Ah, the youth vote. No demographic is more perplexing to political pundits than the 18-25 year olds. Despite our low voter turnout we are passionate about politics, showing up to rallies and protests and organizing on social media. Our low voting record is frequently criticized, but older Americans don’t actually want us to vote. In 2014 Harris Faulkner of Fox News’s Outnumbered remarked, “Do we want them [young people] to vote if they don’t know the issues?”-- a comment that was met with a resounding “No!” from commentators criticizing low youth voter turnout just moments earlier. Even on a personal level, people tell me I can’t possibly be an informed voter at only eighteen. The first time I saw my grandmother after I registered to vote, she walked up to me and without even saying hello, said, “Emma, too many young people vote the wrong way. I hope you’re voting for Trump.” I responded by telling her that too many young people don’t vote at all, and she didn’t have any rebuttal to offer. If she found out I voted for Bernie Sanders last month, I think she’d have a stroke. A few weeks ago I had the chance to see Bernie Sanders live at a rally in Brooklyn. Now, I’m not here to proselytize, to stand on a soapbox and yell about rigged economies and campaign finance reform with a thick Brooklyn accent. This is simply a piece about a sunny afternoon in Prospect Park.
The morning of the rally my mother, sister, and I took Metro North from Riverdale into Manhattan. The Riverdale train station is arguably one of the quietest places in the five boroughs, with nothing around it save for the Hudson River and a few houses. And as we waited in the overpass for our southbound train to arrive, a young man and his girlfriend walked in to buy train tickets. No more than five or six years older than me, they were dressed like it was the Fourth of July--she was wearing a red blouse and blue cardigan, he an American flag button-down shirt and backwards camo baseball cap. Noticing their patriotism and their youth, my mother whispered to me that it would be funny if they were also coming to the rally, and we began talking about how excited we were for the rally. Our discussion was met with perplexed glances by the two patriots, who I assumed would be joining us at Prospect Park--until the young man turned around and I saw the front of the baseball cap. The words “Make America Great Again” were stitched across the cap in neon orange thread. I instantly knew where they were headed. I watched the gears turn in his head as he realized the rally my mother and I were talking about was not the Trump rally up in Poughkeepsie. Suddenly we were lawless cowboys in an old Western, staring at each other through squinted eyes, ready to pounce at any given moment. Luckily, however, the overpass began to shake as the northbound train pulled into the station, and soon they were on their way up to see The Donald™.
One Metro North train and two subways later, we finally reached Prospect Park. It was only ten or fifteen minutes after the doors to the rally had opened, and a line of people thousands long was already snaking through the park. There were babies in Bernie onesies, college kids with neon hair and piercings in places metal shouldn’t go, Brooklyn hipsters with handlebar moustaches and tote bags from independent bookstores. A series of vendors stood stationed by the line, some selling “Fuck Trump, Make New York Great Again” shirts, others pins and shirts adorned with images of Senator Sanders. It took us over an hour just to wind our way to the entrance of the rally, where Secret Service agents rifled through our bags and ushered us through metal detectors.
Once inside the rally, there were two areas for people to go: right in front of the stage where you would have to stand the whole time, and an area off to the side for people who didn’t want to stand for hours on end. While my mother and sister opted for the latter, I decided to get as close to the stage as possible. It wasn’t easy, wriggling my way towards the stage through the near gridlock of people. I started out in the back of the crowd, next to two older women who probably went to Woodstock and practiced “free love” in the late sixties. They were trying to get the attention of a photographer on the other side of a metal barrier, claiming he was their boyfriend, while a young boy of eleven stood next to the women, looking at me as he mouthed the word “crazy.” I somehow squeezed past the women and ended up standing about twenty feet from the podium in a small group of five other people. There were two friends from Toronto and D.C., each making the trek from their respective cities to show their support for Bernie. There was a young man in a “St. Louis for Bernie” T-shirt, a Bernie groupie who talked about the rallies he attended in Toledo, Manhattan, and of course, St. Louis. And then there was a woman probably in her fifties, who had come to the rally with her teenage daughter. As we waited for the rally to start, a playlist of songs calling for change and revolution blasted from loudspeakers. Some guy a few feet in front of me began vaping an e-cig to pass the time. The woman from Toronto commented that the rally was a “Coachella for the political revolution.” There was something empowering about the stench of 28,000 people sweating under the blazing sun lingering above us; here we were with sore calves, dry mouths, and sunburned faces, waiting to show our support for the political underdog.
The empowerment and idealism that radiated from the crowd was only intensified when the rally actually started. The beginning of the rally really did feel like Coachella, with musical performances by a reggae singer, a hip-hop artist, and the band Grizzly Bear. They sang for the cause, advocating for Wall Street reform and social equality through metered rhymes and catchy tunes. New York’s first undocumented lawyer, who went to the same high school as Bernie (albeit forty something years later,) came to tell his story in the wake of “Build the Wall” and encourage his fellow Brooklynites to vote Sanders. My mind drifted to the Trump supporters and their rally in Poughkeepsie. Would they have listened to this man’s heartfelt, humanizing account of life as an undocumented immigrant? Or would they call him a leech and a rapist and try to run him out of America, or at least Poughkeepsie? Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii made the trans-Pacific trek to Brooklyn, voicing her support for Bernie both as a member of Congress and as a veteran, and a series of speakers whose names and stories I’ve since forgotten each addressed the crowd about why Bernie had their vote. With each speaker the crowd became more impassioned, cheering louder and louder in a crescendo of idealism. Taking on the big banks and Citizens United and a Republican Congress doesn’t feel so daunting when you’re surrounded by so many people fighting for the same cause. So when the final speaker, a stocky old man by the name of Danny DeVito took the stage, the crowd erupted, chanting “DANNY! DANNY! DANNY!” He introduced Bernie by yelling out to the crowd, “I just hugged THE MAN! Who shook THE HAND! OF THE POPE!” Devito was the ultimate hype man, chanting “FEEL THE BERN” and raising his fists high in the air, standing in solidarity with the thousands of people sprawled out before him.
Soon after Danny Devito took the stage, a tall old man with windblown hair and an ill-fitting suit joined him at the podium. Bernie Sanders had arrived, and the crowd went ballistic. Cheering and shouting and clapping and whistling and just about every sound the human body can make on command simultaneously erupted from the crowd, the chaotic cacophony fueling the toothy grin that spread across the senator’s face. For ninety minutes he addressed the crowd, weaving together issues of Wall Street reform, police brutality, legalization of marijuana (which received the largest cheers), sexism, gun control, national defense, and countless others into something inspiring. At one point Bernie even called out Trump, the man who would go on to win the New York primary. He bashed Trump’s negativity, his xenophobia and sexism, and the crowd roared in agreement.
Perhaps the reason so many young people support Senator Sanders is that they feel like they can make a difference in the world. Young people are full of life and energy and many believe (whether correctly or not) in the power of a grassroots movement. Throughout the whole hour and a half the words “I” or “me” rarely left the senator’s mouth. It was always “we” and “us” and “our campaign.” He was no Messiah, claiming to be the sole savior of the political left. He was a vessel for ordinary people to change the system. And maybe it is naive to believe in the power of togetherness, of grassroots movements and revolutionary campaigns. But that’s what being young means--it means holding onto hope for change.
After the rally ended, my mother, sister, and I got on the Manhattan Bound Q train to begin our trek back to Riverdale. There’s a brief moment on the Q line, between Brooklyn and Manhattan, where the subway track goes above ground, and you can look out and see downtown New York. As the train shot out from the tunnel, honeysuckle sunbeams engulfed the car in a golden glow. In the distance the setting sun illuminated Lady Liberty as she stood watch over her city. The American flag atop the Brooklyn Bridge swayed in the breeze, and the new World Trade Center stood proudly above the rest of the financial district. This is the true representation of what New York values really are. I thought about the scenes from the train station in Riverdale, about the couple going to the Trump rally. There’s a strong sense of idealism often found in young Americans, who believe that they have the power to change systems of injustice and corruption. Maybe we’re idealistic because we’re young and naive and don’t know how the world works. Maybe Trump supporters, who believe that somehow we can get Mexico to build us a wall and put a ban on all Muslim immigration to the US, are just as idealistic as Sanders supporters. I’m sure Harris Faulkner and my grandmother would beg to differ, coming up with some crapshoot excuse about how only conservatives truly know how government works and how liberals are just so out of touch with reality. But maybe both sides of the spectrum are a little out of touch with reality. As I watched the city pass me by, the train rolled through the Financial District, where George Washington became the first ever President in 1789. George Washington led a ragtag group of soldiers against the world’s largest military empire. Our country was built through revolution, through blood that spilled out on the battlefield and ink that spilled onto parchment. Is it really idealistic and naive to support a peaceful political revolution?