Thank You, Bernie

As Senator Bernie Sanders gets closer to conceding the Democratic primary, something historic is happening. Not just that Hillary Clinton will be the first woman to be a major party's candidate. No, something even bigger is happening.

What Bernie Sanders brought to the election was really a political revolution. If you asked anyone how a self-proclaimed democratic socialist would do in the Democratic primaries against none other than Hillary Clinton, they would have thought you to be crazy. As soon as the 2012 election was over and Obama was re-elected, Hillary Clinton became the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee.

Yet a Senator in the shadows, Bernie, came up and announced he was going to challenge her in late April of 2015. No one thought he had any chance. In fact, people considered him a little bit crazy and off the rocker. Various protests were made against his candidacy.

"He has no chance!"

"He is too old!"

"Oh come on, he's a socialist!"

There was one person in particular who thought he had no chance back then. Me. I remember getting the AP Mobile alert on my school iPad that he had announced his candidacy. I thought to myself that this guy had no chance. The only thing he was doing was blocking Vice President Biden from getting to a one-on-one challenge with Hillary Clinton. I supported Joe Biden back then and really wanted him to be President. In fact, whenever I recited all the Presidents' names (I used to do this to brag about my knowledge) I would always follow up "Barack Hussein Obama II" with "Joseph Robinette Biden Jr."

To me, Bernie Sanders was a long-shot who would only act as a spoiler candidate. I also had the common misconception that many people still hold, that socialism is communism. I didn't think he should be our President; I didn't want a communist in charge!

It was June of 2015, a full year ago, when I started to take Bernie seriously. There were videos of him speaking online. I started watching him and then started my support of him as a candidate. I learned that socialism was not at all the same thing as communism. My support of a $10.10 minimum wage became a support of a $15 minimum wage. I had once laughed at the idea of making public college tuition-free, now I was a full-fledged supporter of that.

Bernie singlehandedly pushed me to the left on many issues. Even as I was receiving emails for the "Draft Biden" campaign, I signed up at berniesanders.com. What followed throughout the summer was my support for Bernie increasing and I became increasingly conflicted over a Biden candidacy. I still hoped that the Vice President would join the race, but each day, I became a stronger supporter of the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Then, in mid-July, I took a candidate's quiz to see where I matched with each candidate. I matched 98% with Bernie Sanders and 91% each with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. If it wasn't official already, it was now. I was completely for Bernie Sanders. The push leftwards was complete.

After the push leftwards was complete, next became the advocating. I had told some of my friends to support Bernie Sanders, sending them videos of his speeches, and all that. However, by the end of the July, as I fully embraced the Bernie Sanders campaign, I became obnoxious about it.

I could not stop talking about Bernie Sanders. I occasionally wore my Bernie pin to school on normal day, but I also wore my Bernie pin on every single primary and caucus day. When we did Kahoots in class, my name was almost always Bernie Sanders related. We received a free Bernie Sanders bumper sticker in the mail and I put that on my multi-binder. During standardized testing, I re-read for the 100th time the Bernie Sanders autobiography, Outsider in the White House. For Halloween, I dressed up as Bernie Sanders. For a comic book cover that we had to create in art, my comic was called "Socialist Man".

All my friends were thoroughly annoyed with my obsession with Bernie Sanders. When anyone said a witty insult, I would yell, "Feel the Bern! Bernie Sanders for President 2016!". That led to my Language Arts teacher jokingly threaten me with detention. At least, I hope it was jokingly.

As Bernie Sanders rose in the polls, I would follow with enthusiasm. In the ultra-close Iowa Caucuses, I stayed up until midnight, hoping for a Bernie victory. Even though he ultimately lost, it was a major victory that he had managed to give Hillary Clinton a run for her money. When he won the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, I loudly yelled, "YES!".

If there was one word to describe my 7th grade year, it was "Bernie". After Bernie Sanders lost the Illinois primary, basically everyone took the liberty to inform me about the loss as if I hadn't already known about it. I became tied with Bernie Sanders.

As Bernie's chance of winning the nomination became slimmer and slimmer, I couldn't bear the idea of him conceding. I came closer and closer to becoming a "Bernie or Bust" guy. One of my friends, a Hillary Clinton supporter, kept on pressing me on whether Bernie should concede the nomination and whether I would support Hillary. Finally, I just told him that I would support the Green Party if Bernie didn't win the nomination and Hillary Clinton did not name a progressive as her running mate.

Of course, I most likely will end up supporting Clinton if she gets the nomination, which is basically inevitable for her right now. Hopefully, she'll name a good progressive, like Elizabeth Warren or perhaps Bernie himself, as her running mate. What I hope is that Bernie now gets a major role in the DNC to shape the platform.

What Bernie has brought to this election was, basically, a political revolution. He has brought progressive ideas and the left wing of the Democratic Party, which he wasn't even a part of at the beginning of 2015, in the spotlights. While campaigning, he also advertised such congressional candidates as Lucy Flores, Pramila Jayapal, Zephyr Teachout, Tim Canova, Eric Kingson, and Paul Clements. Although Lucy Flores ended up losing her primary, this is still a strong, progressive lot that would tip the ideological balance of Congress leftwards.

Although we may not see the immediate effects in the 2016 election, or perhaps even in the 2020 election, I don't think it's too radical to say that in the 2024 elections, there'll be progressive candidates everywhere. The Democratic Party will complete its push leftwards. All of this will be because of Bernie and his political revolution.

As the primary wraps up, I have only one thing to say - which millions of people across the nation are also saying:

Thank you, Bernie!

A Better Democracy

America prides itself on being the world's greatest democracy, however that is not always the case. We need a plan to fix our broken electoral system, which can be done by following a plan for a better democracy.

A Plan for a Better Democracy:

• Have each congressional district lay within a certain population range
• Put redistricting into the hands of local independent commissions
• Remove the Electoral College
• Replace First Past the Post voting system with Alternate Vote
• Hold elections on weekends or over multiple days
• Remove caucuses
• Replace current presidential primary and caucus system with single nationwide vote
• Remove super delegates (Democratic Party only)
• Remove Super PACs
• Shorten campaign season
• Giving Puerto Rico, Washington DC, and the other territories a say

Over the summer, I'll post elaborations on every single one of these points, if I have not yet done so. 

America is a great nation and it revolutionized the world when it became the first modern democratic republic in the late 18th century. It's time that we take things one step forward and become an even more democratic nation that the rest of the world will look up to.