The rise of Bernie Sanders’ campaign unifies by class, not by party lines.

I was born in 1995, which means I’m a “cusper.” On the younger side of Millennials, and on the older side of Gen Z. I have 6 figures of student loan debt and crippling depression. I wasn’t old enough to make a MySpace on my own and I have no plans to download TikTok. You get the point. There’s a lot of debate over arbitrary dates to define generations, but personally, I think the Millennial/Gen Z line is based on whether or not you remember 9/11.

I was 6 years old in September 2001, and while I have memories before that, none are as clear or distinct as that day. Basically all of my life takes place in the fallout from the greatest tragedy to ever happen to the United States. I grew up in a country that cranked the patriotism to 11, and those that spoke out against that idea were demonized. Which includes the Iraq War. While I was too young to have an opinion on United States foreign policy at the time, most of the “adults in the room” felt completely justified in starting a war that continues to this day, with no clear reason or path to resolution.

Three subsequent presidents have failed the American people.

It is not a radical leftist idea to be vehemently anti-war. It should be the standard. Supporting a commander-in-chief that you can trust to not have any ties to Halliburton, Raytheon, or other genocidal arms dealers is not radical. This has been a result of the Overton window moving increasingly to the right since Reagan. Working class people have been so inundated with propaganda in every aspect of society that they defend the warmongers in office that have sent our young people to war zones they’ve created to increase profits for the shareholders of companies they’ve been the CEO of (cough, Dick Cheney).

It’s time to move the Overton window back to where FDR put it and where the rest of the major countries on Earth have it. It’s time to unify as a class, instead of party, and work in our interests. It’s time to understand our interests do not include sending young working class people, our people, to die in endless wars that do nothing but act as an imperialist presence. It’s time for a president that acts against that.

I was 19 years old in 2015 when I first heard of Senator Sanders, and democratic socialism, for that matter. I found solace in a leader that has a sense of empathy and believes that the country that put a man on the moon is capable of providing healthcare to all citizens.

Bernie Sanders’ antiwar ideals would make him the most pro-veteran and pro-armed forces president we’ve had in the modern age. Last night at the debate, Senator Sanders said something that I never would have thought to hear a candidate for president say, let alone the frontrunner. A man that has a great chance to become president of the country that praised (and still praises) war criminal Henry Kissinger called out the United States’ interference in Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, and Iran.

After a high school education in history of the United States, it is a moral imperative for citizens to do their own research on our involvement in toppling foreign governments. In my experience, history classes try to justify clear acts of war crimes as long as they’re carried out by the United States. As any curious person with the ability to do an hour of research would know, this country is built on imperialism. Imperialism is built on exploitation and fueled by capitalism. Whether it is people, the environment, or economies, imperialism has been an engine for capitalist exploitation around the world.

We have the chance to elect a leader that recognizes the truth about America’s unjust involvement in foreign land and how this country was built on genocide. Whether it is the genocide of Native Americans, past and current, the genocide of Black people at the hands of a militarized police force, or the genocide of countless ethnic groups overseas, we have an obligation to elect a leader that has spoken out against this all of his life, even when it was vastly unpopular and didn’t line the pockets of his donors. Sometimes when he was the sole opposition.

In the information age, when all of the world’s history is available to anyone with an internet connection, more and more people are coming to the conclusion that what they were taught wasn’t necessarily the full story and the excuses the media made to justify these actions were unconvincing and damaging.

This is a realization that young people are coming to. The source of income inequality isn’t our neighbor that has a better job, it’s the member of congress that has the health insurance CEO in their pocket that makes sure we stay in that job by tying our healthcare, our life, to it.

It’s the 1% of people who have seen double digit percentage increases in their wealth since 2016. The people of the world are realizing that we can reject the world that the 1% force us to live under. It’s evident in Hong Kong. In Paris. In Chile. Indonesia. The Netherlands. Peru. Haiti. Lebanon. Iraq.

The United States’ status as a world leader sets the stage for revolutionary change across the world. We fully possess the ability reject the order as it is today. Shareholders do not have to be the center of our economy. We have the power to put the future of the country back into our hands. This is a feeling I’ve found camaraderie in with other supporters of Senator Sanders. We’re passionate because our futures, our lives, are at stake. We can reject the candidates and the establishment that offer the status quo, and unite under actual change, not performative change that has offered incremental steps that has barely brought us into the 20th century. Not a continuation of genocide, imperialism, environmental disaster, and vast income inequality.

Rejecting these harmful and unjust ideas is patriotic. Putting our country in the hands of the American people for the first time in history is the most American thing you can do. I have healthcare, a decent job, and can afford my rent and groceries. I’m willing to fight for the people without those basic necessities. Fighting for people who I do not know, my fellow citizens of this land, is what our country was meant to do. Electing a president that is running on that platform, a platform of logic and empathy, is extremely rare, and this may be our only shot to get it right.

That’s why I’m voting for Senator Bernie Sanders.