The American political system is dominated largely by pandering politicians, oozing out empty promises to the main demographic of their political party. It's easy to see the veiled honesty in the race for the 2016 presidential election. After all, Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican Party, registered as a Democrat in 2001 under the notion that "Republicans are just too crazy right" and that "the economy does better under Democrats." Though not as drastic, Hilary Clinton, a leading force in the race for the Democratic nominee, has completely changed her view on the validity of same-sex marriage in the past 15 years to fit the changing perceptions of voters, according to reports found on Politico.com.
United States voters are tired of ever-changing views and weightless promises: They want the truth. In the eyes of many, truth has emerged in the form of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Sanders, who describes himself as a "Democratic-Socialist" has gained mass attention in recent months by utilizing two radical strategies: Listening to both supporters and dissidents, and telling the truth. Sanders, 73, has spent over 30 years in the political sector after being elected as the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981. Since his election in '81, however, Sanders' political views and voting habits have remained concrete and true to his beliefs, a shockingly rare combination in American politics.
More than anything, Sanders is bringing a new brand to the presidential election; rather than smear campaigns based off of illegitimate data, he addresses his opponents with cold facts. During the first Republican Party Presidential Debate held on Aug. 6, in Cleveland OH, Sanders demolished the shortcomings of the Republican candidates on his Twitter page, under the hashtag #DebateWithBernie.
Even more astounding, Sanders held the most retweeted post concerning the debate out of any presidential candidate, with over 33,000 retweets at press time.
It's over. Not one word about economic inequality, climate change, Citizens United or student debt. That's why the Rs are so out of touch.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August">https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/629488409... 7, 2015<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Sanders' father was a Jewish immigrant whose family was killed in the Holocaust, a horror which Senator Sanders said partially led him to understand the importance behind good politics, and the danger that lies behind corrupt ones: Sanders remarked in 2015 that “A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932...and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important." This understanding of history not only led him to pursue politics, but shaped his ideas and his passion for extinguishing the inequality in the U.S, according to an article on CSMonitor.com
After being protested by a "Black Lives Matter" group in Seattle on Friday, Aug. 7, Sanders continued his long fight for racial equality (extending back to his marches with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960's) and responded by rolling out a new four-section plan to combat racial injustice. Sanders is continuing the spread of his message by taking a two-day trip through South Carolina on Aug. 22 and 23. The campaign includes a stop in Charleston, the site of a gruesome, racially-motivated domestic terrorist attack on June 17, in which nine black Americans were massacred, according to PostAndCourier.com.
The presidential hopeful's strategy is apparently working famously --on Saturday, Aug. 8, the Vermont senator drew a crowd of 28,000 people, the largest political rally by any 2016 presidential candidate. The next night in Los Angeles, he followed up with a crowd of 27,500. Just as telling, in a new Franklin Pierce poll, Sanders had overtaken Clinton by a margin of 44-37 percent, a poll in which he trailed Clinton 44-8, according to The Boston Herald Reports.
Though these numbers are not, of course, indicative of who will win the Democratic nomination, they certainly prove that Sanders, long-ignored and shoved-under-the-rug by mainstream media outlets, has the force on his side to put up one hell of a fight.
