Bernie Sanders has said he will be voting for Hillary Clinton in November. This may be a devastating blow to all of the BERNsters that have supported Sanders up to this point, but this should not be the end of the Bern. Don't let it be the end because this still isn't the end of Bernie Sanders. Although he may have said he is voting for Hillary in November, he has still not fully endorsed her. Sanders says he is waiting for Hillary to make a shift toward the left but his reason for voting for Hillary is so that he can make more efforts to defeat Donald Trump and to further push his progressive ideals. This was all said on Friday morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in a one-minute video clip.
Here is the issue though, Bernie didn't actually say he is voting for Hillary. On the contrary, what he said is that he is going to continue fighting for a stronger Democratic platform and that he wants to have democrats reclaim control of the senate. The video clip that shows Sanders saying that he will vote for Hillary is edited in a way to make it seem as if he has given up on his campaign. That is just not true though. Here is the full version of that video where you can actually see the question put to Sanders and the amount of times they tried to press him if he was going to vote for Hillary.
I agree with Sanders in that we need to become much more politically involved. We can not simply depend on our current leaders to have our best interests in mind. I will also add that we can not simply rely on select news sources. It is our responsibility to be informed so that we can better analyze information. The same 52-second clip from "Morning Joe" is being circulated online. Shaun King, Daily News, posted on Facebook saying how disappointed he was with Sanders stating he will vote for Hillary while inserting the same 52-second video clip. I watched the whole interview on "Morning Joe," and let me tell you that it was purposely cut down to 52 seconds so that they could further push that Sanders was voting for Hillary. As I said before, we can not be easily swayed by one simple video, a post, or an article. Policy makers will continue to make changes with or without your involvement. Without involving ourselves then we have no real chance of creating change. Be the force that you "liked" on Facebook, be the belief that you shared, and be the quote that you tweeted. Seriously, don't be static.
It could be true that Sanders has no chance of winning the nomination, that Hillary has rigged the whole election, and that Trump is a candidate that can potentially ruin America, but the fact is that Sanders has still not given up on change.
You shouldn't give up either. I leave you with Stokely Carmichael, “There is a higher law than the law of government. That’s the law of conscience.”