By: Michael Williams | Student Columnist
Iowa is feeling the Bern.
Clinton may have won by the numbers, but Sanders won by momentum.
According to Google statistics Hillary Clinton won with 49.9 percent and 23 delegates while Bernie Sanders received 49.6 percent and 21 delegates. In third place was Martin O’Malley, who dropped out of the race after getting 0.6 percent and no delegates.
When the campaigning started, Clinton was seen as the “inevitable” winner while Sanders was just a sideshow. Since then, Sanders has surged to establish himself as a legit opponent. He nearly knocked off Clinton in Iowa, which she was predicted to win from the beginning.
This shows how far Sanders has come. It gives hope for his future campaigning because the polls show that the more people know about him, the more support he gains.
Sanders’ ever growing popularity can be attributed to his honesty, consistency, positivity and energy. He has always fought peacefully for what he believes in, from marching with Martin Luther King Jr. to running a grassroots, super-PAC free, no-attack campaign in hopes of becoming president.
What Sanders says may not be what some want to hear. But it’s evident he is saying it because he believes it and not because Wall Street told him to. Some Republicans are even impressed with Sanders, despite disagreeing with him fundamentally, because he is a man of solid character and consistently stands up for what he believes in.
The main reason people doubt Sanders is because they believe he is an economically-illiterate socialist. However, this is not true as he has been endorsed by over 170 economists and intelligent thinkers like Noam Chomsky. While Sanders is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, it is worth noting his ideas are similar to FDR’s and those of the Nordic nations. These countries, such as Finland, Norway and Denmark, are top-ranking nations in happiness and education, according to Forbes.
How will he pay for it his ideas of free college and healthcare? Sanders’ tax increases will not affect the middle class nor the poor, but rather Wall Street instead. He will hit the same people responsible for the 2008 economic recession as well as cutting tax loopholes, which account for billions of dollars lost according to Sanders, the hardest.
Sanders will also reduce the military budget. It currently makes up 54.1 percent of the national budget and is greater than the military budgets of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, France, the U.K., India and Germany combined according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. This money will go towards making college more affordable, thus creating a more intelligent population who will get better jobs. That in turn gives citizens more cash to spend which will stimulate the economy.
Sanders has also been criticized for his inexperience, saying that he will not be able to work out deals as president. But this is simply false, as he has been doing this for years in Congress.
In addition, Sanders is also fighting for the environment and clean energy sources.
Sanders’ campaign is funded by the people while Hillary’s is mostly financed by Wall Street super-PACs according to Politifact.
Yet she claims she will fight for the people, who just so happen to be against the same companies that are funding her.
Clinton has been known to flip-flop on issues like same-sex marriage and the Iraq War, while Sanders was supporting marriage equality since the 1960s and opposed the Iraq War from day one, and even though his ideas on guns have changed somewhat, he is by far the most consistent candidate on the board.
With support for Sanders increasing, Clinton has resorted to grasping at straws to stop him, saying such things like he is the more “establishment” candidate. The difference is, Sanders “establishment” is one made up of the American people.
