Last weekend, I went to a Bernie Sanders rally in Springfield, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C. It felt great to be surrounded by energetic, mostly young, and very racially diverse people who share my passion for progressive politics.
I spent the rally hanging out with a young Muslim American woman whom I randomly met when she parked her car beside me. We had to park a long way from the event, because the crowd was so huge, that every parking lot and street within at least a 15 minute radius was completely full of cars. As we walked to the gigantic auditorium along with throngs of people, a Sanders campaign organizer showed up and said that the crowd was already at overflow capacity and they might have to close the doors.
Fortunately, we were just in time before they stopped letting people in.
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, wearing a bright-colored hijab, began to speak, and gave a rousing introduction to Senator Sanders. The people around me were a mixture of all kinds of different races and ethnic groups. There was an Asian American man off to my left, a black guy a short distance in front of me, and several Hispanic people off to my right, as well as people of Middle Eastern descent. There were also plenty of white people like myself.
One thing that struck me about the crowd, in addition to its ethnic diversity, was how young it was. It seemed to be mostly Millennials — people in their 20s and 30s — and hardly anyone who looked to be over the age of 50. Northern Virginia is a large suburban area that includes lots of people of all ages, so it was clear that Sanders’ demographic appeal is to the younger generations, consistent with the polling and exit poll data.
I was sad that Bernie lost Virginia, and a big part of the reason why is because the suburbs voted strongly for Biden. However, from the people in the Northern Virginia suburbs I’ve talked to, Biden benefited greatly from what I would call a “fear and caution vote” — the concern that only a “safe choice” like Biden would be a sure thing to beat Donald Trump, rather than enthusiasm for Biden and his campaign. This was especially common among older voters.
I have seen a lot of ugliness towards Sanders and his supporters on some Democratic blogs in the wake of Biden’s big victory on Tuesday. As someone who likes Bernie Sanders and what he stands for, it feels to me like spiking the football in the end zone and making us feel unwelcome in our own party. I think that’s unfortunate and unhelpful for our shared political goals.
What I love about Sanders is that he frames the issues as a fight for the future of our country, in which all Americans who believe in social and economic justice — people of all races, ethnic groups, and religions — can come together in a people’s movement for positive change. In his speeches, Bernie frequently uses the word “together.” It is a broadly universalist message about uniting the entire working class, and indeed all hard-working Americans, for fairness and human decency.
If Bernie Sanders loses the nomination, I believe it is in large part because he is too far ahead of his time. That’s why he’s so popular among young people and why so many older voters are wary of him.
But even if Joe Biden ends up being our nominee in 2020, I am proud to be part of Bernie’s beautifully diverse, young coalition for progressive change. I think the movement he has inspired during the past several years has a bright future. In Bernie’s movement, I feel included — and so does the young Middle Eastern woman who stood beside me at the rally, and the huge percentages of Latino voters who helped Bernie keep Super Tuesday much closer than it would otherwise have been.
The belief in an economy that works for everyone, no matter your color or background, is a very powerful, transcendently unifying theme. It’s a theme that is, I believe, the best path forward for progressive politics in a diverse country like our own. If the rally I went to is any indication, the Sanders movement looks like the future of America, no matter what happens in this particular election.