For the past couple of months, a popular trend online has taken over publications and social media influencers accounts, which is posting memories from 2016. It was a significant moment in time, when Trump first won the presidency in November of 2016, defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton. This trend marks ten years since 2016, while other online trends and iconic pop culture moments like Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign have been resurfacing as well. Sanders’s message from 2016 is consistent today: Fight oligarchy and fight for the working class.
On February 13, Bernie Sanders came to the Durham Convention Center and officially endorsed Nida Allam as the NC District 4 Democratic candidate under his current rally tour “FIGHT OLIGARCHY". More than 1,000 residents from Durham, Orange and Wake counties packed the Grand Ballroom to hear his message about the current administration and their loyalty to corporations instead of the people.
Nida Allam’s opponent, Valerie Foushee, took donations from organizations such as AIPAC in her last election to promote her seat and that has enabled her current role as the US representative for NC’s fourth congressional district. While she has gone on the record saying she has not taken any AIPAC money this election season, one of her major donors, Robert Granieri, is from Article One Pac, a political endorser that also donates to AIPAC. Her taking that donation sends a clear message to her district: that you can be bought as a politician and silence your view on what really matters in a community where your constituents are more vulnerable, such as communities that could be largely impacted by data centers from AI companies and unfair housing taxes, and lower income areas. Valerie Foushee donors also include Anthropic, one of the top global AI companies.
The people of NC District 04 want real transparency and results. See, for example, Zohran Mamdani’s historic NYC mayoral race where he ran for the people and accumulated money from the generosity of his constituents, not corporations that have ulterior motives to influence government leadership. It shouldn't take an exorbitant amount of time to get results from elected officials, doing their jobs and showing up for the people they serve. Mayor Mamdani is proof of that and shows a commitment to supporting his constituents while, for example, creating temporary positions for New York residents to shovel snow for $30-45 per hour. He thinks quickly on his feet for solutions to the people whereas it has taken years for his peers to do the same thing.
Nida Allam currently serves as the vice chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners and her messaging is on par with Sanders’s. “We stand up and fight back, that's the way we do it in NC-O4.” A Carrborean musician, Eliza McLamb, opened the February 13 event for Bernie Sanders and stated that his candidacy in 2016 was the first election in which she voted. Sanders’s messaging was less popular in 2016 and many Americans at the time were caught up in the labeling of his socialist ideals, ignoring blatant facts of rising healthcare costs at the time, lack of free childcare, and more.
A wake up call has surged through the nation recently, as we continue to see healthcare costs double, even triple, and mass deportations across the states, in addition to politicians working side by side with big corporations whose interest is in monetary value and acquisition rather than the people. Bernie opened his speech by stating that “the top one percent owns more wealth than the bottom 93%” To put that in layman's terms, it is us versus them. A divide in our people, a new reckoning is just above the horizon. For the people, by the people, always.