This past Saturday, April 12th, my friends and I went to a Bernie Sanders rally that was being held through Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While doors opened officially at 4PM, we didn’t get into the building where Bernie was speaking until around 7 because of how crowded it was. When Sanders stepped into the room, the entire crowd roared with applause and chants of “Bernie, Bernie” in almost every corner. From the time he entered the crowd’s line of sight to well after he had reached the podium, there wasn’t a single pang of silence to be heard. Standing in the center of the room, my friends and I found ourselves among many others who were huddling as close as we could to where Senator Sanders stood, hoping to get the best view of the man ourselves.
At the time, however, I was uninterested in actually seeing the presidential candidate and more in getting him on film, as I had brought my video camera in with me and intended to capture as much of Bernie Sanders’ speech as I could. To my pleasant surprise, I somehow managed to hold my arms up throughout his entire speech, which lasted about an hour and ten minutes. As I left the rally, three things were going through my mind: 1.) my back & arms are killing me, 2.) now I’ll easily be able to write an article about this (which I was wrong about), and 3.) this rally – while an interesting experience – has not made me any less of a Hillary supporter.
When I first discovered that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders would be speaking in Poughkeepsie, I was hesitant to actually attend his rally considering I did not plan on voting for him in the primaries. I agreed, and still do agree, on several issues he addresses within his platform, but, to summarize rather briefly, I believe Hillary would make a better president. In the end, I decided to attend the rally because it would be an experience that I would regret missing out on, Hillary supporter or not.
While I was certainly right in that regard and was glad I had gone, the main issues I have with the Sanders campaign remained issues as I left Marist college. In fact, my biggest issue had intensified after listening to Senator Sanders’ speech another time – that being his insistence on the United States citizens getting involved with activism after getting elected. As quoted by Bernie Sanders while talking about Wall Street and “corporate America”, “the only way we take them on and transform this country is when millions of people stand up, fight back, and demand [better]” (the last word, unfortunately, we inaudible due to the crowd’s cheering).
This may not seem like an issue to most people, specifically those supporting Sanders. The presidential candidate has based his entire campaign on an active community so it isn’t particularly surprising. However, when it comes to political activism in this country, Americans as a majority tend to watch from the sidelines. This is not to say that we as American citizens are lazy by nature.
Such an accusation would ignore the large active community of Americans who work hard every day to better both their well-being and their society as a whole. Yet at the same time, the American activist community is rather small when compared to the 318.9 million American citizens that live in this nation. In order to make the significant change that Senator Sanders is calling for, American activism would essentially have to triple its impact on this nation and gain more members within the community then it has seen in a long time. If this does not happen, then Bernie Sanders’ “Revolution” will fail before it even has a chance to begin.
As I left Marist College on Tuesday, I saw an excited community – a group of American citizens ready to do what they could to make it so that Bernie Sanders would become the democratic nominee. At the same time, I thought to myself, this is but a small minority of people who will be voting for Sanders in the New York primaries and an even smaller minority of people voting in the democratic primaries. Would all of Bernie’s supporters truly risk everything for their rights and beliefs? Is it a stretch to say that many of his voters expect him to cause change for them, rather than with them? Only time may tell.
