Editorial: Sanders starts political revolution in Huntington

Lexi Browning

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders delivers a speech during the “A Future to Believe In” campaign rally on Tuesday, April 26 at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington, W.Va. The assembly attracted more than 6,000 supporters.

Senator Bernie Sanders visited Huntington, West Virginia Tuesday in the Big Sandy Superstore Arena and spoke of political revolutions in front of a crowd of 6,000 people.

Six-thousand people; a proverbial melting pot of people, young and old were all united under one roof, under the influence of one man from Brooklyn, New York.

The crowd was electric, from the line that wrapped around the Big Sandy and a little further, to the shoulder-to-shoulder arena floor.

People bumped into each other, stepped on each other’s toes, apologized and shared inspiring political anecdotes and ideas, even if they didn’t know each other at all. High school sophomores who weren’t even eligible to vote yet stood in solidarity for hours just to see Sanders, a man who has raised $182.2 million primarily through campaign donations.

It’s not just Huntington though.

According to The Guardian, Sanders brought out an estimated 27,000 people in Greenwich Village April 13. The Seattle Times reports Sanders rallied an estimated 15,000 people March 25. Thousands of people are showing up to essentially say they’re disenchanted with the current state of American democracy. People want change and believe a Washington outsider is the best way to do it.

If nothing else, Sanders has truly started a political revolution. People are seeing through the intimidation, through the super PACs, through obnoxious pop culture references, the bigotry and overtly religious spiels they’re often subjected to when following the race to the presidency.

It would not be too surprising to see the dissolve of the two-party system in future elections. What a lot of people want cannot be contained simply by the terms “Republican” or “Democrat.” Political stances are becoming far too broad and complex to have such an outdated, binary system attached to it.

Sanders will undoubtedly sprout up more outsiders, just like him. More people who realize this country has some practices and things that should be completely changed. Regardless if people “feel the Bern” or not, America is past due for a revolution. It is the responsibility of the people to make educated decisions and think about who will really serve them best as a public figure, someone who can represent America well and still treat other countries with respect and good-will and someone who isn’t afraid to break the mold and stand up for the people who have been oppressed by a broken system for far too long.