Full text of statement:
"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 Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defend 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 or 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.
While the big money interests and well paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous 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 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."
Where the fuck was this version of Sanders for the last 8 fucking years.
Present and speaking similarly.
Was gonna say. Standing up for folks, yelling at the same empty room he’s been yelling at for 40 years. Dude is nothing if not consistent. If anything Bernie has moved to the right in the last 4 decades, and he’s still the left most politician we have
Honestly kudos to the man for standing up for his beliefs in the face of overwhelming American stupidity for this long. I’d have definitely folded.
There’s C-Span videos online of him doing interviews before he became a US senator, and it’s interesting how the problems then are still relatable now. We’ve gotten better at kicking cans down roads and blaming each other instead of tackling the issues head on.
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Too true. Listening to Sanders from the 80s is the same as listening to him today. It’s shocking how little his views and rhetoric have changed while being absolutely correct from the beginning.
Endorsing every move the dems made.
Haven’t been paying attention, eh?
You certainly haven’t, between defending Israel and actively supporting Biden’s agenda, Sanders hasn’t expressed any thoughts left of center in a while.
you have to work within your environment. you can’t just go full leftist in the backwoods redneck country that is the USA and expect to get anywhere. making concessions is necessary. but people fail to understand the nuance required to play the game. the second you’re an “outsider” you’ll be cast aside by the prevailing parties - exactly what happened to Sanders when he assumed most people were with him. social media has created echo chambers that reflect a mirage of what we want to see, not what’s actually there.
As a communist in a redneck area, nearly the entirety of the redneck South are leftists. They don’t think they are. They need some social theory that is happening slowly. But their core values are ripped straight from the manifesto, right down to beating their bosses ass for pulling some dumb shit.
You genuinely don’t need to make concessions. You need to be honest, seem honest, and genuinely recognize the problems people have, not pretend they don’t exist. Every single person I’ve talked to, and I do mean Trump supporting, flag bearing, lifted truck little shits, supports Medicare for all. They fully support free college and trade school. Hell a decent number support ubi, even for minorities. They don’t support the words, the labels for those policies, because of propaganda and dem failures, but they fully support the policies if you explain them wholly without buzzwords. Hell I’ve helped convert a few to union men.
And I’m not lucky or in an abnormal area… Polls have repeated showed left wing policies( or at least as left wing as Sanders) are incredibly, ridiculously popular. Medicare for all, when you don’t use that term, gets 70-80% approval in polls depending on how well it’s explained in said poll.
You, like all neoliberal excuses, have no idea what the working class of America is like, which is amazing because statistically you’re a part of it.
So backwoods white Christian nationalists are okay with abortion? Gay marriage? Women’s rights? Interracial marriage? Muslims Immigrants? Mexican immigrants? People not having a full grasp of the English language?
You’re attacking a straw man brother. You have no idea who I am, where I came from or what experiences I have. You’ve also painted a picture that doesn’t match reality based on your own experience. The world isn’t as shallow as your singular perspective nor is it black or white.
These people do not exist in any numbers that matter. Get out of your echo chamber.
This is the social aspect I was referring to, and for the record, most don’t care either way. Because none of that effects them. They don’t have the time or energy to care. Those are problems for rich people.