I miss Bernie Sanders | Column

On Sunday morning of THON 2020, I received a text from my mom (I must have been in a rare area of the BJC that had service.)

“Are you psyched about Bernie?” she said in the message.

I initially thought it was funny and read it out loud to my friend on my THON committee. I pictured my mom using voice-to-text (as she always does) to send me this message about Bernie Sanders’ recent success in the primaries.

Even though I found the wording of my mom’s text funny, she completely nailed the emotion I was feeling. I was super psyched about Bernie.

Like many other people in my generation, Bernie Sanders was my introduction to democratic socialism and leftist ideals during his first run for president in 2016.

I remember being in middle school and first learning about communism. I was very confused why it was being painted in such a negative light. To 12-year-old me, this all sounded great. But, we were told that communism was a bad thing and given little explanation why.

Bernie Sanders is not a communist. But, I frequently think of my experience learning about communism at an American public school wh2en I try to reason how our country has failed Bernie twice now.

A Bernie Sanders presidency had the potential to change the United States into an anti-racist country that doesn’t have an extreme wealth divide. Bernie is the only politician I know of who has run for president without a strong personal agenda shaping his campaign and policies. Yet, many people still can’t understand how strongly they would benefit from Bernie’s proposed policies.

For decades, the United States has been brainwashing people to scare them about socialism. It frustrates me so much, but we also have to remember there are still plenty of people who lived through the fear-mongering of the Cold War and had their ideas of socialism shaped by this rhetoric.

Some people hear Bernie is a democratic socialist and panic. They call him a communist. They think they know exactly what they’re talking about and know they will effectively use their vote to prevent this “communist” from taking office.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s website says, “Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically — to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few.”

The platform of the DSA also emphasizes that democratic socialism aims to enact socialist programs within a capitalist society.

But, some people who would benefit the most from some of these programs still oppose Bernie and democratic socialism because they are convinced Bernie is trying to take away their individualism and freedom.

The DSA’s website also says, “Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect.”

I really believed in Bernie Sanders’ ability to win the presidency and change this country for the better. I had never been this enthusiastic about a politician, and I was so excited to vote for him.

Like many other issues in the United States, I believe money and greed ruined Bernie’s chances. The democratic party is still heavily focused on profits and personal gain, and thus continues to try to push away people like Bernie who threaten current systems and means of profit.

I also think Bernie would likely beat Donald Trump. There were so many younger people who were incredibly excited and inspired by the potential of a Sanders presidency. I’ve yet to meet anyone my age who is this enthusiastic about Joe Biden.

Bernie has still made a great impact on our country and the direction of the future. There are more progressive politicians in office, and more people (like myself) are now aware of progressive policies. I remember last year in an early debate between the democratic candidates, they discussed Bernie’s Medicare for All policy for about fifteen minutes. I don’t think this would’ve even been a discussion without Bernie’s 2016 run.

I hope Bernie has also inspired other progressives to continue to run for office, and even for president. I would absolutely love to live through an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presidency.

I was still happy to vote for Bernie in the primary in June. This was at the time when Biden was already the presumptive democratic nominee. But for the first time, I still got to vote for someone I fully agree with and believed in.

To answer my mom’s question from February, yes I am psyched about Bernie. And I really miss the feeling that Bernie could be our next president.