In April, Sam Koppelman, a 20-year-old government student at Harvard,
wrote a letter to the New York Times lamenting that his support for Clinton meant that on campus he might as well be Pat Buchanan.
At Harvard, admitting that #ImWithHer is nearly tantamount to boasting Make America Great Again, Koppelman wrote.
The letter was a coming out of sorts for Koppelman, who told the Guardian that despite having written frequently about politics for his student newspaper until 2012, he stopped this year for fear that it would cast me as an outsider, cast me as someone whos more conservative.
The 2016 election Ive been entirely silent, save for a few snarky tweets. And I think thats definitely emblematic that Im trying to avoid these conversations, he said. He made a conscious decision until last month to not write about his support for Clinton.
If youre a Hillary supporter, youre kind of in this happy medium. Or really an unhappy medium, Koppelman said, where,
by voicing support for Hillary Clinton, youre at once alienating college Republicans who still view her basically as the antichrist and youre alienating Bernie supporters who view her as this remnant of a time when Washington was extremely corrupt.
Koppelman, who grew up in New York City, has spent his time at Harvard engaging in leftwing activism. He is involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and started a group called Harvard cant breathe, after Eric Garner died while being arrested in Staten Island, New York City. Garners death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner, but a grand jury decided not to indict the officer who arrested him.
Koppelman is still involved with those groups but said he had been conscious not to announce his support for Clinton to his fellow activists.
If youre engaged in activism and youre a part of the campus left, and then you choose to support Clintons campaign
thats almost a traitorous act, Koppelman said.
...
Koppelman said he was prompted to out himself as a Clinton supporter due to frustration at being unable to be open about it. He wanted to address what he sees as a double standard among some Sanders supporters that to support Clinton is to fail to support the fight for equality.
Around the country, low income people, low income minorities are voting for Hillary in vast majorities, Koppelman said.
And this attitude on college campuses that if youre an advocate for social justice issues, you need to be a Bernie supporter is really dismissive of those people across the country who are voting for Hillary.
Its a we know better attitude that is so emblematic of the very things Bernie Sanders is campaigning against.
