Bernie Sanders Gains Supporters Despite Media Blackouts

While Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton get the lion’s share of media attention, fellow presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) continues to trudge along, largely ignored by the mass media. The senator, who calls himself a democratic socialist, has seriously challenged the Democratic establishment since he announced his intentions to run for president on April 30. Despite corporate media attempts to black out his appearances, Bernie Sanders’ support continues to climb.

A Black Lives Matter activist was physically beaten and thrown out of a Donald Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday, garnering the real estate mogul and reality TV star an abundance of news coverage. Meanwhile, on the same day, Bernie Sanders appeared with rivals Martin O’Malley and Ben Carson in Columbia, South Carolina, to address racism in the criminal justice system on BET Network’s livestreamed Criminal Justice Forum.

Coverage of the event, which was organized by bipartisan African-American group the 20/20 Club, was virtually nonexistent outside of BET’s own site and alternative news outlets.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got the attention of CNN and other major news outlets for drawing a hard line against the Islamic State (ISIS) on November 20. Her speech was televised. On the same day, Bernie Sanders laid out his definition of democratic socialism at Georgetown University. The event was livestreamed. Again, corporate media coverage of the event was sluggish at best.

One of the few stories circulating the mainstream media regarding Bernie Sanders’ appearance in South Carolina is buried within a story regarding his struggle to win Black voters. Sanders’ appearance on the criminal justice forum gave him a decisive victory in the sense that once people hear him speak, they resoundingly support him. Of the Democratic candidates 65 percent of the audience polled believed that Bernie Sanders would do a better job as president. Hillary Clinton came in a distant second at 23 percent, while former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley trailed last at 12 percent. Answering the same question regarding the Republican candidates, only 37 percent of the audience believed Ben Carson would do the best job. Carson’s numbers were the best of any GOP candidate in the running. Regardless of this substantive win in a drum poll after the forum, the powers that be only grudgingly give the Vermont senator minimal exposure.

After the violence at Donald Trump’s rally Saturday, the billionaire suggested that the Black Lives Matter protester deserved to get punched and kicked.

“Maybe he should have been roughed up. It was disgusting what he was doing.”

A black protester at Trump's rally today in Alabama was shoved, tackled, punched & kicked: https://t.co/Aq0wuaAtax pic.twitter.com/cTRDMtjuBl

— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 21, 2015

In contrast, Bernie Sanders decries violence against African-Americans. As Trump suggests that Muslim Syrian refugees should be registered under a database reminiscent of the German policy to register Jews under the Nazis, Bernie Sanders implores Americans to be accepting of them. As Hillary hints at support of anti-net neutrality policies, Bernie Sanders doggedly supports Internet privacy and policies against government spying.

So, why does corporate media do its best to ignore him?

The answer is simple: Bernie Sanders scares the establishment. He frightens corporations with his “people first” mantra. His views and ideas put billionaires, millionaires, and Big Business against the ropes, with his call for higher corporate taxes, the abolishment of tax havens, and jail time for Wall Street criminals. If mainstream media outlets ignore his message, Sanders has to work all the harder for people to hear it.

The shunning of the American media has only energized his base, however, and as of October 30, Bernie Sanders has managed to garner more than 750,000 individual donors, with an average of $30 per donation, according to Bloomberg Politics. That is more than $22.5 million donations in the last seven months.

What mainstream media outlets know is as long as voters do not actually see Bernie Sanders speak, it keeps Hillary Clinton’s chances of being nominated higher. Once people see and hear him, though, it makes a world of difference. Sanders’ authenticity cannot be discounted and his sincerity and laser focus on getting government back to working for the people have won over even staunch Republicans.

In stark contrast to Sanders’ support from unions and working class individuals, Hillary Clinton’s donor list looks like a veritable Who’s Who among Wall Street big shots. Her biggest donor, according to Open Secrets, is Citigroup Inc., along with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Time Warner, which owns CNN, one of the media outlets that has consistently favored Clinton throughout the process.

Regardless of the lack of big media coverage, Bernie Sanders remains the popular choice for Millennials. As he continues to stump around the country, speaking of the need for radical reform, he gains even more supporters who believe in him and even more importantly, believe in his message.

An October 27 piece in the Washington Post explains why Millennial support may not be enough for Bernie Sanders. It cites anemic voter turnout in the 2008 Iowa caucuses and in the primaries in general.

“Even with Obama’s unprecedented success energizing the youth vote, those younger than 30 accounted for only 22 percent of Iowa caucus-goers in 2008 — and 14 percent of those participating in all Democratic nominating contests.”

But that was in 2008. This is 2015, seven years later. So, what’s changed since the ’08 election? One of the major differences is that social media has grown by leaps and bounds. Reddit, which was once an obscure news aggregator and repository for cat pictures and memes, has grown into a force to be reckoned with. Obviously, the site still hosts memes and cat pictures, but it has also become an online “ground zero” for political action. The subreddit r/SandersforPresident is active, and its members frequently discuss strategies, phone banking, and getting information out about Bernie.

All in all, while even Sanders himself is not counting on a large youth voter turnout, the Internet and Bernie Sanders himself are making sure voters know who he is. And once they do, he just might win them over.

[Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images]