, homophobia, among a slew of other pressing issues stems not from the purported patriarchy (to use sexism as an example), but from the institutions that maintain patriarchy and allow it to persist. To use a more specific example, the growing discontent over racial tensions, especially with the black lives matter movement, is deeply embedded in American history. Slavery was the elephant in the room that was not addressed when the constitution was being drafted. The links between the constitutional convention and the Civil War are uncanny; those between the Jim Crow aftermath and society today are even more so. These issues have been baked into U.S. history and tacitly reinforced over time. The same can be said for climate change, workers’ rights, etc. Politicians, therefore are responsible for equalizing the playing field.
Society needs to go through a structural overhaul. What politicians have tried to do to close this widening and pernicious divide in our nation haven’t worked. Those who recognize or those who have been marginalized as a result of these failed attempts are acutely aware of how much needs to be changed.
That’s why now, more than ever, we need someone with defined beliefs holding office. Bernie isn’t too liberal; he’s just markedly different from the same kinds of politicians we’ve seen in office in the past years because he wants to reconstitute politics. Those asking Bernie supporters to give up now and support Hillary is giving in to the bipartisanship that’s fractured U.S. politics. Those who think it’s as easy as deciding what kind of apples to buy are mistaken. As Benjamin Studebaker puts it, the two candidates are not different flavors of the same Democratic popcorn. They’re not substitutes under different brands. The two candidates are fundamentally different kinds of Democrats. Those asking Bernie supporters to unite under the Democratic umbrella conflate beliefs for canon. The two camps aren’t fighting for the same rights; passion is not a proxy for dogma. In actuality, the fight continues because Bernie is rightly fighting on behalf of his constituents and calling for change in the establishment, challenging not only the Republican Party but people like Hillary and Debbie freaking Wasserman Schultz.
The extent to which a politician can appeal to our pathos is indicative of something much more permanent than campaign platforms. I wholeheartedly believe in Bernie as a person. I, along with everyone who’s felt the Bern, am hopeful for the kind of change that we can now envision. Bernie is what politics can represent. This is what change means. Call him ambitious, call him optimistic, but don’t call him naive and don’t call it idealistic. Rooted in ideology as it is, naivety in today’s world is believing that nothing else but tepid compromise can be achieved, and forgetting that every revolution starts with someone vocalizing their thoughts. For a nation that is fewer than 250 years old, the United States has not yet achieved the maximum threshold for achieving widespread political change for the better. It would be a damn shame if we ever settle for complacency.
Thirteen years ago, I probably would have wanted to vote to Bernie. This year, I’m glad I have the opportunity to.
On another note, if we’re talking about electability let’s consider the neoliberal slant that Hillary and President Obama share, the latter of whom is fighting tooth and nail to fulfill his constitutional duty to the Supreme Court because the congressional Republicans are a bunch of whack job butt heads. If you think Hillary is going to breeze in without putting up just as hard of a fight, think again.
On the evolution of the Democratic party and a discussion of economic policy, I highly recommend Benjamin Studebaker’s Why Bernie vs Hillary Matters More Than People Think, as well as his Why Bernie is More Electable Than People Think.
This article was a response to Rebecca Unger’s post on why she is NOT voting for Bernie.
The citation for the Rawls’ quote is: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 102. I’m not sure why Medium doesn’t allow for footnoting.
