The Democratic civil war: Hillary vs Bernie

Democrats were supposed to have one mission this election season: to keep the White House so that America wouldn’t have a repeat of the Bush presidency that put us into the one of the worst economic depressions that the country had ever seen. The 2008 Financial Crisis was second to only the Great Depression in its tragic effects.

Usually, Democrats support both of their candidates. People will have support for one more than the other but will be happy no matter which one has won.

This ain’t your mother’s election, though.

Originally, nobody thought that Bernie Sanders would be a formidable challenger for Hillary. With Obama out of the way, most political analysts thought that Hillary would take the nomination easily. The chatter in early 2015 was that this election was Hillary’s time to shine. But this election doesn’t seem to want to follow the rules. On the Republican side, political analysts thought that Jeb Bush had the nomination in the bag but then Donald Trump came along and everything changed. With the addition of Bernie to the Democratic side, a movement was started because of the passion and ideas that Bernie brought to the table that were different from what Hillary was offering. Even though nearly all people under 27 support him (80 per cent), most people didn’t think that would be enough to beat Hillary, but they were wrong once again. This huge movement brought trouble for the Hillary camp because most Bernie supporters are not here for her at all.

The majority of supporters from each side don’t like the idea of the other candidate becoming president. Bernie supporters have called Hillary a “white feminist”, meaning that she doesn’t truly support people of color and only tries to seem that way for her agenda. Voters in general, even the ones who haven’t chosen, somewhat do not trust Hillary because of her troubles with the private email server and Benghazi. A lot of people also have compared Hillary many times to a Republican because of her Super PACs and connections to Wall Street and big business which Bernie is strongly opposed to in all ways. They think that she’s a corporate puppet who will do whatever her financial backers need her to do once she gets into the office. Millennials who support Bernie think that Hillary tries too hard to relate to the younger generation because of her attempt to dab on Ellen and multiple attempts on social media to use modern slang. She received a lot of backlash for the following tweet:

There also been a meme circulating that compares the two and all of them are leaning towards Bernie. They are funny, no matter what side you’re for, but they all have the same message. Although most of them aren’t political, they all point to Hillary being the bad person or just completely clueless in each of the situations presented.

This illustrates a struggle Rutgers students know and understand far too well

Hillary supporters who are strongly against Bernie believe that he is too much of an idealist to get anything done. Bernie is a true libertarian and a lot of progressives and moderates on the Democratic side are afraid that if is elected, Republicans won’t work with him at all and things will just get worse. Also, a lot of people think that Bernie’s plans are very expensive. He claims that he will get free college for all Americans because he believes that college is a necessity, just like schooling from K-12. A lot of people, Democrats and Republicans alike, are worried about his plan to get this money for free college. In Bernie’s tax plan, it shows how taxes for the one per cent can be as high as 52 per cent on income. Bernie’s plans also threaten bipartisanship because he represents big government which is everything Republicans hate. Bernie’s camp also came under a lot of fire recently when it was found out that some people in his staff stole polling data from Hillary. Bernie also been shown sometimes to be clueless about foreign policy especially since his opponent was the Secretary of State.

The candidates themselves initially did not acknowledge each other’s differences as much. Although it was obvious that they weren’t good friends, they were very civil towards each other. Even during the heat of Hillary’s private email server scandal, Bernie did not say an ill word against her and has continued not to do so on the matter. But as the election progressed, the tension between the two heightened. Bernie began attacking Hillary about her connections to Wall Street and hypocrisy about gay marriage (she only began publicly supporting it in 2013). Hillary began attacking him about his idealism and lack of knowledge about foreign policy and his unclear plans to get things done. This all came to a head in the recent Democratic Debate on MSNBC. The debate seemed like an intense screaming match between the two. The tension was felt very obviously by the moderators and by people at home.

I personally believe that Bernie is the best choice for America. Some people make call me a dumb liberal who wants things for free and other may call me an idealist, but hear me out.

The dynamics of America have changed dramatically within the last 20 years. College has become a complete necessity, the minimum wage is not supporting families anymore (when it was created to support families, look up it, haters), poverty is a huge problem, our criminal justice system is a shining example as to why capitalism is wrong, politicians listen to their wallets rather than the people, and police brutality needs to be addressed. The way that Bernie addresses all of these issues really speaks to me. He isn’t the White House for the power, you can tell that he really wants change and the White House is the only place that he could do it. He really cares about all groups, LGBTQIA+ and minorities and he really knows about their needs.  He is genuine. He doesn’t try to fit in with any group. He knows he’s a white, Jewish man with a whole lot of privilege and he stays true to that image. What I really like is how he doesn’t let money from anybody sway his views. He always sticks to his guns and he’s so passionate about the work he wants to do to change this country and it really inspires me.

But I am not one of those #FeelTheBern supporters who thinks Hillary is a republican. She’s not. I just don’t think my view and hers completely align like they do with Bernie. Both sides have their ups and downs and luckily, us New Jerseyeans have until June 7th to decide.

Even though the two sides disagree a lot, they do equally hate one thing: Donald Trump.