Independent Media | Campaigning Journalism
Two electric minutes in Bernie Sanders’ campaign that should lead him straight to the White House
A new video has been released in support of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. The spine-tingling two minute clip, featuring a speech by rapper and activist Killer Mike, focuses on what binds together the people Sanders is offering to represent.
In short, it’s an electrifying statement on why people – of all colours, genders, and sexualities – should march the Vermont senator straight to the White House.
It is hard to overstate the power of this @KillerMike speech: it widens the scope and imperative of solidarity, it articulates a theory of change, and it clarifies the urgency pic.twitter.com/qUSHCM3Sur
— David Marcus (@davidimarcus) February 1, 2020
Read on...
“Neighbour, the time is now”
The video, made by GoodNightProductions, features Killer Mike recalling the words of writer James Baldwin at an event with Sanders. The activist says:
I remember Baldwin saying, you asked my father to wait, my brother to wait… how long must I wait on freedom? How long must I wait on rights, and equality, and liberty?
Baldwin wrote of racial segregation in the US and of the hostility towards people of colour in its aftermath. Killer Mike said Baldwin’s words “resonated” with him as a youngster. He continued:
as I grew, I started to understand: poor white people have been denied. Women are being denied. Gays and lesbians, transgender people been denied. Immigrant children been denied. Everybody outside of that one per cent has been denied.
After reminding people of how they are united, Killer Mike then invites them to rise up together:
Look to your neighbour and say, ‘Neighbour, the time is now. There are more of us. We’re stronger. We will wait no longer’.
Killer Mike’s message was one of togetherness, urgency, strength, and hope. His rallying cry concluded with him declaring that Sanders will be the next president of the United States.
Unite in the fight
The video went down a storm:
No way Biden’s or Warren’s or any one of the other campaigns, has the power to move people like this one does… Just damn. The time is NOW. #Bernie2020✊🏽🔥
— Helena 🌹NobodyWoC for Bernie🌹 (@Sisterray63) January 31, 2020
I’m bawling. This is the movement I’ve spent my entire life wishing to be a part of.
— Rebecca Bitton (@rebeinstein) January 31, 2020
Whenever I see this video, I think the same thing: We were born for this fight.
— TrueBeliever (@truebeliever67) February 2, 2020
Omg this 60-year-old Chicana hasn’t been inspired for a while. I’m in!!
— TodosInSA (@todosinsa) February 2, 2020
It’s not hard to see why the video is touching a nerve. It’s a powerful call to unity in a world where people are encouraged to be divided along ethnic, gender, and other lines. It also points to who benefits from people turning against each other, namely the only ones who haven’t “been denied”: the 1%.
Moreover, the video energises people to take action, together, immediately, by backing the presidential candidate who’s putting their rights, freedoms, equality, and liberty at the centre of his campaign. Sanders is also the candidate who’s promising to take on the true oppressor of the people: the 1%, as he explained during a recent event:
We are taking on the entire political establishment, both the Republican establishment and the Democratic establishment. We are taking on Wall Street, and the insurance companies, and the drug companies. And the fossil fuel industry, and the military-industrial complex, and the prison-industrial complex. And the whole damn 1%.
The time really is now
People in the US have the opportunity to turn Killer Mike’s words into deeds right now. Democrats started to vote for their preferred candidate to face Donald Trump at the 2020 presidential election in the Iowa caucus on 3 February. As voters headed to the polls, RAICES, a Texas-based advocacy group for immigrant and refugee rights, made sure the unity Killer Mike spoke of was at the forefront of their minds:
Wow. Twelve chain-link cages, symbolizing immigrant children in detention across the country, have been installed outside of #IowaCaucus sites this morning.
Kudos to @RAICESTEXAS for this powerful action. #DontLookAway pic.twitter.com/yCw0LEk4OG
— Daniel Altschuler 🦋 (@altochulo) February 3, 2020
The time really is now for people in the US. Let’s hope they seize it together.
Featured image via Twitter – GoodnightProductions
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Of the Canary is calling it for Saunders, that is pretty much guaranteed he will get nowhere near the White House.
After the 2019 UK experience, maybe the Canary should be less bold in its claims to have a finger on the pulse of an electorate?
Exactly. But The Canary obviously think Bernie is the right kind of white, male, millionaire.
I seem to recall Killer Mike endorsing Corbyn as the next prime minister not so long ago…I suspect Mike should probably stick to music rather than policitcal forecasting.