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THE VOLUME 90 | ISSUE IX
T
he Democratic party must blame themselves for losing on every front during last week’s elections. They have tried their best to portray themselves as the bastion of inclusivity, a party which welcomes all Americans regardless of race or religion or sexual orientation, courting the black vote, the latino/a vote the minority of the week’s vote—but those leading the Democrats have allowed themselves to become disengaged and disinterested in bestowing their help on anyone who isn’t solely interested in furthering their own personal agendas, and now they have to pay the price.
Signs of the shifting political landscape were made clear at the outset of the GOP and Democratic primaries, as voters flocked to outsider, antiestablishment candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders—but those in power wouldn’t listen. In a nation plagued by political gridlock, still feeling the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, and largely
ANCHOR
November 14 2016
© The Anchor 2016
RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14,2016
DIVIDED WE FALL
disillusioned regarding the trustworthiness of career politicians, millions upon millions are clamoring for something different. A horrifying and embarrassing 13 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing and only half of Americans even bother to vote! We just want someone we could believe in again, but the Democratic party, locked in their outdated mindset and married to Wall Street money, refused to acknowledge this. They clung to everything voters hated about the established political systems, closed their eyes, and pretended everything would work out in their favor in the end. When Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democratic National Convention rigged the primary race to ensure Hillary Clinton would win, they weren’t thinking about what the people wanted in a candidate, only what they themselves wanted. The more people pushed back against Clinton’s questionable connections to Wall Street, her typical
political flip-flopping and maneuvering and her trouble with the FBI, the more the Democratic Party doubled down on supporting her. Clinton was never the candidate voters wanted— she was everything Americans have come to despise about politicians and the establishment—but she was the candidate most willing to play ball with the rest of the Democrats and their bedfellows, and that was all that mattered. In their boundless arrogance, the Democratic Party never even considered the fact that Trump could beat them, and they never thought it necessary to change themselves for the voters.
And so people didn’t show up for the Democrats. Lifelong blue voters shrugged off their party, white women and white men, poor rural voters, latinos, muslims and millennials broke out of the abusive relationship with the parties that had fed them lies and courted their vote to then shut their ears and eyes to the very people who got them elected. Turning their
backs and opening their purses to lobbyists, special interest parties, Wall Street and the wealthy few. So America voted Trump, because desperate times call for desperate measures.
Desperate voters who have watched their way of life crumble, their incomes shrink and stretch to cover the skyrocketing costs of living, who see little hope in another “lesser of two evils” and want real change.
Instead of creating division in households, in families and in classrooms, Americans must turn to face the next issue, gear up for the next battle.
The U.S. has a stagnating economy, a country left behind by globalization, is actively furthering the destruction of our environment, a vanishing middle class, 15 million children living in poverty, 6 million citizens who cannot vote because of felony disenfranchisement, 50 thousand homeless veterans, a generation’s future being held ransom by the government, 1.2
trillion dollars in student loan debt, we are the only developed nation that does not have universal paid leave for mothers who have just given birth and we are still shooting rubber bullets at Indigenous children when they defend their sacred land against the interests of corrupt corporations.
This is not the time to let your voice be silenced, but instead to let this drive you to do better and to be better. No can ever put you down for being passionate about something you believe in, because that alone speaks volumes about your character. Whether you get involved at the local, state or national level, or simply by spreading the word around your college campus, the time has come. Collectively, we face a global threat of terrorism, rising oceans, and a concentration of power and money in the hands of the few, not the many. There will never be another chance to become informed, become involved and leave something better for those who follow us.
Rhode Island College’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1928