This past weekend, there was a lot of noise around the election. Particularly, some nastiness that erupted around a certain candidate's rallies.
I'm not going to get into it here. Everything that can be said about the unpleasant aspects of the United States presidential race has been said better than I ever could by people smarter, funnier, and louder than I.
But by Sunday night, I was so deflated by the negativity, I felt I just needed to be present for something positive. So I packed up and headed out to Youngstown, Ohio just in time to catch Bernie Sanders' rally on Monday morning.
And of course, the last-minute nature of it meant that preparation was lacking, and security concerns at the venue caused some confusion and ended up with me inside, and my camera gear outside.
So what you get is some rough, short, cell phone footage.
Here's the link if you're reading this in your email or what-have-you: https://youtu.be/nX4xEybGv6U
But hey - at least I was there to see what it looks like when enthusiastic people gather together peacefully to rally behind a cause they believe in. And the members of the crowd that were from "the other side of the aisle" were there just to listen and learn, not to argue.
And that was a breath of fresh f$@%ing air.
I was able to live-stream a good chunk of the rally to people who couldn't make it to the venue because of work or school.
And that felt pretty awesome. Thanks, Periscope and Snapchat.