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‘Life After Bernie’: The Young Left Braces for Disappointment in 2020

Pok grew up “the only brown kid in Utah,” raised by parents who emigrated from Cambodia and left the rest of the family behind. “When I was a kid, it wasn’t, ‘Finish your meal, there are starving kids in Africa.’ It was, ‘Finish your meal, your cousins in Cambodia are starving,’” Pok recalled. “So, I always was mindful of that. But then I would see all this waste, all this inequality, everywhere around me.”

Pok became enamored of Obama in 2008, believing the problems he saw would finally be addressed by the progressive young president. When they weren’t—at least to his satisfaction—Pok became deeply cynical. “Obama’s failures are the reason for where I’m at with my beliefs now,” he said. Today, Pok isn’t putting his faith in a political figure. He supports Sanders but is skeptical that a president, any president, can do much to affect his life. “That’s why I’m here,” he said, motioning toward the DSA allies behind him.

At just 21, Kauffman isn’t old enough to be disillusioned. Or so you’d think. Hailing from a conservative Republican family, Kauffman says it was his decision to come out as queer—and move from the suburbs to the big city of Columbus—that opened his eyes to the injustices plaguing the everyday lives of those around him. “It’s drug legalization, ‘Medicare for All,’ mass transit, affordable housing,” he said. “I listen to people talking about the terrible things Trump has done, at the Supreme Court and the Mexican border and everywhere else, and they think impeachment is going solve all our problems. It’s like, no, that really doesn’t solve any of our problems.”

Kauffman has worked in a warehouse the past two years, driving a forklift and “hating every minute of it.” It was this experience, he said, toiling for peanuts on behalf of a corporate entity that recorded booming profits, that turned him decisively against the capitalist creed. (Pok, raising his beer in the air, agreed: “Can you believe I work for Jeff Bezos? Fuck Jeff Bezos!”)

Having dropped out of college after a year, and with little else on his résumé, Kauffman settled on an unconventional solution to his beef with corporate America: The United States Navy. “Yes, I’ll be a queer socialist in the Navy,” he said. “But you know what? As diverse and divided as this country is, the military should be a reflection of that.”

Kauffman said he’s prepared to proselytize his shipmates—not on behalf of Bernie Sanders, but on behalf of a philosophy that speaks to so many young people like him, even military men and women. “It doesn’t matter whether he wins or not,” Kauffman said of Sanders. “He has put forth these big ideas, exposing them to people who hadn’t heard about them before. And now we need to move them forward.”

“Now is our time,” 20-year-old EVAN SCHMIDT told me. “With Morgan Harper, with the Squad, and yes, with Bernie, it’s our time. I think young people recognize we have an opportunity to redefine progressivism, to redefine collectivist ideals, to redefine socialism in a way that’s distinct from the Soviet Union or China or the eastern bloc. We can build our own movement around socialism and remove the old connotations.”

Inside a small classroom on the campus of Ohio State University, a group of 15 students—the OSU branch of the Young Democratic Socialists of America—had just adjourned its weekly meeting. The proceedings had made Sanders’ candidacy feel like something of an afterthought, just the way Schmidt’s comment had. There was talk of upcoming events and division of duties among members. Half the meeting was spent planning canvassing routes for the week ahead—but that work was being done on behalf of Harper, the young Democratic Socialist candidate running for Congress against an entrenched incumbent in the March 17 primary. Only at the tail end of the gathering did the conversation turn explicitly to Sanders and the 2020 race.

After the meeting—and after Schmidt had explained to me that, in his view, Sanders “can be a bit too compromising, and that’s what’s been holding the Democratic Party back”—I asked one of his fellow YDSA members about the race.

“Bernie is having his moment and people are scared. ‘The commies are coming to get us!’” cried NIKKI VELAMAKANNI, waving her arms in mock panic. “I’m trying to keep my cool about all this, because overconfidence is our enemy right now. But whatever happens with Bernie, we knew this was going to happen before long. Young people are taking over politics. And for young people—especially young people of color—this is the vision they have for America.”

Source: politico.com
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