One thing that is hardly mentioned at all by the traditional media is that a Bernie Sanders nomination would virtually put the Minimum Wage on the ballot; and there is plenty of evidence to indicate that this could drive voter turnout through the roof and virtually guarantee him a victory, assuming people are allowed to vote and those votes are counted.
Edit: Regrettably with Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton there isn't nearly as much a chance of her trying to increase the minimum wage despite her promises during the campaign. She's already demonstrated that when in office she supports business interests including Walmart where she was once a board member. These business interests made her rich and paid for the advertisements promising to defend the rest of us. It is far more likely that she'll support increasing the minimum wage if she faces enormous grassroots opposition from people abandoning her for a candidate that really does want to increase it like Jill Stein. Even better with these two horrendous candidates to choose from it is the greatest chance to elect an alternative party candidate since Abraham Lincoln.
This has been proven repeatedly including the latest poll in the following article as well as high turn outs in the past when state ballots put minimum wage before voters:
Poll Says Promising A Minimum Wage Hike Would Boost Voter Turnout 10/0/2015
Two thirds of low-wage workers who are registered to vote say they would turn out for a presidential candidate who supports a $15 an hour minimum wage and unions.
A new poll released today suggests low-wage workers could make up a powerful new voting bloc — one motivated to register in droves in upcoming elections if a candidate promises a wage hike.
The national survey, commissioned by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, asked nearly 2,300 workers making less than $15 an hour how candidates’ positions on the minimum wage and labor rights would affect their decision to participate.
Of those who are not currently registered to vote, 45% said they would either definitely or probably register if there was a candidate supporting a $15 minimum wage and a union for all workers. Of all registered voters, 65% said they would be more likely to vote in the 2016 presidential election if there was such a candidate. Complete article
Two thirds of low-wage workers who are registered to vote say they would turn out for a presidential candidate who supports a $15 an hour minimum wage and unions.
A new poll released today suggests low-wage workers could make up a powerful new voting bloc — one motivated to register in droves in upcoming elections if a candidate promises a wage hike.
The national survey, commissioned by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, asked nearly 2,300 workers making less than $15 an hour how candidates’ positions on the minimum wage and labor rights would affect their decision to participate.
Of those who are not currently registered to vote, 45% said they would either definitely or probably register if there was a candidate supporting a $15 minimum wage and a union for all workers. Of all registered voters, 65% said they would be more likely to vote in the 2016 presidential election if there was such a candidate. Complete article
The following are some additional article showing that in 2014 states with minimum wage on the ballot had much higher voter turnouts:
How Putting Minimum Wage Increases On The Ballot Increases Progressive Voter Turnout 02/17/2013
Minimum Wage Raise Passes In Four GOP States 11/04/2014
Can minimum wage be used as an incentive for voting in future elections? While most states saw a drop in voter turnout this midterm elections, three states with minimum-wage increases on the ballot saw a spike in voters 11/09/2014
Of course the minimum wage isn't the only issue and working class people aren't the only disenfranchised segment of society and if we really want to live in a democratic society we need to include all people in the political process and increase grassroots participation in the governing process which is also what Bernie Sanders is calling for. Additional segments that need to participate more also include former prisoners immigrants and more some of which are addressed in the following article:
Why Non-Voters Matter: A new study suggests that increasing turnout could have significant ramifications for policy. 09/15/2015
In 2014, just 41.9 percent of the voting-age citizen population of the United States voted. But the people who voted are not only in the minority, they form an unrepresentative minority. Millions of Americans are too young to vote. Others are disenfranchised felons, unable to vote for health reasons, missed registration deadlines, stuck at work, dissuaded by voter ID laws. In many salient ways, voters are not like nonvoters: voters are richer, whiter, and older than other Americans. And my new report, Why Voting Matters, shows how their votes produce a government that caters to their interests—and how boosting turnout would lead to a more representative democracy.
Political scientists once accepted the idea that voters were a “carbon copy” of the nonvoting population. In 1999, Benjamin Highton and Raymond E. Wolfinger summarized this consensus, writing that, “simply put, voters’ preferences differ minimally from those of all citizens; outcomes would not change if everyone voted.” More recently, though, that view has come under attack. Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler, a pair of political scientists, argue that gaps between voters and nonvoters are real and have widened, and that the divergence in their views is particularly acute on issues related to social class and the size of government. However, measures that examine a one dimensional left-right axis obscure these divides.
Census data on the 2014 midterm elections quantifies some of these gaps. While 52 percent of those earning more than $150,000 voted, only 24 percent of those earning less than $10,000 went to the polls. That divide is further magnified by age. Among 18-24 year olds earning less than $30,000 turnout was 17 percent in 2014, but among those earning more than $150,000 and older than 65, the turnout rate was nearly four times higher, at 65 percent. There were also racial gaps in voter turnout. In 2014, 46 percent of white voters turned out to vote, compared to 40 percent of black voters, and just 27 percent of Asians and Latinos. Complete article
In 2014, just 41.9 percent of the voting-age citizen population of the United States voted. But the people who voted are not only in the minority, they form an unrepresentative minority. Millions of Americans are too young to vote. Others are disenfranchised felons, unable to vote for health reasons, missed registration deadlines, stuck at work, dissuaded by voter ID laws. In many salient ways, voters are not like nonvoters: voters are richer, whiter, and older than other Americans. And my new report, Why Voting Matters, shows how their votes produce a government that caters to their interests—and how boosting turnout would lead to a more representative democracy.
Political scientists once accepted the idea that voters were a “carbon copy” of the nonvoting population. In 1999, Benjamin Highton and Raymond E. Wolfinger summarized this consensus, writing that, “simply put, voters’ preferences differ minimally from those of all citizens; outcomes would not change if everyone voted.” More recently, though, that view has come under attack. Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler, a pair of political scientists, argue that gaps between voters and nonvoters are real and have widened, and that the divergence in their views is particularly acute on issues related to social class and the size of government. However, measures that examine a one dimensional left-right axis obscure these divides.
Census data on the 2014 midterm elections quantifies some of these gaps. While 52 percent of those earning more than $150,000 voted, only 24 percent of those earning less than $10,000 went to the polls. That divide is further magnified by age. Among 18-24 year olds earning less than $30,000 turnout was 17 percent in 2014, but among those earning more than $150,000 and older than 65, the turnout rate was nearly four times higher, at 65 percent. There were also racial gaps in voter turnout. In 2014, 46 percent of white voters turned out to vote, compared to 40 percent of black voters, and just 27 percent of Asians and Latinos. Complete article
The traditional establishment, especially the most conservative segments of it, often try to give people the impression that felons should give up their right to participate in the democratic process when they commit crimes; but this overlooks the possibility, or virtual guarantee that many of these people were disenfranchised before they committed crimes that sent them to jail. This is most obvious to anyone who has either read about or visited abandoned inner cities that provide no hope education or opportunity from early childhood. This is easy for people to deny when they refuse to look into the situation, but that doesn't make it go away and it is far less expensive to educate these people than to put them on a virtual guaranteed path to prison, often doing more damage on the way.
It also fails to differentiate between white collar crime or things that should be considered crimes and so-called blue collar crime. We often get enormous amounts of propaganda about how we get paid what we're worth; but is a high paid advertiser who deceives consumers into overpaying for their products really worth much more that working class people that actually provide a service that improves quality of life for the public?
This is just one of many simple questions that aren't addressed by the traditional media or those that make a lot of money doing jobs that do more to shift wealth to the rich than improve quality of life.
Increasing voter turnout and better educating the public with the help of alternative media outlets can go a long way to changing this and reversing large declines in the environment and economic system that the current establishment is causing.
We should also consider whether Hillary Clinton would really defend the working class at home when she does no such thing abroad according to her E-Mails among other sources. Hillary’s State Department Pressured Haiti Not To Raise Minimum Wage to $.61 An Hour 01/18/2016
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