Why I’m Voting for Bernie: An Anatomy of a Sanders Supporter

I am a high school social studies teacher.  I am a white male from a middle class background.  I grew up in a conservative town in a conservative state.  At age 30, I am one of the older Millenials.  I have a Master’s degree in public administration from a state university.  My family lives in a relatively new house that is within the size bracket of a starter home.  We have a seven-year-old son.  I drive a Toyota Corolla.  We have a French bulldog.

I am a Bernie Sanders supporter.  There are many of us.  I suspect there are many, many more who have yet to make their support known.  Some may hesitate because they have an irrational aversion to the word “socialism.”  Others may hesitate because they believe, mistakenly, that only Hillary Clinton can win a general election contest.  Still others may hesitate because they fear that supporting Bernie Sanders means they are not doing well under our current system.  In our social media world, we do not want to look less than perfect.  We want to pretend that nothing in our lives is broken.

I am supporting Bernie Sanders because the system is broken.  Period.  It is not working.

The system is not working when two adults who are employed full-time cannot afford to have a second child.  The system is not working when the only way to advance your career is to gamble on taking out student loans to pursue graduate degrees, hoping that you get the promotion and make enough extra income to pay back the loans.  The system is not working when two employed adults, who have good health insurance, lay awake at night and pray that an upcoming surgery will be covered.

You tend to think a lot about higher education funding when you need to get another Master’s degree to advance your career…even if your work will be essentially identical to the work you perform today.  I need 18 credit-hours of graduate-level economics to teach my subject dual-credit, allowing my AP economics students to earn credit from the local community college.  The high school receives points from the state for its level of dual-credit offerings, but I would have to pay the graduate school tuition out of my own pocket.

Same class, same instruction, but I will have to pay thousands of dollars to be able to qualify as a dual-credit teacher.  I will make additional income from being a dual-credit teacher, but not a lot.  Is it worth jeopardizing my family’s financial stability to pay out-of-pocket for my six classes of graduate-level economics?  Is it worth it to sink my family’s budget in hopes of furthering my career?

If I want to be an administrator at the high school someday, I will have to get a principal certification.  This requires twenty-one credit-hours of university education.  Again, entirely out of pocket.  With both graduate programs, I would be subsidizing lots of university services and infrastructure I would never use, agree with, or even appreciate.

To become a dual-credit teacher or an administrator, I would be subsidizing college administrator salaries and perks packages.  I would be subsidizing full-service food courts, deluxe gymnasiums, and penthouse suite dormitories.  My tuition would help fund excessive sports programs, over-budget stadiums and auditoriums, and even paid speeches by politicians and other celebrities.  And even if I got the full Master’s degrees in both programs, going beyond the required credit-hours, there would be no guarantee that I would get the desired promotions.

I would have to start paying back the loans with my baseline salary.  That would mean resources taken away from my wife, my child.  How could I look my son in the eye and tell him that the reason we can’t go on vacation this year or buy Christmas presents is because I need to pay back student loans?  We are supposed to take risks in a market economy, but it is hard to take those risks when the economy is weak and you have a family.  These days, risks are for the rich.

You tend to think a lot about higher education funding when you have to put money into your kid’s college fund today so that you can buy credit-hours at today’s prices.  Your budget is tight, and you often go over, but you know that you cannot afford what tuition will soon become.  You sacrifice today in hopes that, by the time your child graduates from high school, most of college tuition will be paid for.  You try not to think about what you will have to do if it is not.

 

You tend to think a lot about health care finance when your wife has to have surgery.  Having to have surgery is stressful enough…but then add in the possibility that you might go bankrupt trying to pay what the insurance company decides not to cover?  When my wife and I realized that she would have to have surgery, it was a sobering, frightening conclusion.

We lay awake that night, afraid.  She asked how we were going to pay for it, and I told her not to worry.  I said it would all be just fine.  Inside, I felt uneasy.  No husband ever wants to feel that way, especially when it comes to caring for his family.

What if insurance doesn’t cover enough of it?  Where can I get the rest of the money?  

The injustice of the situation burned inside me.  Where I work, at a public high school, any child or teenager can walk through the doors and receive high quality goods and services for zero cost.  The children of health insurance executives can receive my services for free, courtesy of public funding.  But if my child gets sick?  I better hope that my health insurance, for which I pay a pretty penny, deigns to cover it.

 

You tend to think a lot about taxes when you pray that your mortgage payments don’t go up each year, and that you’ll get enough of an income tax refund.  When your budget is stretched thin and you go over, you need that refund to balance it out.  When costs are rising but your checking account struggles to remain at the same baseline balance, you tend to think a lot.  The system is broken when two hardworking adults with one child cannot get ahead in America.

 

I am supporting Bernie Sanders because he will fight to fix the system.  Really fix the system.  Bernie Sanders is, and has always been, a fighter.  Despite tremendous Congressional and bureaucratic obstacles, he will not abandon his goals.  I want a president who fights for me.  I want a president who does not fear change.

America’s families need this.  We do not need another career politician who will focus on pragmatism and compromise.  Pragmatism and compromise do not work to protect the working and middle classes because the wealthy have all the time, resources, and advantages they need to rig a “compromise” and a “pragmatic solution” to suit them.  Incremental changes will be adjusted and co-opted to minimize their burdens on the wealthy.  The rich will find the loopholes, the exceptions, the ways around.

I do not want to vote for a moderate, a pragmatist.  I have to be a moderate and a pragmatist in my own life.  I drive an economy car.  I keep my thermostat at 79 in the summer and 60 in the winter.  I order off the dollar menu.  Since I know that a pragmatic president won’t significantly help my wallet, I am willing to vote for an idealistic president who will help my heart and soul.  I am willing to vote for a candidate who will make me feel optimistic, energized, and patriotic.

Even if I knew that president Bernie Sanders would spend eight years stymied by Congress, I would still vote for him over a “moderate” and “pragmatist” whose policies quickly eroded into nothingness for those who needed help.  Any one of Bernie Sanders’ proposed reforms, bold and comprehensive, is worth a score of moderate “compromise” proposals.

I am willing to fight for universal health care.  I am willing to fight for tuition-free public higher education for qualified students.  I am willing to fight for more money to be spent on the public sector and to revitalize America’s infrastructure.  These are things I need.  These are things my family needs.  These are things other developed nations have, but which we lack.  It is both an oddity and a tragedy that only one presidential candidate is fighting for these things.

Bernie Sanders is above politics and posturing.  He wants to help.  He wants answers to our economic problems.  He wants solutions to our struggles.  I want these things, and I demand them as a voter.  Please do not assume that I will vote Democratic even if Sanders is not the nominee.  I will vote for the man because he is honest, aggressive, and seeks results.  I will cast my vote for any man or woman who will help my family.  If this is not done on the left, I will listen to the right.  The DNC and RNC should never, ever take my vote for granted.  My idealism is focused around ideas and action, not labels and traditions.

Though my wallet may be pragmatic, my vote is, and will remain, idealistic.  I am thirty years old and I want a chance at a brighter, more stable, and more prosperous future.  I want a better future for my son, who wants to grow up to be a doctor.  I want Bernie Sanders for president.