3

Thursday, June 16, 2016

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS

Local Sanders

supporters remain
divided in support of

nominee

By LYDIA MURRAY

Summer Managing News Editor

Following the Associated Press’

announcement of Hillary Clinton’s
securing of the Democratic nomi-
nation for president and the fur-
ther affirmation of her place as the
presumptive nominee after a series
of key victories in Tuesday’s pri-
maries, supporters of Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I–Vt.) expressed disap-
pointment.

Nicolas Kolenda, president of

Students for Sanders, expressed
that he believes many younger vot-
ers — who have been key supporters
of Sanders — are largely upset by the
outcome.

“If it could be summed up in one

word, I think disappointment is
the general consensus,” he wrote
in an e-mail. “I might even go as
far as saying that a plurality of mil-
lennials are feeling a bit down and
out: in many states Sanders won an
unprecedented proportion of mil-
lennials.”

Kolenda also stated his belief that

the early call for the nomination
Monday likely led to low voter turn-
out in Tuesday’s election, harming
Sanders in key contests like Califor-
nia and New Jersey.

Sanders maintains that he will

remain in the race until the July
convention
despite
what
now

appears to be an impossible path to
victory. Sanders’ reasoning for stay-
ing in the race stems from the tech-
nically unpledged superdelegates,
who do not officially cast their votes
until the convention. Clinton has a
large lead over Sanders in this area,
which has helped propel her to vic-
tory, and any viable chance that
Sanders has at the election stems
from a large number of these super-
delegates switching their support
from Clinton to Sanders.

According to Charles Shipan,

University of Michigan political
science and public policy professor,
though Sanders may still be holding
onto his slim chance at the nomina-
tion, it is also likely that he hopes to
stay in the race long enough to gain
leverage in terms of getting issues
that are important to him on the
party agenda.

“More likely, what he is doing is

angling for a platform where he gets
a chance to speak at the convention
and put forward his ideas where he
gets the president or Hillary Clinton
to endorse those ideas, or he gets
those ideas put onto the Democratic
Party platform,” he said. “He real-
izes that only in acting in this way
he has enough leverage to put those
ideas forward.”

Because of this, Shipan said

Sanders will eventually move to
endorse Clinton — the only question
that remains is when he will do so.
Additionally, Shipan believes the
likelihood of a contested Democrat-
ic National Convention is incredibly
low.

Supporters of Sanders remain

divided on whether they will sup-
port Clinton in the general elec-

tion. According to Shipan, the vast
majority of Sanders supporters will
eventually move to back Clinton
with a small fraction choosing not
to vote and an even smaller frac-
tion voting for Republican nominee
Donald Trump.

Kolenda said while he may not

actively campaign for Clinton, he
believes it is important to work for
a Democratic victory in November.

“In terms of myself, I am not

sure if I would campaign for Clin-
ton just yet,” he wrote. “My views
on Clinton are lukewarm at best, so
it’d be hard to take hours out of the
day to do much for that campaign.
However, myself and others will be
trying my hardest to keep Trump
out of office, and if the Students
for Hillary or Campus Democrats
groups need help to keep Michigan
out of Trump’s hands, I’d be willing
to help out. Many of us aren’t neces-
sarily pro-Clinton, but a vast major-
ity of us are incredibly anti-Trump.”

Pressure has been building on

Sanders to endorse Clinton in order
to unite the Democratic Party.
President Barack Obama officially
endorsed Clinton through a video
posted to her Facebook page Thurs-
day following a meeting with Sand-
ers, in which he negotiated Sanders’
exit from the race.

“Look, I know how hard this job

can be. That’s why I know Hillary
will be so good at it,” Obama said in
the video. “I don’t think there’s ever
been someone so qualified to hold
this office. She’s got the courage, the
compassion and the heart to get the
job done.”

According to Shipan, strides

from both candidates will have to

be taken in order to unite the Demo-
cratic Party under Clinton. Sanders,
he said, needs to make his support
for Clinton clear, while Clinton
needs to embrace Sanders’ support-
ers and express her dedication to
the same ideals.

Shipan said students on campus

appeared to be split in terms their
willingness to support Clinton, with
some appearing happy with the suc-
cess Sanders saw, while others are
angered with the lack of a complete
victory. However, Shipan said the
views of students may have changed
since the end of the winter semester
when he last interacted with them
fully.

“During the semester, the under-

grads that I talked to who were
in support of Sanders had a mix of
views,” he said. “Some of them were
pleased that he had done as well as
he had done, and he had brought
forward a bunch of issues that they
thought were important, and even if
he didn’t win, they were delighted
with the way things had turned out.
Others were feeling frustrated with
the sense that the Democratic Party
closed ranks around Hillary Clinton
early and Sanders never really had a
chance to win.”

Kolenda said that, looking for-

ward, Students for Sanders hopes to
continue to keep students engaged
in politics as the member begin to
move in different directions.

“The goal is to keep people politi-

cally interested and involved,” he
wrtoe. “People within Students for
Sanders have various beliefs and
ideologies. Some may aid Students
for Hillary, others the Campus
Democrats.”

Campus shifts focus to general election
after Clinton clinches Democratic primary

ALEXANDRIA BODFISH/Daily

Hillary Clinton speaks at the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Convention at the Cobo Center in Detroit on May 23.

death is influenced by their
cultures and religions, usually
tied to race and gender. Assari
sought to further explore the
differences in death anxiety
between Blacks and whites
caused by race, gender and cul-
ture.

“We are not interested in

how culture shapes our feelings
or our behaviors, but we are
looking at how culture changes
the effects of our psychosocial
factors, behaviors and feel-
ings on our health outcomes,”
Assari said. “We don’t necessar-
ily believe that culture directly
shapes our behaviors, feeling
and health. We believe that cul-
ture changes the complex asso-
ciations that shape health in
humans.”

The researchers measured

death anxiety using partici-
pants’ responses to four state-
ments: “I find it hard to face
up to the fact that I will die,”
“Thinking about death makes
me feel uneasy,” “I do not feel
prepared to face my own death”
and “I am disturbed by the
shortness of life.” Participants
responded to these statements
using a scale from four (strong-
ly agree) to one (strongly dis-
agree).

The researchers also took

into account the participants’
perceived control over life,
demographics,
socio-econom-

ics, number of physical health
conditions,
self-rated
health

and financial difficulty.

Ultimately, the study found

that, while race and gender did
not have a significant effect on
death anxiety, they influenced
factors associated with death
anxiety, such as a number of
physical health conditions and
financial difficulty. While the
results do not explain exactly
why there are discrepancies in
death anxiety among different
people, it is significant to show
these discrepancies exist for
different races and genders.

The study revealed that race

and gender were different mod-
erating factors linked to death
anxiety, something Assari said
he believes resulted from the
historical adversity Blacks have
faced, leading to greater resil-
ience.

RACE AND GENDER
From Page 2

Read more at MichiganDaily.