Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders officially announced his bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination on May 26, 2015. I view this as ultimately a positive thing, and him winning the election would break several barriers, both political and social.
Sanders, who served as an elected official for 34 years in Vermont, has always been adamant about fighting for income and wealth equality, women’s rights and racial equality. He has publicly maintained the same views since the ‘60s, and has shown this by participating in the March On Washington in 1963 with Rev. Martin Luther King, and even getting arrested in 1962 for protesting segregation. I think his continuity makes him an even stronger and more trustworthy candidate.
One of Sanders’s talking points involves getting big money out of politics. He definitely follows through on this belief as 81 percent of his donations come from small donors. In contrast, Hillary Clinton has raised just 17 percent from small donors and has also received over $20,000,000 in Super PAC money, where Bernie has accepted none.
Political views aside, Bernie would also be the first Jewish president, and he doesn’t shy away from this fact. In an interview with Christian Science Monitor, he shared why being Jewish shaped his view on politics.
“A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932,” Sanders said. “He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.”
Only 3 presidents in the nation’s history have been unaffiliated with a certain religion, with the rest falling under different branches of Christianity. While I know electing the first female president remains an important ceiling to shatter, electing the first Jewish president, or any non-christian president, would be just as monumental.
Politics can be complicated and confusing, but I believe electing Bernie Sanders would be taking a step that would make sense for our country and most importantly for the people living in it.
