Photo by Boston for Bernie Sanders

Socrates Cruz of Moniker

Allston Pudding: When did you find out about Bernie and how?

Socrates Cruz: I studied history and government in college, so I’ve known about Bernie Sanders for a while. When he announced about a year ago, that’s when I started paying more attention. It’s interesting because we’re all pretty progressive and liberal, but my other band mates were probably more skeptical at first as far as the chance of him actually winning. We’re all pro-Bernie.

I’ve followed him for many years now, and he’s a true progressive. He’s running a pretty honest campaign. It’s not looking at poll numbers and taking whatever policy is convenient. He’s always believed what he believes.

Allston Pudding: What parts of his campaign resonate with you personally?

SC: He’s just always been on the right side of history; he’s just always believed the same thing. I think that these things just reverberate a bit more with the middle class now, since it affects everyone. 8 years ago a lot of older people were skeptical of younger people being unemployed, and now they are realizing that kids graduate with massive debt and they don’t really have any job prospects the way that previous generations did. Now I think it’s reverberating on a deeper level. It’s not just millennials; everyone is seeing the effect of wealth inequality. It’s a perfect time for what Bernie Sanders has been saying his whole career, now that it’s becoming very, very obvious to the point where you can’t ignore it anymore.

AP: How can artists stay involved in the political process?

SC: A lot of people might not realize it because it’s part of everyday life now, but social media is extremely powerful. Now most people get their news from Facebook, not just millennials but older people too. People don’t watch the news anymore. So when people talk about Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush winning because they have all this money to spend, that’s an antiquated mode. You don’t need millions of dollars to get the word out on social media, and I think that’s where Bernie Sanders has a huge advantage. People who agree with him love him and post about him. This matters – it’s person to person, it’s a chain reaction, and even if you get one extra person to vote that’s a lot.