Aki Soga

Free Press Engagement and Insights Editor

WATERLOO, Iowa - Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders fills his stump speech with angry words against the rich and powerful, whom he says have rigged the system against the American people.

Sanders identifies the enemies of the people: An economy "bought and paid for" by big money interests, corporations that so underpay workers that they have to turn to assistance even though they have full-time jobs; right-wing Republicans, "and they’re all right wing” who would deny women access to abortion, and gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.

Sanders’ America is a bleak land of the down trodden, but the supporters who pack his rallies respond with cheers. The rooms are filled with hope.

And that may be the secret of the self-proclaimed democratic socialist’s unlikely presidential run.

Sanders’ supporters see the candidate’s anger as an expression of their own discontent with the status quo. The 74-year-old man with tousled white hair stands on the stage and puts into words the fears and frustration of people who had all but given up on anything better than making do within a system they suspect is heavily stacked against them.

“People really see it as he’s talking to them,” said Steve Abbott, president of the Iowa State Council of the Communication Workers of America, which has endorsed Sanders

Standing outside the Newton’s Paradise Café in downtown Waterloo Sunday morning, Abbott said seeing a major presidential candidate focus on economic equality and social justice gives hope that those issues finally will be addressed.

Desirrae Jones, of Macon, Georgia, a political science and communications major at Mercer University, is in Iowa as a volunteer for the Sanders campaign.

Jones sees anger as necessary given the state of the country.

“I’m mad,” she said Sunday afternoon at a Sanders rally in Waterloo. “You have to show some level of anger.”

But Sanders is more than a cranky old man, Jones said.

“He’s more passionate than angry, she said. “That makes you hopeful because he is so positive.”

That’s where Sanders bridges his anger to hope. He talks about injustice with single-minded intensity. By railing about the ills of the world, he conjures up a better society within reach, only if everyone works hard enough – and turns out for Monday’s caucus.

“I see it as urgent and we don’t have much time,” Abbott said.

Contact Aki Soga at (802)881-3616 or asoga@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/asoga.