OPINION

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Young people are the best teachers when it comes to activism

ANNA FUDER/Daily

LINDSEY SPENCER Opinion Columnist

Today, many young people, especially students, want to be vocal advocates for the issues that they care about. With so many issues directly impacting this generation, like gun violence, climate change and student debt, it is difficult to ignore the intensifying need for the pursuit of activism. The problem, though, is that there are so many ways to vocalize these goals to the broader population. Finding the most effective way to express your interests is essential to being your own sort of “perfect” activist.

Variations of activism such as voting, participating in political campaigns and protesting are important for advocacy. These acts are deemed essential to making our mark on the democratic process, but the elementary variable behind each of them is oftentimes left out. Keeping every political action, every campus protest and every activist campaign afloat is the fundamental value of education. Whether it be from the courses we take or the campus organizations we associate ourselves with, lifelong learning and education are essential to becoming the best advocates we can be.

Passion about political issues can get you to a successful point of activism, but to fuel that passion, you need information. Living in the digital age, a constant stream of political news can be overwhelming, so organizing things like workshops, seminars and organizations of like-minded advocates can assist in making this flow much more efficient and accessible.

For the purpose of this argument, I am going to focus on what has generally taught me the most about activism — the teachings of other students. Education has always been important in my life, but it has been especially key when it comes to my personal and political development. I’ve learned a lot from courses on U.S. government and civics that have given me a life-long interest in politics, but it has been the students I have surrounded myself with that have heavily influenced my store of information on social issues. In a world where young people are becoming increasingly more involved in political issues, it is essential that our generation is the one to fuel the future of social movements and education.

Public Policy senior Elizabeth Peppercorn is the president of the campus organization Students for Democracy, which prioritizes political research and advocacy as a means of education. She said that “student education is an important element in activism because education provides students with the tools and facts they need to make strong arguments and educated stances on issues.” Not only is it essential to have the proper tools for advocacy, but it is even more important that organizations communicate with students in a way that they best understand and can respond to directly. Being aligned with student organizations focused on political research, outreach and education gives young people the chance to learn and grow as emerging individuals in the democratic process.

But why is it so important that it be “student-centered” education? The answer is that a platform “by” and “for” young people when it comes to policy and justiceoriented movements allows for the effective building of advocates and advocacy groups.

When we formulate an interactive and dialoguebased program aimed directly at students, they feel more comfortable sharing their opinions and concerns and can better understand issues from a more personalized perspective. Students may learn primarily from their teachers, but it is other young people that truly influence their actions, understand their interests and empathize with their hopes and fears for the future. This is why activism directed by young people is essential to solving the central political causes of the day — they understand and will face their effects to the greatest extent, and can best reach others in that same situation.

This focus on education is not to say that we need to lessen the pressure to vote and protest and petition — it’s actually a call to continue these methods and make them more effective. We see student activists across the country using their voices on stages and in the streets to put pressure on politicians to act, but none of this would be possible without education. Young people everywhere are being motivated to become involved because they are being surrounded by hopeful activists that frequently discuss social issues in a way they can empathize with. Peppercorn said that “activism is an important element of student life in general because students and youth today want to make a better world for themselves and for future generations.” When we listen to other students and hear their opinions, we are prompted to educate ourselves and continue the cycle for generations to come.

Activism is only successful when there is a strategy behind it. This strategy can vary from organization to organization but each one is primarily built around structural foundations and methodology, all of which depend on a sound educational platform. Advocacy can’t get off the ground without proper technique and facts to support it, so we need to take the time to develop the relevant skills to conjure the most effective and inspirational activism possible.

The way that we can do such a thing is with proper motivational political education, which is especially powerful when it is expressed by young people. Student organizations focused on political involvement at the University of Michigan should be put on a pedestal, involving the campus community with handson educational workshops catered not only toward politicallyinclined students, but those new to the scene as well; everyone should be welcome.

Older generations constantly say that young people have the “power to change the world.” This phrase is true, but we can only use this power if we take the appropriate steps to becoming the best activists we can be. We can’t go blind into our advocacy — we need to avoid being “performative” and misguided, which means that political education needs to take precedence if we desire effective change. We can’t rely on the formulaic teachings from our introductory politics courses for this. Learning by doing and participating in dialogue with other passionate and like-minded young people is the key.

Whether you’re a political science major or a student in the College of Engineering, there is a campus organization out there for you to get involved in. Get out there, join a student organization with passionate people and start the dialogue in your own life. If you want to be the best activist you can be, this is the place to start. Spaces where young people teach other young people are where the best advocates of the twenty-first century find themselves — you can do the same.

Dear President Ono: No more activist administrators

PAUL SESI Opinion Contributor

Dear President Ono,

Welcome to the University of Michigan! My friends at the University of British Columbia tell me great things about your tenure there. I hope your approach embodies this university’s mission “to serve the people of Michigan and the world through preeminence in creating, communicating, preserving and applying knowledge, art, and academic values, and in developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future.”

As you begin your term, I feel it is important to bring to your attention the growing number of emails from the U-M leadership — including your predecessor — that take a specific stance not only on sensitive political and social issues of the day, but on issues for which there is no consensus among the diverse members of the U-M community of students, faculty and staff.

On behalf of community members, including myself, that feel marginalized because our personal beliefs do not align with those of the U-M leadership, I respectfully ask that you enact communication policies that either abstain from sending such partisan emails or at least include all sides and opinions on controversial topics. As a Chaldean-American and a first-generation college student, I believe that such actions will foster a diverse and inclusive environment at the University, which I feel has been noticeably absent during the past four years.

You, and other members of your administration, function as stewards for the University, which is, at the end of the day, a public institution. I humbly ask how partisan emails from the administration that opine on social issues — ranging from the Dobbs v. Jackson case to overturning Roe v. Wade to the Russian-Ukrainian and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts abroad — represent the diverse perspectives of the entire community. It is also not clear how such emails expressing the personal beliefs of U-M stewards differ from other university employees who misuse funds and resources for their own benefit while harming the institution’s stakeholders.

I appreciate the difficult nature of navigating hot-button topics, and I do not envy your job in that regard. While partisan emails to U-M stakeholders may temporarily appease some groups, I fear that appeasing a subset of our community is detrimental to long-term community value because it widens the divide between those on both sides of each issue.

For example, on June 24, 2022, Interim President Mary Sue Coleman sent an email weighing in on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, which sent decisions over abortion rights back to the states. Her electronic missive (emphasis added) stated: “I strongly support access to abortion services, and I will do everything in my power as president to ensure we continue to provide this critically important care. Our campus is more than half women; we care about our own communities as well as those we serve through clinical care and education. I am deeply concerned about how prohibiting abortion would affect U-M’s medical teaching, our research, and our service to communities in need.”

That email was written from a first-person perspective, which clearly represents her personal beliefs rather than those of a steward of the University’s general education mission. A mission that serves the University’s diverse stakeholders, including those that may take exception — which may include a portion of the “more than half of women” that Coleman cites — with the statement that abortions “provide this critically important care” to all members of our community, including future U-M stakeholders. For instance, how should devout Catholic students or pro-life members of our community feel when reading an email that sets the tone for the campus environment?

The University of Michigan’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan includes strategies for creating an inclusive and equitable campus climate. It states that the University has designed campus-wide action items to “encourage a culture of belonging in which every member of our community can grow and thrive.” How does espousing personal views from the sacred platform upon which you and others lead convey a sense of inclusion? How does it encourage diversity of thought when the views of the disaffected group are ignored or implicitly demonized?

In addition to sending partisan emails, the failure to send emails addressing other partisan issues also reduces a sense of inclusion to many on campus. The selective absence of emails on some topics provides a signal to our community that such issues are not noteworthy — especially when juxtaposed with emails on topics that the administration clearly believes are noteworthy. For example, our country lost 13 brave military service members on Aug. 26, 2021, when a Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Gay blood doesn’t exist

NAMRATHA NELAPUDI Opinion Columnist

Every November, the University of Michigan hosts an annual Blood Battle against The Ohio State University in a joint effort to increase the national supply of blood and bone marrow. Dr. Martino Harmon, the University’s vice president for student life, directs this initiative through day-long blood drives at various locations on campus nearly every single day in November. This year’s battle, the 40th of its kind, was kicked off in the Diag — accompanied of course by plenty of food, merchandise and sign-up information. Harmon’s promotional emails are filled with the necessary jargon to get students in the spirit of giving — “keep bleeding Maize and Blue,” “eat lots of iron-rich food” and “be a part of the fight to save lives across the state and country!”

Oddly, the battle cry to replenish America’s blood stores, which are at a record low, is not targeted at all viable donors. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency responsible for regulating blood donations, bans all men from giving blood within three months of having sexual intercourse with another man. This policy is the result of a 2020 change that reduced the donation deferral period from a year to three months. The FDA notes in this policy that given the advances in HIV detecting technology, this change is supported. But as recently as 2015, just a few years before this improvement, all men who have sex with a men were subjected to a lifetime ban on giving their blood.

In their guidance document, the FDA claims that up to 90% of potential donors that may be harboring blood diseases are ultimately deemed ineligible by their responses to a questionnaire about health history. However, deferring a man from donating just because he has had sex with another man is a gross reflection of the limited, under-researched and surface-level knowledge that the FDA had in their toolkit during the 1980s HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is now understood that there doesn’t exist, and never had existed, an exclusively “gayrelated immunodeficiency,” and any eligibility question that uses sexuality as a way to preclude all gay men from donating blood for a given period time is simply based in prejudice and non-science.

As it stands, a gay man in a 40-year monogamous relationship with another man is labeled as a higher risk for bloodborne diseases than a woman who has recently had unprotected sex with several partners. This juxtaposition of risk is substantiated, in part, by a nearly decade-old research finding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) stating that a history of male-tomale sex was associated with a 62-fold risk increase whereas a history of multiple partners of the opposite sex was associated with 2.3-fold increase. But given that other activities such as routine drug injection, prostitution and travel to malaria-prone countries are associated with both large multiplicities of risk and deferral periods of their own, it makes more sense to use individual risk assessments, not blanket deferral periods, as a way to determine blood donation eligibility. In this way, a gay man who is also a routine drug user and travels to malaria-prone countries has a higher risk score — and ultimately receives an individual ineligibility penalty that reflects engagement with these activities — than a gay man who does not partake in any other activities of high bloodborne disease contraction.

The key to rectifying this injustice is cold, hard data. Most available information shows that individual risk assessments, not time-based deferral strategies, are the right ways to counteract the spread of disease in the blood donation process.

It is clear that the artificial dichotomy between gay blood and healthy blood, a perception hand-crafted and unmoved by the FDA, only serves to stigmatize the LGBTQ+ community further. Moreover, giving heterosexual individuals the green light to engage in multiple forms of unsafe sex (which is a risk factor in itself) and donate blood in the same breath is a double standard, and one that people are not addressing in the correct manner. Half-hearted responses are a large reason why the policy still stands in 2022.

The U-M Blood Battle emails state that “Blood donation eligibility should not be determined based on sexual orientation and policy change is needed in order to achieve this goal. At the University of Michigan, we strive for our drives to provide as inclusive an atmosphere as possible.” These emails link to the Red Cross — an organization that actively opposes the FDA policy — for information about how LGBTQ+ men can contribute to the cause. The primary method through which these men are able to participate, though, is manning blood drive booths, recruiting donors and other administrative tasks.

Frankly, deferring to the Red Cross and vague DEI statements about inclusive atmospheres is a mismanagement of our resources here at the University of Michigan. As a research-heavy institution, we have the labs, researchers and money to get projects off the ground that would give the FDA’s Blood Products Advisory Committee indisputable evidence that our current understanding of risk assessment is wrong. Instead of cutting whole segments of the populace off from their ability to donate to blood, we should be focusing on data-intensive individual risk assessments that actually help in determining risk of disease.

While the FDA is researching alternative methods other than time-deferral, the University of Michigan has the finances to make these same investigations, as well as other kinds of advancements in blood testing, risk assessment accuracy and false-negative donor origins. Furthermore, we must do our due diligence by conducting research that supports exclusion criteria for heterosexual activities in which a similar causal relationship between the type of sex and infectivity exists. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

RUSHABH SHAH Opinion Columnist

Iwant to share something. A quote, from a conversation in season two of the TV series “Fleabag,” about pain. “Women are born with pain built in,” says one of the characters. “It’s our physical destiny — period pains, sore boobs, childbirth. You know we carry it within ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t. They have to seek it out. They invent all these gods and demons just so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars they can play rugby.” That last bit really stuck with me. When men cannot fight, they play sports.

I cannot recall a time when sports wasn’t a big part of my personality. The first time I remember being a sports fan was when I was six years old. Since then, I’ve spent many weekends sitting opposite a screen for hours, watching game after game. It’s a routine I enjoy and one that provides adequate distraction from the stress and pressures of, well, life.

That was how I planned to spend the weekend of October 29th as well.

The Sunday of that weekend, however, started on a somber note, because I came across the video of what transpired in the tunnel after the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game the previous night.

When I first saw the video, I didn’t really know how to react. The truth is, I had become numb to such incidents. It worried me that something as terrible as two college students being assaulted, as well as the manner in which it happened, wasn’t the most shocking thing I’d seen that week. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of thing I see regularly. The relationship between sports and violence is as gruesome as it is clear. I began seeing it at a very early age: “It (sport) is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence; in other words it is war minus the shooting.”

Although a tad bit extreme, the claim from George Orwell (author of “1984”) here is not baseless, and it sounds eerily similar to the line from “Fleabag.” The connection between war and men’s sports is a strong one that has survived in many forms to this day. It is so deeply ingrained in the culture, manifesting itself in everything from the vocabulary used within the sport (war jargon such as “last line of defense” is a commonly heard phrase, to name one) to the game itself.

I, like many sports fans around the world, saw athletes as role models — as people to be inspired by — and in turn, put them on a pedestal. It is because of the violence inherent to sports, however, that most sports fans learn sooner rather than later that this isn’t the healthiest practice. While I can proudly say today that I am able to separate the crimes of the athletes I once considered my heroes from my love of sport and what I think it should stand for, the aftermath of the Michigan-MSU game made me question it all.

Why do athletes and sports groups resort to violence as much as they do? For years I’ve seen sports pundits talk about how they like seeing passion and aggression on the pitch, and I can’t help but feel like the MSU players did what they did as a way to show how much they care. At some point, somebody told these young men that this is what they should do for the sport they claim to love. They should, as the cliché goes, “be willing to die for it.” And the unfortunate thing is that society, including even the most level-headed fan, builds these athletes up to such an extent that they think they’re invincible. That anything on the sports field goes.

No, it doesn’t.

For the sports fan out there who thinks jokingly passing a racist comment in the stands is okay, it isn’t. For the pundit who sits in the safety of a studio and claims “it’s a man’s game,” it isn’t. And for every college and pro athlete out there who thinks they are untouchable: you are not, no matter how much society might convince you otherwise. Sometimes we let the things we love get the better of our emotions, and while I can sympathize with that, because that’s what makes us human, I cannot accept it.

There are elements of our lives, like sport in my case, that matter just a little bit more than anything else. These are the things that keep us motivated, happy and sometimes even sane. And whatever that thing is for you, I promise you that it is beautiful, made even more so by the people who are a part of it. But not everybody associated with the thing you love will always be in the right. I’m here to tell you: Please don’t give up on it — don’t give up on the thing you love. Fight for it. Fight for what it truly stands for. Fight for it without hands or words, but with actions that affect real change and that bring people together.

That’s what it means to fight for the things we love.

Condemning Kanye West is easy, combatting antisemitism is harder

REBECCA SMITH Opinion Columnist

If you’ve been paying any attention to current events over the last few weeks, it’s likely you’ve heard a thing or two about Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — and the horrific antisemitic comments that have led to his downfall. The star took to Instagram in early October and began spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories. He claimed that Jews control the media, value their financial gain over everything else and more. He also insisted that he could not be antisemitic because he is Black and a “true descendant” of the Jewish people — another harmful conspiracy theory that paints modern-day Jews as “imposters” for the “real” descendants of the Israelites.

His account was quickly suspended, but he ran to Twitter, tweeting that he was going to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” This was the beginning of a very long, and still ongoing, fall down the antisemitic rabbit hole for West. In the coming weeks, he would not only defend these comments but reiterate them, along with similar antisemitic sentiments.

Controversy has followed West throughout his entire career. Recently he has been in flirtation with far-right politics while going through a messy divorce, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This particular social media fiasco has left his reputation more tarnished than ever. Several brands have suspended their deals with him, and his net worth has suffered, causing him to lose his former status as a billionaire.

Many are celebrating this outcome. Celebrities, politicians and others with a large platform have jumped on the anti-Kanye train, condemning him for his blatant hate speech. As a Jewish person, I would be happy to never hear from Ye again. Those who have dashed to his defense — mostly loyal fans — claim that we are too quick to cancel West, or that we need to consider his mental health struggles in our criticisms of him (even though antisemitism is definitely not a symptom of bipolar disorder) — but these individuals are in the minority. Thankfully, most have realized that West is not someone worth defending.

Being Jewish, it is refreshing to see so many people condemning West’s behavior and showing their support. We definitely need it. Shortly after West tweeted his intentions to go “death con 3” on all Jews, an antisemitic hate group appeared on the overpass of a Los Angeles Highway, waving around a banner that said “Kanye is right about the Jews” and rendering a Nazi salute to passing vehicles. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. There has been a significant increase in occurrences of public antisemitism since West’s comments exploded across social media, largely from already antisemitic individuals who are using West’s comments as a lens to further their own bigotry. Yet, even as I see my peers post about their support for Jews, I find myself asking a familiar question — where have these people been? What West is saying is not new. He’s relying on harmful tropes about Jews that have existed for millennia.

In a conversation with The Michigan Daily, Judaic Studies professor Jeffrey Veidlinger discussed some of the alarming antisemitic stereotypes that have stood the test of time. “The most prevalent trope of antisemitism is the myth that Jews have a disproportionate amount of power,” he said. They are imagined to have undue influence, and in more extreme versions, to even be controlling the world.”

West’s claims that Jews control the media and the economy reside in this exact trope. These conspiracy theories have been spreading for centuries, and while their presence may not always be as obvious as West has made them, they remain a background hum in the lives of many Jewish people, acting as a constant reminder that we will never quite be able to escape the grasp of antisemitism.

Rationally, it should not have taken Kanye West trending on Twitter for the internet to realize that Jews are in danger. Putting aside violent acts of antisemitism (though we have no shortage of those), the use of antisemitic dog whistles by our public leaders, celebrities and others has been a constant for years. Yet non-Jews are much more likely to allow it to fade into the background.

The only thing Kanye did differently was put it plainly. Jamie Moshin, communications and media lecturer, told The Daily that West’s position is particularly unique in this aspect. “He is being incredibly vocal about it,” he said.” He’s not closeting it or cloaking it, he’s doing it at the top of his lungs, and every time he’s told to stop, he doubles down and says something even more inflammatory.” In other words, his language is so outright horrible that anyone who claims to have a sliver of respect for Jews has to condemn him. While it is encouraging to see non-Jews offering their support, it is also, to put it simply, the bare minimum. Condemning Kanye is easy. What is harder is learning to recognize and combat the antisemitism we encounter in our every day lives.

The vast majority of people wouldn’t dare to render a Nazi salute. However, they will use coded, intentionally confusing language to convey their antisemitism. It is this kind of speech that is the easiest to make excuses for, particularly when it is a celebrity or politician that you agree with on other issues. Today, this is often seen through criticisms of the Zionist movement. Of course, criticizing Israel is not always inherently antisemitic. However, because this is such a contentious issue, positions on Israel have hardened and it has become nearly impossible to have a civil conversation about it without veering into offensive territory. It is then that criticisms of Israel can become rooted in antisemitism, largely because the Israel-Palestine conflict is such a complex issue and many do not know much about it.

We must shine a light on this more subtle antisemitism, firstly by not allowing our anger toward West to fade. Following the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in 2018, activism against antisemitism increased drastically in the months afterwards. Unfortunately, many have lost that vigilance since. We must fight back against this and use our anger as a jumpingoff point to show non-Jews that, while antisemitism is often made up of blatant acts of violence and hate speech, it is also manifest in subtle microaggressions that are collectively just as harmful. Only then can we begin to have a meaningful conversation about combatting antisemitism.

Why Bernie Sanders is so popular with young voters — an account of his campus visit

JOHN KAPCAR Opinion Columnist

During his stop in Ann Arbor this Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., made the case for reproductive rights, climate action and economic equality. I arrived at the event an hour and a half early with a question top of mind, a legal pad in hand and a readiness to write.

While in line, I was handed pamphlets by Communist party advocates, lectured about the need for tighter wastewater regulation in the Huron River and approached by young activists asking to sign me up for volunteer shifts. With a few exceptions, nearly everyone else in line was my age.

That’s to be expected on a college campus. However, Sanders has a long history of garnering youth support. Sanders has a 75% approval rating among young voters. President Joe Biden, in contrast, lags significantly behind with this group. Since 2018, young voter turnout has risen substantially. Attracting these voters is no longer optional. It’s critical to any Democratic victory in 2022 and 2024.

I attended Saturday’s event because I’ve had a question Berning since Sanders’s first presidential race in 2016: How on earth did this 81-year-old man become so popular with people young enough to be his grandchildren?

Based on his speech Saturday, Sanders’s popularity with young voters stems from three characteristics.

First, Sanders’s independent standing gives him more leave to criticize both mainstream political parties. He’s able to quickly pivot to issues young people care about and he’s an expert at energizing and connecting with supporters.

If other Democrats want to be as popular with Generation Z as Sanders is, they’ll have to start incorporating some of his strategies into their own campaigns.

Though he caucuses with the Democrats, Sanders isn’t a Democrat himself. Officially, Sanders is an independent, and describes himself as a “democratic socialist.” Because of this, Sanders has had more openings to critique both parties.

Sanders’s contempt for the GOP is well documented. Two weeks ago, he accused the Republican Party of having no economic plan beyond blaming liberals and called election-denying from the right “a cowardly, wimpy response to political defeat” on Saturday.

But he hasn’t left the Democratic Party bruiseless either. He recently asserted that “the Democratic party has turned its back on the working class” as a cause for the rise of Republicanism in rural areas.

In a world where most Americans have an unfavorable view of both Democrats and Republicans and 56% want a third party, that independence is a strength and a quality to whivh voters are increasingly responsive. Candidates who can balance supporting their party while also criticizing it are in demand.

Second, Sanders recognizes that the youth bloc simply has different priorities than the rest of the country. From the students I interviewed at the event, a few common issues stuck out: reproductive rights, access to health care and student loan forgiveness. As if he overheard us, Sanders highlighted all three in his speech. To clarify, a Democrat doesn’t necessarily need to agree with Sanders to get that support. Ignoring these causes, however, is a non-starter. To mimic Sanders, candidates need to recognize the importance of these issues and offer up their own solutions.

On stage, Sanders struck first at abortion. Sarcastically calling Supreme Court justices “geniuses,” he criticized the Dobbs decision that let states ban abortion in June, saying, “It’s hard to believe … in the year 2022 these people have determined that women are not intelligent enough to control their own bodies.” These comments were met with resounding applause.

With health care, Sanders focused on the rising cost of prescription drugs, speaking to how he and his supporters drove from Michigan to Ontario, Canada to buy insulin at “10% of the cost.” These comments, too, were met with applause.

When Sanders got to the issue of education, shouts of “I love you, Bernie!” had been exclaimed and audience members had burst from their seats to clap multiple times. The energy was electric. Sanders argued that forgiving student loan debt and expanding access to college education were necessary to ensure global competitiveness. Rather than settle for Biden’s limited student debt forgiveness program, Sanders advocated for free college and university tuition nationwide, concluding that “We’ve got to cancel all student debt in this country.” You can imagine what the crowd of around 1,000 college students thought of that idea.

My final point rests on Sanders’s ability to connect with and energize voters, both on stage and through other mediums. LSA sophomore Vrunda Patel, who attended Saturday’s event, highlighted Sanders’s use of social media to connect with young voters, saying, “It’s really encouraging to see him post [about] … the difference in wages for women and men … those are issues that matter to us.” LSA junior Kadisha Akbar echoed that sentiment, saying, “He’s funny and relatable.”

Toward the end of the event, I was ushered backstage past Capitol police to meet the Senator himself before he continued on to Pennsylvania, the last stop on his tour before Election Day Tuesday. We smiled for a picture, I put my hand around his shoulder and stammered a quick “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

For all his divisive speeches, bombastic comments and farreaching policies, Bernie Sanders feels radically familiar. Sanders is credible when he criticizes both parties. He’s credible when he gives his position on an issue. He’s credible when he speaks to his audience, be it onstage, online or behind a curtain. When Sanders gets quiet, leans forward and starts a rant with “what politicians often don’t tell you…” young people believe him. Young voters trust Bernie Sanders. That’s why he’s loved by so many.

TESS CROWLEY/Daily