Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) today released a statement of frustration about yesterday’s presidential election, and as often happens when Sanders says something, he’s absolutely spot-on.
He said it on Twitter, by posting a picture of the text, so here’s what Sen Sanders said, typed, for easier reading and sharing.
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is the Latino and Black workers as well.
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.
Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.
Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse.
Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We, alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee paid family and medical leave.
Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.
Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disaster campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.
In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions.
Stay tuned.
Yes, this is exactly what needs to happen.
The Democrats fucked up big time; they didn’t focus on the issues that mattered the most to voters which is the economy. Instead they reran 2016 by running on some moral high ground as not trump, continuity and throwing in abortion.
But Bernie also bears some responsibility for this. He supported Biden and stood aside to allow Biden free reign on the basis that Trump is a threat to democracy. Nobody in the Democrat Party stood up and challenged the leadership because they were all scared of letting Trump win. No meaningful primary contest, then allowing Biden to stay as the candidate so late, aggressive and patronising lies about him being fit to run to silence critics, and then a coronation for Harris who then inherited a campaign already set up fro Biden and already on the wrong track.
The party needs to decide what it stands for. Is it there to just be “the lesser evil” as Trump calls the shots or is it there to offer leadership and a positive unique direction for the US?
Any Americans angry or upset about Trump winning needs to join the Democrats and change it from within. Wrestle it away from the lunatics who have allowed it to fail so dismally.
Drifting more to the right isn’t going to work. The party needs to offer a positive and clear vision of a better future. It needs to address the problems voters actually care about - the economy, financial inequality, the cost of living, the theft of wealth by the corporate class. It’s bloody obvious - so stop fucking about trying to be morally “better than trump” or offer continuity of the current system.
People want meaningful change - what Trump is offering is bad but it is at least offering something to voters. The Democrats should have offered a better vision of change to beat him. Instead they revelled in offering continuity on a path that is causing misery and hardship for Americans. And look where that got them.