Before I begin, I'd like to state that I waited for five hours to hear a politician who I disagree greatly with, and it was my choice. All I ask is that you take less than 10 minutes to read what I have to say. You will state this is a biased article, but it's politics, and do not act like you're a perfect little political analyst.
The day before, my fraternity brother sent a group text asking if anyone would like to go to the Bernie Sanders rally here in Erie, PA on April 19th. I chuckled at first. Suddenly, I stopped and thought for a while. I remember hearing articles frequently as two boys disguising themselves as Trump supporters. Or, the viral video of Muslim men attending one as well. I thought to myself "If liberals, especially Bernie Sanders supporters, do it, why can't I?" So, to his surprise, I said yes. There was something I decided to do differently than the two examples above. They came to the rallies with automatic intentions that they will be disgusted and would think of all Trump supporters as a joke. I forced myself to enter the rally with an open mind, even my beliefs differ greatly with Senator Sanders. Many of my friends are Sanders supporters, and I wanted to understand where they were coming from. Going to Senator Sander's rally gave me a better perspective regarding his supporters stance on economic issues, while also giving me a clearer vision to the flaws of Senator Sanders' campaign.
There will be three moments that I will go into depth about, the wait outside, the wait for Bernie inside the center, and the speeches. April 19th was a cold day in Erie, but it did not stop his supporters from attending. Two major age groups attended the rally, apparently the young, and surprisingly the elderly. Rarely did I see people in the middle age spectrum, possibly because they were working. I found it to be interesting that his main supporters were either those who were retired or students, who the majority are not working. While waiting, I was curious to see if there were conservative protestors against Sanders, but there were none. The protesters who did attend were religious men for the Pro-life movement. I noticed they did not speak and only stood there. While waiting in line, I saw Sanders supporters would first start the dialogue by saying "they are all white men."
Pro-Life Protestors outside Bernie Sanders Rally. Erie, PA April 19th
While overhearing their statements, many of the supporters would use their race and gender to try to debunk their opinions, I heard feelings more than facts in their reports, hearing rhetoric such as "No uterus, no opinion." The Pro-Life movement is a complicated and controversial subject, but using someone's race and gender to better your argument is a cop-out to real politics. The race, gender, religion, sexuality or anything outside of the person is not what is important, but the actual opinions they have is. Caring about the outside appearance too much is what I noticed is the biggest flaw of liberal politics while standing outside.
Seeing liberal protesters always attend conservative rallies but not conservatives doing the same is peculiar to me. Conservatives do not protest because we do not mind that you have a different opinion than ours, the majority of conservatives can cope with the issue of different ideas, we would rather discuss.
Bernie Sanders supporters interrupting Trump Rally in March 2016
Liberals, however, use defensive coping. They unconsciously distort reality and truths, and they do not know how to handle others opinions, such as the Trump rally in Chicago, or the recent heckling at UMass for having conservative speakers come to discuss the issues of political correctness. The protestors main reason for these protests is to stop "Hate Speech", when in reality, it is simply having the fear of hearing statements one does not like. To stop "Hate Speech", one should not silence a person, but rather handle the adult situation in a relativistic terms, something my generation is struggling to comprehend.
After waiting for a few more hours, we entered the convention center. I began to notice that many signs, banners, and memorabilia would state at the side "Not paid by the billionaires." I was confused by this statement, and I asked my friend to go a little more in-depth. I began to learn that a big goal of Senator Sanders campaign is to "end the corporate greed by politicians." The rally would go in depth with details about this issue, and by the end, I did agree completely. Money is given to politicians by big business, and it is evident these companies are telling the politicians what to do and say. However, Senator Sanders' flaw on this statement is blaming capitalism for this. The problem liberals have with this rhetoric is that this greed is not capitalism. Capitalism strives to be against cooperate greed and monopolies, so that all may have a fair shot in the trade market. The issue is corporatism; both I and his supporters are and should be angry at this, this is truly the enemy. Saying that capitalism is the enemy and that the US needs a higher corporate tax rate (when the US already has the highest in the world) makes me believe that his supporters do not research on their own, but only listen and agree because it is easier. I ask those who are reading to research what Capitalism Vs. Corporatism is, because if I went in depth, this would become a novel.
Bernie Supporters in Erie, PA, April 19th
Before Bernie came on , two speakers came who were from the Erie area. The first was a student at Gannon, who served in the military. She gave a touching story about the issues young soldiers face with that most regular students never tend to think of while thinking of the Armed Forces. A part of her story that tugged at my heart strings was her story of how many regular students decide to join the armed forces to pay for college. She explained how this is unfair that a person must go into the front lines and sacrifice their life to receive an education. I completely agree. She opened me up to a new area that I did not think of before. However, it is the solution that Bernie Sanders famously has that I do not agree with when it comes to fixing riddling college debt. If you attend college, you must pay for the privilege of attending. If you pay nothing, you care nothing. Not to mention, "free" college means regular taxpayers have to pay the tuition, all $70 billion of it. We need to give people in these demanding money situations a better chance by lowering tuition, and champion community college. A good friend of mine stated that those who have community college degrees are less likely to receive higher paying jobs. First, I would like to see if this information is right. Secondly, this shows that many have forgotten what community college is for. Community College is to be a stepping stone, so students can be able to move on to greater education, similar to minimum wage issue, which the next speaker brought up.
The next speaker spoke mostly of the minimum wage issue and I did understand his motives. I do believe it 's hard to be a college student and pay off loans, at times it could seem impossible, but it is their idea that should make them go back to the drawing board to solve the issue. As a result of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, many unskilled workers would be priced out of the job market. This is because if the minimum wage increases, not everyone can be able to receive a raise or keep their job. Think about being a boss in this perspective, they only have two choices, should I give my employees a raise and lose my business, or fire them? (Borowski 2015)
FINALLY THE HUNKA-HUNKA BERNIE LOVE CAME! But, I had to leave within 15 minutes of speech due to scheduling conflicts that day.
While listening to the speech that I did hear, I greatly enjoyed it. It was incredible to see a person like him face-to-face. The majority of the things he brought up were stated before, but I will not lie, he did stump me on a few topics, like issues with NAFTA, and how 40 years ago before our economy, one member of the family could take care of the whole family with one job, nowadays, many Americans need two or even more.
I am glad I left his rally not knowing every single answer to his rhetoric, it challenged me, and equally the left should be challenged too. My primary challenge is for those who are on the left is to go to a rally like Donald Trump, and like me, do not make a sound, and listen. Go into it with the belief system of Ghandi and keep saying "What if I'm wrong?" I try to maintain this belief in my head every day, and I believe all of us lose this when the presidential season comes. I could feel unity at the rally, but I could also feel a sense of "me me me" going through as well. Meaning that people are too stubborn to relax and hear what others have to say on the other side, who knows, by going you might be helping yourself if you pretended to be the opposite for the day, I know it did for me.
