‘Bern’ing for Change, Jonathan Brown creates new student club at UNE for those passionate about politics
For those students who are feeling inspired by any of the current presidential campaigns, there is a new student club at UNE where those passions can be channeled.
Jonathan Brown (’16), a political science major, recently founded the Young People for Progressive Politics Club on the Biddeford Campus. He describes the club as a “non-partisan, safe space to cultivate your political voice.”
The club currently has more than 30 members, and more than 15 students have volunteered with the club since its founding in February. To date, Young People for Progressive Politics has succeeded in registering 230 students, staff and faculty members at UNE, which constituted the highest voter registration rate among schools in Maine. According to Brown, close to half of those whom they have registered are first-time voters, and he hopes for another successful effort in the fall to register incoming freshmen and others.
Club members, including Brown and senior Rocket Hart (Environmental Science), who was instrumental in the club’s start-up and success, placed ballot collection boxes at various locations on campus, participated in an intense month of canvassing in New Hampshire and tabled on campus to encourage students to cast their ballots. Brown said that many students were not even aware that they were allowed to vote in Biddeford if they had initially registered as voters in their hometowns. “Just educating people about their rights as voters was a key part of tabling,” he explained.
The Young People for Progressive Politics Club held a caucus on campus, and Brown personally drove ballots up to Augusta.
Brown was inspired to delve deeper into politics because of his passionate support for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, whom he admires for his views on economic inequality and prison reform, his peaceful take on foreign policy and his dedication to equal rights for all races and genders.” Brown even wrote his senior thesis on Sanders: “Bernie Sanders 2016 and the Allegory of the American Dream.”
But Brown was not just inspired on an ideological level; his fervent support of Sanders led to political involvement. Earlier this year, he contacted the Sanders campaign to find out what he could do to help. He became the campus leader and organizer for the Sanders campaign at UNE and was charged with creating a phone bank on campus. Before he knew it, he was drafting a constitution for a new student club.
On caucus day, Brown returned to his hometown of Harpswell, Maine, to serve as caucus captain and delivered a pro-Sanders speech, his first ever public speaking event, to an audience of 250 people. Harpswell caucus-goers then elected him as one of the 11 Sanders delegates to go to the state convention, which will be held on May 7 in Portland.
No matter with which political party people align and no matter whom they support for president, Brown feels passionately that everyone should get involved in some capacity. “It’s a very important part of being a citizen,” he said, “especially in a country where democracy is often taken for granted.”
“By becoming engaged, you can have an opportunity to make your voice heard, and that’s one stepping stone toward making a greater society,” he stated, “one where there is an open discourse for the myriad of different political opinions -- a society that motivates individuals to labor for positive societal change and one that helps dissolve the fear of ridicule for holding the "wrong” political position.”