Why Bernie Is Generating Such an Enormous Amount of Enthusiasm From Young People

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

24 March 16

eople ask me all the time why Bernie is generating more enthusiasm among young voters than any candidate in Democratic primaries since Robert F. Kennedy ran in 1968. (These young enthusiast voters aren't only white males, by the way. Exit polls show Bernie winning a majority of young women, African-Americans, Latinos and Latinas.)

It’s not because of Bernie’s youth, charisma, charm, or good looks. It’s because young people understand that:

1. Concentrated income and wealth at the top translates into political power to further rig the economic game to the advantage of the wealthy – compounding both their power and their wealth.


2. This vicious cycle is growing worse, and will be irreversible unless a “political revolution” reclaims our democracy and economy.


3. Such a political revolution is the prerequisite for everything else – reversing climate change, overcoming structural racism, rebuilding the middle class, achieving equal opportunity and upward mobility for the poor, and avoiding cataclysmic war.


4. Young people have lots to gain from winning this political revolution and lots to lose from failing to do so because they'll bear the consequences their entire lives. This isn’t to say that middle-aged and older Americans care any less. It’s just that younger voters have an even greater stake.

What do you think?