Which presidential candidate's message resonates with you the most and why?

I am the grandson of a Republican politician, senior executive of a large FMCG who served in WWII. I am the son of a career military officer, successful real estate in later life. I myself am a manager in a large multinational FMCG company.

I have donated to a political campaign for the first time in my life, and it might surprise you that it would be to Bernie Sanders.

You see, I grew up partially in Europe and what Bernie Sanders says connects strongly with me because I have seen a better way.

I have seen how people don't worry about being bankrupted by the health insurance industry when they get cancer, or whether they can afford premiums. I have seen how raising up the poorest actually leads to lower crime. I have seen how reducing corporate influence over politics makes for cleaner politicians.

I could go on... but what pains me is how people equate what Bernie Sanders espouses as "free stuff" or giveaways. It's not. Most of what he is working for will benefit the middle class, and what he's working for is just making our money that we all pay one way or another more effective.

There is a fallacy in America that just because something is done by a corporation it's better. Corporations are wholly self-serving to themselves and their shareholders. They don't care about you one iota. Even for the most ethical companies, CSR is at best a strategy for deriving more shareholder return.

We must hold corporations in check through regulation, we must ensure they contribute to society through effective taxation, and we must ensure they cannot turn our democracy into a plutocratic corporatocracy.

America is in some ways the greatest country on earth, but in others, it has become the greatest clusterfuck.

To understand how far to the right America has gone, in the UK I am a conservative, and most people that know me would consider me fairly right wing - but in the US election, I'm backing a so-called socialist.

I was drawn to his message anyway, but I became a convert when I heard his speech in support of Jesse Jackson (who I did not support at the time) on Reddit. It was the same damn speech he is giving in the present, but what struck me was how much worse the numbers he's quoting have become.

I hope for America's sake he wins, and I would hope that all the populists supporting Trump would take a quiet moment and visit his website to read through what he actually intends to do and challenge yourself whether or not you'd be better off under these policies.

I'm old enough, and far enough away from America at the moment that I probably shouldn't give a shit, but I'm seriously considering taking a leave of absence to come and personally work for his campaign for free. I probably can't afford to do that and support my wife and kids, but I am trying to think of ways to make it happen.

/r/moderatepolitics Thread