You’re on the treadmill at the gym, heart racing as you count down the long, agonizing minutes until you can finally complete your gruesome workout. Although the music from your phone is more than likely blaring through your headphones, you glance up at the multiple televisions displaying various news stations. CNN and Fox News are discussing the 2016 election as they so often are, when your eyes fall on a somewhat balding man who is probably old enough to be your grandpa. They show this man for a moment before they flash back to yet another talking head droning on about whatever Donald or Hilary has been up to recently, leaving you to not give this elderly man another thought as you continue your workout.
This man that you saw was no other than Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate for the 2016 election. Yet while major news stations may not be giving him much attention, teens and young adults on various social media platforms seem to have caught the infectious Bernie fever. For maybe the first time ever, the younger generation has been able to see eye to eye with a 74-year-old white Senator. And here’s why: Bernie Sanders cares not only about the future of the nation, but the future of our generation.
Our generation can be characterized by one word and one word alone: debt. Millions of college students each year borrow more money and take out more loans in order to further their education, only leaving them to climb a huge mountain of debt when they graduate. Bernie Sanders wants to not only reduce the mountain in size but wants to get rid of it all together by making public college education free to all. On his website, he stated, “It is insane and counter-productive to the best interests of our country and our future, that hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college, and that millions of others leave school with a mountain of debt that burdens them for decades.” With Bernie, students will be able to go to school despite how much money their parents make. Many will argue that making college education completely free is unrealistic and maybe they're right. However, the fact that he cares enough about our generation to attempt to change the way we have to pay for our education is enough to garner him support and votes from us fellow 90's kids.
But it isn’t only his stance of the cost of public education that’s fueling the fire in many of his supporter’s hearts. From his unwavering support of the LGBT community since the 1980s, his determined attitude to address the issue of climate change, his fight for women’s rights, to his open opposition to war - is it really a shock that so many people are beginning to jump on the Bernie express? His values and ideas aren’t anything revolutionary; they’re simply humane, fair, and morally just. Three qualities that American politics have been lacking and will continue to lack until we decide to do something about it. So if Bernie Sanders is news to you, simply go type his name into Google. I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.
Although extreme conservatives won’t hesitate to express their distaste towards our man Bernie, just keep in mind that they’re simply afraid to get "Berned."
