During the 2016 presidential election, there is no doubt that the vast majority college students represented the political far-left; I know this because not only did the majority of college students vote for Bernie Sanders, but I also was one of the founders of College Students for Bernie which had over 260 active chapters across the United States.
During the election, college students played a leading role in the activism against Trump's campaign and the other leading GOP candidates. It was students who rallied against Republican candidates when they came to speak such as the UIC rally in Chicago which made international news that night. I personally attended the rally myself. But GOP candidates were not the only one under attack from college students who were tired of the same rhetoric and status quo; Clinton, herself, also received some backlash from college students who felt like she was ignoring the issues they brought forward or patronized them.
But, now more than ever, college students are leading the front lines in terms of political action. Immediately after the 2016 election, many College Students For Bernie chapters became chapters of Young Progressives Demanding Action, College Democrats, and Young Democratic Socialists (YDS).
Joining movements like Indivisible and working to elect grassroots activists at a local level are some of the activities that college students are doing. But more direct action steps are being taken as well.
These are some of many direct actions that students are taking at colleges and universities across the country. Yet, despite an politically-active student population, there still seems to be a disconnect between students and the Democratic Party.
It is true that students have actively distanced themselves from the Democratic party, but this distancing didn't occur naturally; it occurred as a result of the structure and attitude of the Democratic party. There is one thing that Democrats and Republicans have in common; both of which continue to criticize students as part of their "all millennials are bad" platform. If you don't believe me, revisit any of my other articles and jump to the comment section, you'll see comment after comment of Democrats explaining that they don't need college students or grassroots activists to win. When students peacefully and quietly walked out on Mike Pence, critics from both sides of the political spectrums jumped into arguing that those students were "entitled" and "should not be considered by employers." While students and grassroots activists are on the front lines of political action, Democrats are busy criticizing these students and then wonder why these students aren't showing up to vote for them during election season.
The issue with the Democratic party among students and grassroots activists is the party's inability to move left which has led to the political left being divided among itself. When grassroots activists and college students followed the advice of "join the party to change the party", they were met with resistance and an urge to conform to the platform of the party. What the Democratic party has failed to understand is that people are not meant to conform to the party, the party is supposed to conform to the people. In fact, the Democratic party has nothing to lose by moving to the left. The moderates who vote for the Democrats already know how bad the Republicans are when it comes to social issues and healthcare, so any movement to left isn't going to push them away; that also being said, anyone who leaves the party after it moves to the left wasn't a really progressive in the first place.
Both the Democratic party and the grassroots left will have to meet in the middle. The Democrats need to appeal to those on the left; something that the party had failed to do in the last two elections. The Democrats have this strategy that the Republicans and Trump alone will win them the next election; but this strategy will fail. Instead, as more people get drawn to the left and become more active in politics, they will most likely be drawn away from the Democratic party if the party continues to refuse to evolve and take an active role in dismantling Trump. The Democratic party will need to abandon its moderate corporate-friendly and" reform from within" platform if they want to grow their base. The next election is less than two years away, will it take the Democratic to lose again for them to realize what they are doing isn't working? I hope not, we cannot afford it.