The Peoples Tribune interviewed Eddie Cisneros, President of Students for Bernie at De Anza College in Cupertino, California. Eddie was elected to be a Sanders delegate and attended the Democratic National Convention in July.
Peoples Tribune: Why did you start Students for Bernie?
Eddie Cisneros: The first time I heard Bernie speak, I said to myself, he needs to be our next president. Bernie connected with young people because of his energy, program, and social media work. All the active students at De Anza wanted to join the campaign, so we formed an organization. For people our age, the only presidents we have known are Obamas, Bushes, and Clintons. For us, they represent the status quo and the status quo doesn’t work. Before Bernie, people gave up on the system, we had the lowest voter turnout in decades.
Bernie got people involved by using Reddit and social media memes, and attracting celebrities. And he spoke about our situation. He spoke about student debt. We have students at De Anza who are homeless or who work three jobs. The campaign would have been much bigger except that so many had so little time for extracurricular activities. I was lucky to be able to live with my dad and have time to get involved.
PT: What lessons did you learn from your experiences at the Convention?
EC: Well, the whole campaign for me was like a political hazing. First I had to organize the students, then I had to campaign to be a delegate, then I had to raise money to get to the Convention, then I had to go through all the dirty tactics they used against us there. It was a very un-unifying Convention. They said, “stronger together”, but there was no togetherness.
Before we even got there they blocked Medicare for All and Anti-TPP from being in the platform. Those were our bottom line issues. Then the emails showed how they conspired against us all year. All the security staff at the Convention were pro-Hillary. This was not what we were fighting for, so we resisted. It was spontaneous. The first day we were able to get to the front, and we booed all the Hillary speakers. We even booed Bernie when he asked us to support Hillary. The Bernie campaign kept texting us, telling us not to protest, but we protested even more.
The second day, security blocked us from getting to the front. They took away our signs. So we chanted during the speeches. We chanted “No TPP”. When Leon Panetta spoke, we chanted, “No more war!” Our delegates started getting blocked from the floor, even when they had credentials. Their seats were given to Hillary supporters, who had no credentials at all.
That is why so many of the delegates are supporting Jill Stein now, because of the way we were treated. The two-party system doesn’t represent us. We need a third party. Whether or not the Green Party can be that party depends on what it does now.
