Bernie's Revolution... A new age of politics
We live in a country that prides itself on having freedom of speech and press, but how free is it really? Can we say what we like in the media? Yes, legally we can, but what does freedom of press really mean in this country? To me, it means that whoever has the most money and will give newspapers the biggest headlines can buy the attention of the media. That sounds like having a significant other with incredibly loose morals who will spend time with anyone who can pay for it... You can see where I'm going with this I hope.
For instance, Oregon had it's primaries this week, and as we drew closer to the 17th, the media was pushing more and more heavily the idea that Hillary Clinton actually is the favored candidate in this incredibly liberal state. All I saw on the politics pages of every major news network was how Bernie didn't really have a chance here, how his following was really just a very small (if loud) group of radical democrats, and how Clinton was obviously going to win by a landslide. But that didn't actually happen. Bernie won the primary 55% to Clinton's 44%, which is a pretty big margin. By contrast, Kentucky had such a close primary that Clinton's reported win margin so far is 0.5%. The more the media continues to claim that Bernie doesn't have a shot at this, that Bernie supporters should get with the program and switch to Clinton Camp, the less likely we are to want to compromise.
There's something about being lied to by the media that just pisses me off. I hate how impossible they find it to be impartial, or at least give due credit to the other democratic candidate running for president. They focus in on Clinton and barely even give mention to Bernie, despite the fact that for the first time in what is probably several decades, people between the ages of 18-30 actually give a fuck about primaries and are showing up in huge numbers to vote. That's a big deal, and it's not because of Clinton. The fact that mainstream media gives almost no credence to Bernie's campaign, that they reluctantly even mention it, and that even popular shows like Trevor Noah's Tonight Show fail to even mention that Bernie is running against Hillary is a problem. Bernie is running a social media campaign because the real media won't give him the coverage he needs to reach people, and they don't give him the time because they know he's not going to give them anything for it. He doesn't have the funding to buy them, so we are instead given an unequal view of the candidates. And We Don't Want Clinton.
She does not appeal to the younger age group in this country. She doesn't show any interest in supporting our issues, or even listening to our concerns. The younger generation is increasingly concerned about developing a less toxic energy source, with harnessing the power of wind, water, and sun instead of catering to big oil companies. The younger generation wants someone to recognize that the system of continually rising education costs, the devaluation of a college degree, and the never-ending student debt that will follow us around forever doesn't work. Clinton has been in the system so long and gotten so used to dealing with the "real adults" in the world... the baby boomers, our parents generation, the immovable people who were more concerned about lowering taxes and getting out of the recession than in improving on the political system, and in looking forward towards the future.
It's not Clinton's turn. I know she's waited a long time. She thought she had it in the bag in the 2004 election, but then Obama won. Then he had a second term. How in 2016 people claim that it's her turn, that it's time to have a woman president, that she has the political experience and knows how to work the system... That's exactly what we (the millennial generation) don't want. We don't want a conformist who's going to follow the system that we consider broken. We don't want someone who is comfortable caving into and being supported by big oil companies. We don't want Hillary Clinton to be our first female president. We want someone like Elizabeth Warren someday. Someone who stands for the things we believe in, someone who is moving with the times and who is not beholden to any one corrupt entity. We want someone who remembers what it's like to be with the little people, who argues for us and our issues. We want someone we can trust, and unfortunately that person is just not Hillary Clinton. There's too much uncertainty and mistrust associated with her. She lies through her teeth almost incessantly, and that's not a quality we want in the person making our decisions for us.
Now I don't discount the many contributions that Hillary has made to the cause of gender equality in this country. She has a place in history that cannot and should not be disputed. She is an iconic figure in the rise of women from homemakers and wives to strong people with high-powered careers just as valid as their husband's jobs. But I'm sorry to say its still not her turn and likely never will be.
Hillary may have the media in her back pocket paving the way for her to the presidency, or at least to the presidential candidacy, but if she thought it would be an easy time of it, we've shown her that she has another thing coming. Bernie's movement is not something that will just go away if she wins the primaries. We're here to stay and if she wants our support she's going to need to change up some things, and definitely improve on her lack of interest in the younger generations. We've been woken up to our political reality and we're going to fight tooth and nail to make sure our issues and concerns are addressed. The time when college students and young adults didn't pay attention to politics is over, and if Clinton does win and doesn't change her attitude towards us, and show some interest in hearing our voice, then she'll lose herself the presidency.
Of course, I myself will vote for her if she wins the primaries, but I know plenty of democrats and Bernie supporters so disgusted by the media's lack of coverage and the DNC's lack of support for Bernie that they refuse to support Clinton in any way. They will not vote at all if it means voting between her and Trump, and that's a problem. The party is so heavily divided right now that if she is the candidate, she's going to have to put herself out there to bring in the Bernie supporters. We're not just going to concede gracefully and join her side. She's going to need to extend the proverbial olive branch or she'll go down in history as the candidate who willingly lost to Donald Trump. Unfortunately, I can really only see a few choices for Clinton here... choose Bernie as her VP running mate, choose Elizabeth Warren as her VP running mate, or some other senator that appeals to the younger generation. Unfortunately, Warren is probably out because there will be the need to balance Clinton's womanhood with a man or people will get pissy. But if Clinton rejects Bernie out of hand, then she's going to have a democratic revolution on her hands that she probably won't survive.
