Walking across our campus as Nov. 8 approaches, it’s hard not to see at least one “Make America Great Again” stamped hat or overhear one conversation about moving to Canada if Trump wins. Despite the hype of my opener, I’d like to refresh the news world with a different candidate who’s also throwing the conventional moderate tone of past ballots away.
Now, with American pop-culture submerged in our upcoming presidential election as well as the rebirth of the British Invasion in the music industry, I was confused as how the name Jeremy Corbyn still hasn’t made many headlines.
Our ex-motherland of Great Britain seems to shares the same, recent politically revolutionary thirst for a spectrum extremist ... maybe it’s hereditary. Jeremy Benard Corbyn, leader of England’s Labor Party and the Opposition, continuously has affirmed his democratic socialist stance during his time in Parliament where he echoed his populistic philosophy on the legislative floor.
Here, he stood devoted for reversing reductions in public spending, working to making private utilities renationalized, favoring the anti-nuclear movement, voicing his pacifism in supporting peace talks against ISIL and several other deep left-winged ventures.
Even though Corbyn has been an active lobbyist for public reform since the ‘70s, the combined political earthquake of Brexit and aftershocks of the 2008 housing crisis have caused him to up his administrative presence two-fold making for about two-third landslides in the polls.
So why reference Donald Trump instead of ex-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders with all this talk of socialistic implications? Well, both men have reform plans stretching to the tip of their political wingspans, but moreover, Corbyn’s penetrating content recently slipped up as an anti-Semitic accusation against Israel, where he was criticized for comparing the country to Islamic State jihadists.
After apologizing to Israeli ambassador and his party, Corbyn’s followers reassured the public of the incorrect implications of the comment; something they said that was unlike and unwilled of a Gandhi International Peace Award recipient.
But the true pot-stirring quality of Corbyn is simply the context of party and his potent socialist views. Yes, conservative and labor parties have flip-flopped over the prime minister’s seat for the past century, but a candidate as far left as Corbyn is something new to England for the most part.
Faces like Adele or One Direction are common culture in America, yet we struggle identifying some of the key political figures like Corbyn. Once we can see different party ideologies in another light, we can better understand and run our political climate.
Colette Tangney
Bloomington, IN
