BY COLE WHITE | Opinion Editor | As a disclaimer, I will admit that I am a fan of Bernie Sanders. I will admit that I do not care for Donald Trump. But there’s something behind both of their rapid rises that we need to take note of as a nation.
In all of this debate we’ve lost sight that Trump and Sanders are essentially the opposite sides of the same coin. At a fundamental level, they’re playing the same part.
Both are outsider candidate that everyone laughed at initially. Both of their popularities skyrocketed in the face of all the experts. Both funded their campaigns without using the traditional campaign finance system. Both posed lofty ideas for the future of America.
Both spoke to America’s innate desire to see “politics as usual” end.
In the end, Trump’s idea to build a massive wall isn’t any crazier than Sanders’ idea to make every public college tuition free.
What happened was over the past decade or so we’ve become so entrenched in sides that we’ve lost all levity. We drove those wedges between the parties so far that now there’s little hope for compromise. It doesn’t matter which side of the political spectrum you fall in. The most popular candidates are the two farthest extremes of the spectrum. The internet was our Frankenstein laboratory, and we’ve created two distinct Americas to fight one another.
Trump is essentially the physical embodyment of Breitbart.com the same way that Sanders is the physical embodyment of Upworthy. They’re both walking clickbait, and that is the political world we created.
We all have to admit that Trump can never succeed in all of his grandiose claims any more than Sanders can. Trump will be done-in by his own shallow pool of rhetoric that can’t drum up much more support than aging fearful white men. Sanders hopes will more than likely go the same route as President Obama’s platform of “hope and change:” strangled to death by an uncooperative congress.
But let’s say, hypothetically, they both do secure the nominations and run against one another. Let’s say we pit these two Americas against one another. What would happen?
Sanders would win.
The fatal flaw of Trump’s campaign, and ultimately what's been slowly dragging down the Republican party for years, doesn’t lie in his rhetoric or publicity stunts. It lies in his slogan. America doesn’t need to be made great again. It just needs to be made great. Trump idealizes the past. Sanders idealizes the future.
That difference is what will always sway voters, particularly millennials. For how many disparaging comments have been thrown at them for being apathetic, there’s solid reasoning behind it.
Millennials have almost completely grown up under the shadows of two New York towers that no longer exist. They grew up during the two longest wars in American history. They grew up in economic crisis.
Millennials are a generation that are tired of being afraid, tired of fighting and tired of there not being enough.
Obama’s hope failed, and Sanders’ may too. But of these two Americas, the one that looks forward will always be the one that perseveres.
If you are a liberal that hates Trump, you have to be able to work with conservatives. If you are a conservative that hates Sanders, you have to be able to work with liberals. There’s doesn’t have to be two Americas. We all share this country, and only together can we make America great.