Over thirteen thousand people gathered around a passionate, hand-talking Bernie Sanders in Boston Common on Saturday, February 29th, proving Sanders’ worthiness of democratic frontrunner in the upcoming election. Sanders rounded up award-winning banjo player Bela Fleck to accompany him in rallying up this large number of people, which proved extremely effective and was a crowd-favorite. This large outcome was monumental due to Massachusetts being fellow democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren’s home-state. If Warren claims to be progressive like Bernie and is from Massachusetts, why was she unable to do the same numbers as him?
Bernie answered this during his rally in Boston. While Warren lacks genuinity and appeal to younger voters, Sanders has repeatedly demonstrated appeal to all voters, regardless of age, race, economic class, or sexuality. The diversity in the crowd on Saturday was vast. I was able to look around and see people who looked just like me, which is always comforting, but was also faced with thousands of people of all immensely different backgrounds. In the past, Sanders has been known to appeal mostly to younger voters due to his progressive views on climate change, the student-debt crisis, and social issues, but at this most recent rally, I was pleasantly surprised at the large amount of older supporters in the crowd. As the other democratic candidates begin to struggle with funding and drop out of the race, their supporters are left with very few candidates to choose from. Sanders’ numbers have been rising exponentially as the other candidates drop out, which only diversifies his crowd even more. Older progressive democratic voters are left with no choice but to support Bernie, as he is one of very few candidates left with enough funding and support to continue the race.
An article from The Atlantic discusses how while Sanders is driving a new radicalism in America, Warren’s goal is to return to a time when our economy was “less captured by Big Business”. This is a key example of why Bernie’s campaign has been more successful than Warren’s, as most progressive Americans are looking for new strategies to help our struggling economy rather than returning to previous policies. Both candidates are against Big Business, but attack the issue from a different angle. Although targeting Warren would’ve been easy during his rally on her home-turf last weekend, Sanders instead focused on the larger picture, which has also contributed to his campaign success so far. Throughout his entire campaign, Sanders has not said a single hurtful thing about Warren. Rather than taking down his Democratic opponents, Sanders’ ultimate goal is to take down Donald Trump. This appeals to a large majority of democrats because most would rather have any democratic candidate in office than Trump. Throughout the rally, Bernie spoke about not allowing President Trump to destroy democracy in America as we know it.
The rally in Boston proved that Sanders’ genuinity as a candidate and appeal to a diverse crowd are qualities that have the power to push him ahead in the race. Although he is now the progressive frontrunner and has proved his power over Warren, does he have the power to take over moderate Biden too?
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