This story first appeared on statehornet.com on Feb. 23, 2017.
Since the election, Sacramento State has been experiencing a very high amount of political activism on both sides of the spectrum — and the tension has no sign of letting up anytime soon.
In fact, each passing day of Donald Trump’s presidency has seen more and more pronounced, heightened emotions: anxiety and rage, disgust and self-righteousness, hope and pity.
How did we get here? And what’s next for a campus on the edge?
Just four months ago, it was a good time to be on the left.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign did not exactly inspire the way Barack Obama’s did eight years earlier, but the surprising insurgency of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary removed the stigma from politically identifying as a socialist, and the Obama administration was pushing once undreamed-of initiatives like the recognition of Cuba and transgender rights.
And it looked like in spite of the rise of alternative left-wing parties, even Clinton would slide to an easy victory over Donald Trump — demonstrating that if the Republican Party were to move forward, it would have to reject the forces of reaction and reach out to Latinos, blacks, gays and other minority groups.
For Estevan Hernandez, a Sac State alumnus and member of the Peace and Freedom Party State Central Committee, it looked like all the political energy awakened in 2016 was going to change the American status quo.
“Today we have the Black Lives Matter movement, and we have Standing Rock, and now we have (Colin) Kaepernick refusing to abide by that national anthem,” he said in an Oct. 4 interview at a campus event featuring Peace and Freedom vice presidential candidate Dennis Banks. “There’s an alternative to capitalism. We don’t have to go to the two same old things over and over and over again.”
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John Ferrannini 