Yes, Chelsea Manning Is Running For Senate in Maryland

Last May, Chelsea Manning, the army intelligence analyst convicted of violating the Espionage Act for leaking classified military documents and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks in 2013, was released from prison. Her release was granted by President Obama last January in one of his final acts before leaving office. And now, she may be headed to government herself. That’s right, the Chelsea Manning senate run has just been announced!

 

The Chelsea Manning senate run announcement

In a Black Mirror-styled video posted to YouTube and pinned to her Twitter account, she announces her intentions.

Over distorted footage of riots, attacks and more disturbing images, Manning talks about the state of the world today. Near the end ,however, it turns into a more hopeful view, echoing her slogan/hashtag #WeGotThis. The voiceover says:

I’m Chelsea Manning, and I approve this message. We live in trying times. Times of fear. Of suppression. Hate. We don’t need more or better leaders. We need someone willing to fight. We need to stop asking them to give us our rights. They won’t support us. They won’t compromise. We need to stop expecting our systems will somehow fix themselves. We need to actually take the reins of power from them. We need to challenge them at every level. We need to fix this. We don’t need them anymore. We can do better. You’re damn right we got this.

Manning has also set up an ActBlue account to accept donations for her senate run.

In the primary, Manning will be up against Ben Cardin. Cardin is the senior senator of Maryland. Cardin may be a tough person to beat — in the 2012 primary, he was up against eight other candidates and won with 74% of the vote.

In Manning’s favor, she does have greater name recognition. Her campaign video places her as a more leftist, less establishment Democratic candidate — more of a Bernie Sanders than a Hillary Clinton. And as we’ve seen in some of the more recent elections, some Americans are looking for that sort of change.

 

Featured image from Chelsea Manning’s Twitter