The Democratic Socialists of America want you to feel the Bern
The Ithaca DSA has stepped up their campaigning efforts in light of the approaching primary registration deadline
Theresa Alt has been standing on the edge of Collegetown all week manning the “Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America” table.
A poster of Bernie Sanders smiles down upon her from a nearby tree like a patron saint as she distributes information and voter registration forms to Cornellians as they pass by.
She has been in this exact spot every day this week and once a week for the preceeding two months.
Theresa Alt’s dedicated efforts have registered many students as voters in the last eight weeks
The deadline to register for the New York Democratic Primary is today for anyone who needs to change political parties or voting districts.
This push could garner more votes for Bernie Sanders as he vies for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 Presidential race.
On my walk home on Wednesday, I stopped to ask Theresa a few questions. She told me that she has been a Democratic Socialist for 35 years, predating the formation of the Democratic Socialists of America itself.
I asked her why she initially became a Democratic Socialist.
“I was becoming more and more disillusioned with the American system,” Alt says. She continues to describe her time working for the Cornell Library system: “Very bright women at the bottom of the hierarchy were being pushed around by bosses who had somehow risen higher than them … This wasn’t a meritocracy.”
Alt then pointed out that these problems have persisted in society. As she details Bernie Sanders’ policies regarding healthcare and free higher education (liberating students from a “lifetime of debt”), her commentary on the costs of the current college system was particularly poignant.
“Student debt is an illustration of how the system takes people without a whole lot of money and, you know, holds them down … Tackles them.”
In order to give Sanders and his policies a fighting chance of addressing these issues, the Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America have been making efforts to register as many supporters as possible before the Democratic Primary.
Alt estimates that they registered 12 students a day for the last week. They had previously registered about 40 during their tabling in the weeks prior.
She and her fellow DSA members have shown that they definitely #feeltheBern, a sentiment they are hoping will spread.