Really, another college student article praising Bernie? Not exactly. In my experience, political articles are written either by knowledgeable people who understand the system or by pretentious people fired up enough to reiterate a candidate’s views on certain issues and pretend to know how certain decisions will affect the economy, school system, banks, and so forth. I don’t blame them, though. Politics control us and the future, so why not act like we know how hot the fire raining down on us will be, or how sweet it will be to not be drowning in student debt as we’re trying to wade to the shore that is post-college real-world-hood.
Honestly, I don’t know much about politics past what "School House Rock" taught me in fifth grade, when I still could find 20 minutes to kill, and what I can pick up here and there from debates, small talk, and whatever shows up on my Facebook feed. I have never analyzed case studies or installed a C-SPAN satellite beaming the latest conferences on my frontal lobe. I keep my folders in a cut-up Reese’s Puffs box duct-taped to my desk and I currently need a haircut. If you can derive any political relevance from that, cool. If not, politics have never really concerned me. That is, until I heard about Bernie Sanders.
We’ve all heard the news reports saying that Bernie’s campaign has sparked an interest in politics in young people, that there will be a greater voter turnout than for previous elections. If one person can intrigue an entire generation of young voters who couldn't care less about who is in the White House, you’ve got something big. Romney vs. Obama didn’t really faze me, because I wasn’t in college yet and wouldn’t necessarily feel the immediate sting of whatever screw-college-students-out-of-funding policy Romney supposedly had lined up. Selfish, right? Sadly, that’s how the world works. This election, though, matters to me, as it does to many future-fearing college students.
Though I registered because of Bernie, I believe the media that most young voters are exposed to paints Bernie as this Jewish grandpa badass who only deserves your vote because of how much non-political shade he can throw on Hillary in one statement -- not that he isn’t Jewish, a grandfather figure, or super badass. Yeah, I get retaliating with a great comeback and even telling other candidates to shut up when they’ve ranted for too long, but that is not what should decide the vote.
Let’s take this 19-second clip of Bernie doing exactly what the title says for example. Yeah, it’s cool that Bernie’s not afraid to shut people up in order to push his agenda, but some people focus on the shutting-up rather than the actual agenda. This is what separates those who read through a candidate’s flyer and those who ball the flyer up and throw it at someone based on their race, sexual preference, religion, etc. -- anyone who doesn’t jive with their beliefs. America is a melting pot. If we stir in more diversity, it won’t have a chance to burn like it would if we kicked everyone out and let the pot sit. If we base our decisions on how effectively candidates can quiet each other, how long before we pick the one that eventually quiets us?
