With the presidential elections coming up, candidates are under increasing scrutiny. While candidates between parties are debating against one another, one of the larger sources of conflict lies between those in support of Bernie and those in support of Hillary. In recent news, the young vote is majorly in support of Bernie Sanders. Hillary, who was originally considered a shoo-in for the democratic side, has taken somewhat of a backseat to “the Bern” in comparison. In light of this, I thought I’d address some of the struggles Hillary has faced during the process of the presidential election.
1. She’s trying to be the “cool mom”.
This is something that Hillary has received a lot of attention for in the media. People feel she’s trying too hard to be well liked by the youth. Hillary’s “cool mom” status comes off as being forced in comparison to the natural inclination young people have towards Bernie.
2. She’s being clear about only making promises she can keep.
Hillary made a statement that she “won’t make promises she can’t keep.” For some reason, people found this shocking. With all the claims her opponents are making, people felt that she wasn’t trying hard enough to make positive changes with her campaign. Being realistic, her statement isn’t quite as shocking as it came off as.
3. She’s a woman.
While we have come a long way, we’ve yet to have a female president. This puts an immense amount of pressure on Hillary’s shoulders as she has to present herself as firm and in-charge, yet soft and elegant. You don’t see any of the male candidates trying desperately to prove that they’re “manly” enough to perform well in office.
4. She doesn’t have the support to make radical statements.
Running against a candidate as confident and radical as Bernie Sanders, Hillary has had to prove time and time again that she’s still worthy of being in the most powerful position in the White House. Bernie is the cool quirky old guy down the block with radical ideas about what we should do with the country. If Hillary tried to play the role of crazy grandma in response, she’d be laughed out of the running. While attempting to be down-to-earth yet authoritative, and forceful yet accommodating, Clinton has less wiggle room to be radical.
Bernie and Hillary are very similar in the majority of their policies. Honestly, they’re both pretty cool. They’ve both had extensive experience, and they share similar opinions on almost every platform. I just thought I’d take the time to acknowledge that Hillary is actually working incredibly hard to keep up with an extensively male dominated profession, and I have tremendous respect for all the work she’s doing. I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world to see her become the first female president of the United States of America. But like, Bernie is cool too.