Amid the rising popularity of Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist senator from the US state of Vermont, his rival contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination Hillary Clinton has announced that she is also Bernie Sanders.
The statement comes after Ms Clinton, a second-time contender for the ticket, saw the most recent poll results, which indicate that the gap between the two candidates is narrowing fast. Senator Sanders is becoming increasingly popular among young people with his revolutionary message. Hillary Clinton is ready to update her message based on the poll numbers.
“I am a progressive,” she said while talking to herself before a televised debate in New Hampshire. “I am a socialist. I am against big corporations. What the heck, I am Bernie Sanders.”
Analysts believe her popularity is expected to surge after the declaration. “This is a situation in which we have two Bernie Sanders, and one of them is a woman,” a veteran liberal commentator argues. “America will vote for the female Bernie Sanders, because that is just what we need.”
Hillary Clinton first ran for the Democratic nomination in 2008, but could not compete with the unexpected rise of Barack Obama, an openly black politician who promised hope and change.
“Bernie is unreal. The entire phenomenon of the rise of a candidate who openly calls himself a socialist is unreal. All the math in his tax and healthcare plans is unreal. Free college is unreal. I am real. I am the real Bernie sanders. I am the better Bernie Sanders. I am the Bernie Sanders that works,” she then told an ecstatic crowd at South Carolina. The statement received a loud applause. During the applause she gestured towards unsuspecting members of the crowd as if she remembers them, when she has never seen them before. “She must be pointing towards someone else,” one such person was heard saying to himself.
The Bernie Sanders campaign was surprised to hear the statement, insisting that she had so far been saying she was Hillary Clinton. “Look at her past record,” a spokesman said. “She opposed same sex marriage, she supported the keystone pipeline, she was in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement, she voted against increasing the US debt limit, she called Syria’s Bashar al Assad a reformer, she attacked Obama on gun laws, and clearly stated that she was Hillary Clinton. How can she deny all that?”
Hillary’s campaign declined to comment. “We are the Hillary Clinton campaign,” a spokesman said. “We cannot comment on this statement because she is not Hillary Clinton. She is a progressive democratic socialist called Bernie Sanders.” A source in her camp said if people think she doesn’t tell the truth, then they should stop asking her questions.
The timing of the claim by Hillary Clinton is also important. Political pundits have recently said that the 74-year-old senator is likely to do better than the former first lady against the most likely republican nominee Donald Trump.
“Senator Sanders is the only one who can compete against Donald Trump,” one analyst explained, “because only he can come up with growth projections and other fiscal statistics as fantastic and impossible as those coming from Donald Trump.”
Trump has especially been criticized for his foreign policy and immigration plans. “You can’t argue with someone who has no foreign policy experience and doesn’t know how the world works,” a young college student says. “Except if you are also someone who has no foreign policy experience and doesn’t know how the world works. That is why I support Bernie Sanders.”
Hillary’s supporters disagree. “If you look at her recent statements, she is perfectly capable of telling lies,” another student says. She believes one does not have to be a woman or a feminist to vote for Hillary Clinton. “Because going by that logic, all misogynists would vote for Donald Trump, and he would easily win the presidential election.” She is not sure if Donald Trump would be America’s first misogynistic president.
But many men fear having a woman president may lead to more general expectations of treating women fairly. “I do not mind having a woman as president, but that should not mean that they should expect me to respect all women in positions of authority,” said a corporate intern.
If Hillary Clinton wins the election, it is unclear whether she would get 70 percent of a male president’s salary.
The author is a User Experience Disruptor with a degree in the Poetics of Mischief.
@cyborgasms