Letter to the Editor: Why vote for Bernie Sanders

In a representative democracy, the system the United States supposedly has, the policy making is controlled by the representatives elected by the people. The idea behind representative democracy is that people will elect representatives that will serve their best interest. However, in the United States the funding for election campaigns is provided by large corporations, banks, and a handful of wealthy individuals that results in the election of representatives who serve the best interests of the large corporations, banks, and wealthy individuals. Because of these campaign finance laws, the best interests of the majority in this country are seldom served by our elected representatives. One candidate in the 2016 presidential election is proposing to reform this campaign funding system. That candidate is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. That is why he is the best candidate for the President of the United States. For this reason and his policies on several issues facing the United States today such as economics, his progressive social policy, and his willingness to address climate change as the life-threatening issue it is. Bernie Sanders the best choice for President for the American people because of his economic plans, his social progressiveness, and his environmental consciousness.

First, Bernie Sanders’s economic plan will make people’s lives better. Americans are suffering due to inequality - this is the suffering Bernie Sanders intends to attack. Currently, the United States has more wealth and income inequality than any other developed country on Earth. This inequality is the worst that Americans have faced since the 1920s (Sanders). This large wealth inequality is very problematic.

Bernie Sanders’s economic plan will address wealth and income inequality, too. Wealth and income inequality in the United States is worse than in any of the seventeen peer countries. Life expectancy of Americans is worse than the life expectancy of those in any peer countries. If one wishes to understand this shorter life expectancy and it’s relation to inequality, one must understand how inequality necessarily leads to poor health. Societies with socioeconomic inequalities are shown to have unhealthier citizens (Weir). Children living below the poverty line are more likely to develop asthma, obesity, malnutrition, and are less likely to get vaccinated (Weir). Impoverished adults are more likely to have high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, infectious diseases, and mental illness. This is due to less access to health care, healthy food, and living a stressful life. Wealthier citizens in unequal societies have been shown to be in poorer health than citizens in more equal societies. That is also due to stress (Weir). Wealth inequality correlates to poorer health.

Sanders economic plan will redistribute wealth and benefit everybody. A case in point is Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who is third richest American with a net worth of 57.8 billion dollars (Kroll and Dolan). Jeff Bezos is going to have a difficult time spending 57.8 billion dollars. He can only buy so many dinners when he goes out to a restaurant on a Friday night. He only needs to purchase one ticket when he flies from Los Angeles to New York. But, if that wealth was redistributed to 578,000 people, there would be far more people buying dinners or buying flights. people buying more of almost everything. That means more restaurants had to make more dinners, so they need more work from chefs and waiters and waitresses. Pilots are needed to fly planes. With chefs, waiters, and pilots working and getting paid, they now have money to go grocery shopping. Grocery stores can hire people Grocery store employees can spend money somewhere, and so on. When Jeff Bezos had the money, far fewer people had work; when that money is redistributed, far more people have work. Americans are suffering because Bezos is rich. Inequality is causing unemployment.

Another way Sanders plans to better the lives of Americans economically is by putting an estimated 13 million more people to work. He plans to rebuild our infrastructure, which was rated a D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers (Sanders, ASCE). This plan will not only improve the infrastructure, but it will also create even more jobs because the infrastructure workers will serve as consumers to their local businesses. As businesses’ consumers increase, so does their need for production and, therefore, labor.

Bernie Sanders is the most socially progressive candidate on either ticket, too. “Progressive” has historically meant support for “liberal reform,” and “liberal reform” has historically meant social changes that empower and help the weak. Bernie Sanders is the one candidate who has long been an advocate for progressive policies that help not only the working class, but other oppressed groups such as people of color and women (Jiliani). Sanders has acted on his convictions, even when they were unpopular. In addition, while in college, Sanders was even arrested for protesting in favor of the desegregation of his Alma Mater, the University of Chicago. Throughout his political career, he has worked closely with, and received the overwhelming endorsement from, organized labor (Borg). Unlike Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders has consistently acted on his convictions. America needs leaders who are always willing to take overt action in the face of injustice. Sanders’s activism did not go unnoticed by influential American thinkers.

Because of his history and political support for such groups, he has received the endorsement of Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow. Sanders recognizes the effects of the War on Drugs and the connection between race, drug laws, and the U.S. political system. Much of our current drug war is a reaction to the successes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The progressive victories that gave African-Americans rights in areas of housing, work, and the franchise were taken back by reactionary drug laws. Although one can no longer discriminate against blacks based on race, one can now discriminate based on a felony record. The drug war has turned people of color into felons (Beavers). Though people of color cannot be told they can’t vote or have a job because of their skin color, they can be told they can’t vote or have a job because of a felony. Drug laws discriminate on the basis of skin color . More white people have used marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, hallucinogens, and have abused pain relievers than people of color, yet the majority of people in jail for drug violations are people of color. Out of the 225,242 people in prison for drug violations in 2011, 45 percent were black, while only 30 percent were Caucasian (Knafo). Bernie Sanders is the one candidate that has publicly articulated this understanding and has pledged to work towards ending this “New Jim Crow” policy. (As an aside, many who see Hillary Clinton as progressive should take a look at her record of promoting this reactionary attack on civil rights by voting in favor of “The War on Drugs” legislation.) As Sanders suggests, more money invested in the War on Drugs hasn’t successfully solved its stated goal of decreasing the use of drugs. Yet, the Drug War continues to get funded because it helps push back against the successes of the civil rights movement. (Beavers). Bernie Sanders recognizes the “War on Drugs” for what it is and plans to abolish it. Systematic racism isn’t the only social issue Sanders plans to address, though.

Sanders also advocates for women’s issues, another socially progressive cause. In the area of women’s issues, Sanders is the candidate that best articulates the vision of progressive feminism. There was a time when progressive women pursued a “feminist” goal as getting women into positions of economic and political power, an idea known as identity feminism (Rottenberg). The point of identity feminism in 1960s America was to get women established, to simply promote the idea of women in positions of power. Today, the idea of women being in power is widely accepted, and, therefore, identity feminism is no longer useful. In 2016, progressive women are much more likely to articulate “feminism” as a social vision or a set of policies that make the lives of women better. The goal is less to get a woman President and more to give women pay equity, access to services like child care, and the right to their own body. In addition to good economics, progressive social policy, Sanders is also aware of and plans to stop the climate change being caused by humans.

Sanders is conscious of the environmental impact humans are having on the planet. The Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide level is currently 403.19 parts per million and rising. This is high enough to cause the greenhouse effect which is the trapping of heat. The average global temperature has risen 1.4 degrees fahrenheit since 1880 due to the greenhouse effect. An increase of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit may not seem to make a significant difference on our planet but it is having some drastic effects ("Global"). Many places have seen major changes in precipitation such as flooding, droughts, and extremely heavy rain ("Climate"). Arctic ice is presently melting at rate of a 13.4% decrease in volume per decade. The melting of arctic ice results in a rise in sea level. Sea level has risen seven inches in the last century, is currently rising at a rate of 3.42 millimeters a year, and is projected to rise 1-4 feet in the next century ("Global"). The projected rise in sea level will put many low elevation coastal places such as New York City, New Orleans, Miami, Jakarta, Kolkata, Shanghai, Beijing, and Tokyo underwater (Cohen). Land ice is currently melting at a rate of 287 billion metric tons a year ("Global"). The larger than normal amount of carbon dioxide makes the ocean more acidic, which threatens various forms of marine life ("Climate"). The heating caused by the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere threatens certain species of plant, and if they were to all die at once (which will happen if the Earth heats up enough), they will release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The increase in carbon dioxide will cause the Earth to heat up even more, which will threaten even more forms of life that will release carbon dioxide as they decompose. George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning, calls this vicious cycle, “runaway global warming.” Runaway global warming threatens extinction to approximately 90% of all living creatures (Monbiot). This is obviously a very serious threat.

Sanders, the most environmentally-conscious candidate, will better the lives of all living things with the way he plans to tackle climate change. Climate change is being caused primarily by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, and can be prevented by the ceasing of such human activities ("Climate"). Sanders proposes enacting policies that accelerate a transition to cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar, which will greatly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted.

For years Wall Street and wealthy individuals have been buying government offices by funding campaigns of candidates who have similar economic views as them, so the government will work in their favor. Presidential elections will be a group of individuals talking about their different stances on guns, abortion, immigration, and gay marriage, while they have, behind the scenes, a nearly identical economic policy working in favor of the wealthy, bankers and corporate owners who funded their campaigns. Some working-class people are treated as second-class citizens and are so tired of it that some of them have given up on the political process completely. They feel that voting is useless. Others are so angry that they are drawn to a vulgar, clueless, warmonger just because he’s not part of that system. However, it is possible to say “enough is enough.” That’s what the Bernie Sanders campaign is about, taking the power from the handful of billionaires and returning it to the majority of Americans that are needed for an inclusive and effective democracy. It is possible to have a well-functioning system that can provide for everyone’s needs. Sanders’s policies are the best for everybody, and he isn’t funded by the wealthy or corporations, so he has no reason to change his policies in favor of them. Though it may be difficult for him to fulfill his promises due to “bought-out” members of Congress, a Bernie Sanders presidency is a step in the right direction.

- Griffin Hobson, South Tahoe High

Works Cited
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