I have admitted before that I don’t know much about politics. If I walked by a television that had a governor, senator or even our own president on the screen giving some sort of speech, I wouldn’t stop and listen to what they had to say. They are leaders that are concerned with issues that probably don’t affect me too much or people with money trying to appeal to those who have so much less. That has been my apathetic opinion for several years.
Now, with my recent interest in next year’s election, a friend shared a clip with me of Jon Stewart addressing some newscasters’ negative opinions and comments toward a candidate who’s growing in popularity.
“The problem isn’t that Bernie Sanders is a crazy-pants cuckoo bird,” Stewart said on Comedy Central. “It’s that we’ve all become so accustomed to stage-managed, focus-driven candidates that authenticity comes across as lunacy.”
Leave it to Jon Stewart to tell it like it is.
Whether critiquing Bernie Sanders as a “long-shot,” a “socialist” or even just for his age and appearance, these accusations fall pretty flat after seeing and hearing the candidate for yourself. His passion for the people—far too animated for one to say he’s “too old”—is evident in every word he speaks. And he’s certainly not afraid to explain exactly what he’s about.
For example, the term “socialist” could conjure up associations in people’s minds like the Red Scare or a possible apocalypse resulting from communism. Interested in Sanders’s own definition of his stance, I read an article on the Washington Post’s website where he is quoted, “So what democratic socialism means to me is having a government which represents all people, rather than just the wealthiest people, which is most often the case right now in this country.”
He continued, “And it is making sure that all of our people have health care as a right, education as a right, decent housing as a right, childcare as a right. That’s what I believe.”
With the middle class disappearing the way it is, I believe these socialist viewpoints could very well be what gets America back on her feet again. In various filmed speeches, Sanders has emphasized the need to stop the trend of “the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.”
Juxtapose this tendency, which many politicians sweep under the rug in favor of war, with his open admiration of single moms—and his readiness to help their economic situations, not just sympathize with them. It’s pretty plain that if we want to turn our focus from policing the rest of the world to investing in the common people of this country, Bernie Sanders wants to go to the very front lines, armed, ready to go and serve the United States.
