Students marching from McKeldin Mall Wednesday, joined by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), chanted in support of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont).
“We don’t need no Super-PACs, Bernie Sanders’ got our backs!” they shouted as drivers on the campus and on Route 1 honked in support. “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!”
After Gabbard gave a short speech, a group of about 100 Terps for Bernie members and other students walked for about 15 minutes from McKeldin Mall to Paint Branch Elementary School, where early voting was taking place. Terps for Bernie members found out Monday that Gabbard would be the celebrity guest at their rally and encouraged other students to attend.
“We’re just trying to get the word out that there’s going to be a rally here,” Tatiana Bodnar, the director of campus engagement for Terps for Bernie, said before the event. “[Gabbard is] a really important person. She was the first American Samoan in Congress, she’s the first Hindu in Congress [and] she’s an Iraq war veteran.”
Gabbard stepped down from her position as the vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention so she could openly support Sanders, said Bodnar, a freshman government and politics major.
During her speech, Gabbard said it is important for college students to participate in politics and take a stance. Sanders currently has support of 40 percent of Democratic voters in Maryland — 15 percentage points behind Hillary Clinton (D), according to a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
“I’ve had the chance to travel with Sanders to 15 different states and communities across the country, [and] every single place that we’ve gone, I’ve personally just been so inspired by the energy and enthusiasm from people like [college students],” Gabbard said. “There’s so many things that are being proven wrong by people like yourselves that care very much … about our generation’s future and are taking very specific action to make that happen.”
The upcoming weekend is an important one, as this state is only one of five states — including Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania — whose primaries fall on April 26. She emphasized the importance of taking action, even if it doesn’t seem easy to make a difference, Gabbard said.
“I can tell you from my own experience in getting involved with politics … people [have] said over and over and over again, ‘It’s not worth your time, you won’t be successful, there’s no way you’ll win, there’s no way you can make this change,'” Gabbard said.
Every time she’s seen that proven wrong, Gabbard said, it’s because people have stood up and taken actions on issues they care about. In addition to voting, college students can do quite a bit to get the word out, she added.
“[Students should] make sure that they’re sharing with other people within their network and sphere of influence and social media, etc., why they’re supporting Sanders and making sure that others get out and vote as well.”
Junior materials science and engineering major Julia Downing, who participated in the event, saw it as an opportunity to fit voting into her schedule.
“My whole family’s pretty staunchly supporting Bernie, and I thought it would be really cool to meet up with other people who were doing early voting,” Downing said. “I decided that today, I was just going to come out and march with them over and get voting out of the way.”
While Christopher Walkup, the Terps for Bernie president and junior government and politics and theater major, stressed the significance of the right to cast a ballot, he added that taking action was far more meaningful.
“Voting is the most important right we have,” Walkup said.
