With the Feb. 1 deadline for people to register to vote in Georgia’s presidential preference primary fast approaching, Liberty County for Bernie Sanders held a gathering Saturday at Uncommon Grounds in downtown Hinesville.
The event was to allow people to meet with local volunteers for the campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and learn more about the Democratic presidential candidate. The group also watched a live stream of Sanders talking to supporters and volunteers across the country.
Liberty County for Bernie Sanders coordinator Jim McIntosh said more than 2,000 events took place that night across the country to watch Sanders speak.
Before the live YouTube event started, Umang Desai, 34, said he agrees with all of Sanders’ views.
“If we keep electing the wrong people and we don’t get any change done, and there’s nobody that’s ever going to get — there’s a huge wealth disparity right now,” he said about coming out to the event, called “Coffee with Bernie.” “So if we keep electing corporate puppets, then all we’re going to do is just keep allowing them to keep building more and more stuff and getting rid of mom-and-pop businesses.”
Desai works for his family’s business, which has been around for 19 years, and he believes the American dream is no longer achievable.
“You have to end up working your whole life for Wal-Mart or McDonald’s when you can never own anything on your own anymore, and that shouldn’t be happening. … People should be allowed to open up their own small stores and get the type of government grants and tax write-offs that multimillion-dollar corporations get away with,” he said. “And then we complain at the end that nobody can open up small businesses and why they don’t survive. It’s ’cause nobody cares enough to actually do anything about it. So that’s why I’m here.”
When Sanders spoke, he said that in the beginning of his campaign, he only had support from about 3 percent of voters polled nationally.
“We started this campaign with no money, no political organization, and nobody, none of the media, none of the experts, thought we were anything more than a fringe candidacy,” he said.
“Well, nine months have come and gone,” Sanders continued. “And now we have hundreds of thousands of volunteers in every state in this country.”
Sanders discussed the political system’s reliance on Super Political Action Committees; his record breaking 2.5 million individual contributions, which average $27 per contribution; and high incarceration rates. He said he can beat Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
“And if the polls are any indicator, we already running way, way ahead of Donald Trump in national polls,” Sanders said. “Yeah, we can beat him. And not only can we beat him, we can beat him big.”
After thanking his volunteers for working hard for his election, Sanders said, “We are on a path toward victory. We can reshape American history. Let’s go forward together.”
Tedgrick “Teddy” Jones, who works in the music industry as an assistant to a Grammy-nominated producer, said he wanted to know what Sanders will do for small-business owners like him.
“I’m just really glad, and it’s very refreshing that he is just an independent, grassroots candidate that is not controlled by corporate or big business,” Jones said.
McIntosh, who represents the local grassroots effort to have the Vermont senator elected to the presidency, said his job is to “make them understand what Bernie really stands for and what a change we can make together.”
“Bernie’s the only candidate out there that understands the first line in the U.S. Constitution, ‘We the People.’ He’s the only candidate out there that really knows what that phrase means. And that’s what he’s been working for,” McIntosh said.