Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

letters to the editor:

Sanders inspires hope and passion

I am writing you to encourage your readers to get involved with the 2016 presidential election, as we are on the brink of extraordinary change. The Bernie Sanders campaign is making history as his issue-based campaign gains momentum. I would like to share with you why I am so deeply “feeling the Bern.”

I spent a lot of years describing myself as an anachronism — a person who seems to belong to the past and not fit in the present. To me, a self-described empathetic, bleeding-heart white girl from the suburbs of Buffalo, N.Y., the world was a sad, disappointing place filled with injustice and inequality. I imagined what it would be like to have been a part of the civil rights movement, fighting the war in Vietnam and promoting peace. I was always drawn to the struggles of the underdog. I wanted to help people even though I oftentimes felt hopeless.

In 2009 and 2011 I was fortunate to be invited on trips with my best friend’s family to visit the youngest child attending the University of Vermont in Burlington. It was in Burlington that I would discover what a life filled with hope, compassion and understanding of what our society truly needs looked like. Burlington was a breath of fresh air with some of the most progressive social programs I had ever witnessed. Rainwater is collected, corporations are kept away from Main Street and children, young adults and other citizens were not put in jail and given criminal records for marijuana use or other petty, nonviolent offenses. It was a community effort that I didn’t think could exist.

It was after this trip and with the help of social media that I became familiar with Sanders and the progress and improvements he created in Vermont. In May 2015, by then a resident of Las Vegas, I saw that the man himself was coming to speak at Treasure Island and I knew I needed to be there. I excused my 8-year-old niece from day care to go with me. It was important to show her that there was a man in politics who cared about her and her little sister.

This was around the time Bernie announced his candidacy, and he had about 3 percent recognition and favorability at the time. What I heard at this meeting inspired me to become a part of the movement fighting for change, truth and the greater good.

I no longer consider myself an anachronism, as I am finally part of something much bigger than myself. I am so proud of and encouraged by the movement happening in the form of social, political and economic reform. I know I was meant to fight for the people who feel they no longer have a voice, and that is why I am a part of Bernie’s political revolution. I encourage anyone to look at the consistency and integrity shown by this extremely intelligent man who we may just be lucky enough to call our next president.

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