This Tuesday, Bernie Sanders decided to drop out of the race for the 2016 US Presidential Elections, going on to endorse rival Hillary Clinton. A lot of Bernie supporters are incredibly disappointed by this development, myself included––but we can't divide the Democrat Party in two or more pieces. By voting for anyone other than Clinton this fall, whether it be Bernie running independently, or Green Party, you're basically giving Donald Trump an easy win.
This statement is going to anger a lot of people. So many people have such strong beliefs in Sanders ability to win the election somehow. And I get that, Sanders is an amazing candidate, but he's out of the race. This leaves our only options being Clinton or Trump. A lot of people are talking about voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party's candidate this election year. And she's a great candidate too, don't get me wrong. But the Green Party isn't a major party in US politics. Although it is possible that there could be some miraculous turn of events where we could somehow get enough people on board to vote Green Party, that's almost as unlikely as pigs flying.
The reality of the situation is, that the US political system really only supports two parties. Is it a major flaw? Yes. Is there anything we can do about it right now? No. However, after this election is over, feel free to email the heads of the Democrat and Republican parties and tell them about how screwed up our voting system is. But for now, look back on past presidential elections––the most prominent example being the Election of 2000. Al Gore was the Democrat candidate, and came incredibly close to defeating Bush, but failed for two reasons. One was due to the loss of Florida, and another is the controversial involvement of the Green Party. And this isn't the first time that something like this has happened. The election of 1924, there were three candidates, dividing the Democrats, causing a Republican victory. Same thing in 1892, 1856, 1848 and many others. I know that all of those elections were a long time ago, but our political system hasn't changed much since it was implemented. Dividing parties still is a huge risk.
Another big thing that I'm hearing about is people saying that if Sanders isn't running, then they aren't going to vote at all. This is also a huge problem. Our generation is known to be incredibly inactive in terms of politics––Sanders has changed that. We can't lose all this progress because Sanders isn't in the election anymore. Political inactivity leads to unfair elections! Everyone who can vote, should vote, because it's a right that not everyone has, and we need to appreciate that right.
I'm still a huge Sanders fan, don't get me wrong. But I'm also a realist––we can't divide the Democrats unless we want the Republicans to have the advantage. Unless we can somehow convince a majority of Americans to take a major risk and vote for an independent candidate or a small party, there's only two options in this election. So who's it going to be?
