Bernie Sanders: Strength in Diversity
Coming off the enthusiasm and disappointment from the 2016 presidential election, I feel compelled and energized to do my part, however small, to advocate for the political leader I’m most aligned with and inspired by.
More than two weeks ago, I created this campaign ad addressing the ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative. The narrative — or myth, if you will — which has been disproven time and again, states his supporters are predominately white males. The recent presidential endorsements from progressive powerhouses Ilhan Omar (MN), Rashida Tlaib (MI), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) help to demonstrate this is far from the truth. In addition, I personally know more female Bernie supporters than male supporters.
Bernie’s ability to connect with people from all walks of life and attract a diverse following without pandering is the cornerstone of what makes him who he is. His unwavering 50-year history calling out America’s injustices speaks for itself. He has been advocating for gay rights since 1972, universal healthcare since 1987, and made it his life’s mission tackling income inequality and the astronomical greed in corporate America, where the top one-tenth of one percent owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Since 1982, the three richest U.S families — Waltons, Mars candy family, and the Koch family— all saw their wealth increase by 6,000%, “meanwhile, the median household wealth went down 3 percent over the same period.” During this same time, “between 1983 and 2013, the wealth of the median black household declined 75 percent (from $6,800 to $1,700), and the median Latino household declined 50 percent (from $4,000 to $2,000)”, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.
This is a moral outrage. As Nina Turner, co-chair of the Bernie 2020 campaign states in the ad, “He stands up and uses the people’s power to speak out against injustice.”
There’s a good reason why Bernie Sanders has been voted over and over the best, most popular, and most trustworthy member of the US Senate. Quite simply, he cares. Bernie is, and always has been, a true champion of the people. As Bernie will say, “It’s not about me, it’s about us.”
This is my first time experiencing a project going viral, albeit modestly so. If you would have told me over two weeks ago that my independently produced campaign ad would amass nearly a combined 50K views on Twitter and Facebook, and over 3,500 re-tweets since officially launching on the Bern Report one week ago, I may have called you crazy.
Since then, it has been shared by the organizations The People for Bernie Sanders, Millennials for Bernie and Political Revolution and retweeted by non-other than the remarkable Nina Turner, Briahna Joy Gray (National Press Secretary of the Bernie 2020 campaign), actors Danny Glover and John Cusack, and a handful of world-wide political contributors.
When we come together, we win.
Join the Movement.
BernieSanders.com/Donate
