Summary
Bernie Sanders criticizes the Democratic Party for neglecting the working class, leading to their recent election losses.
He highlights issues like economic inequality, job displacement, healthcare costs, and foreign policy as key concerns for the American people.
Sanders questions whether the Democratic leadership will address these issues or remain beholden to big money interests.
Do people mean anything other than commodity and gas prices when they say “working class issues?” I feel like abortion, healthcare, education, and student loans are also working class issues, but I take it that’s not what people mean.
Let’s start with the 70% or so of people that report living paycheck to paycheck[1] rather than claiming that the 'economy is doing fine. Let’s even acknowledge that inflation is making good and housing prohibitively expensive[2].
The things you mentioned are important. For people that are struggling to keep a roof over their heads though the issue of Healthcare or education tend to be less critical than keeping food on the table. We can’t keep saying the economy is doing fine while people keeping trying to tell us it isn’t.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/price-tracker/
I appreciate the sources and the rigor. But is it not the left that’s consistently pushing for a higher minimum wage? For exploring solutions like UBI or even just expanded social safety nets for the people who fall out the bottom?
The costs of healthcare continues to skyrocket, when we’re already paying twice what other nations are. Healthcare bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy. But is it not the left (sorry, I started the “is it not” thing, and I feel like I need to keep it going, ahem…) that’s been pushing universal healthcare? For transparency in hospital costs?
I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s accurate to say the DNC has “abandoned the working class.” The DNC’s never been able to communicate effectively (or perhaps they’ve just never been believed) when they try to explain that they haven’t abandoned the working class. And they’re not very good at fellating microphones.
Democrats passed the ACA without any Republican support. They should have passed MFA then. It was terrible and made my life much harder at the time. It’s better now, but barely. My wife has a low paying government job and her health insurance costs went up significantly more than her 2% raise. Both of us took cuts in net pay while food, property taxes and seemingly everything else went up. What have Dems done about housing, pay, taxes, food costs in the last term? Nothing. Oh, Biden got one drug to be cheaper. But I’m not ba diabetic. Yet.
Yes. UBI has been a leftist conversation point for the last few years. Overall though the Democratic Party is opposed [1]. Two years ago when asked if the democrats would step up efforts to help people in financial straights the response was an effective no [2]. If I remember correctly that was even a campaign promise from Joe Bidden, that nothing significant would change.
And despite that, when the democrat’s made promses when it comes time to follow through they have a hard time enacting their goals. I will grant that a big chunk of that is republican interference, but the democrats seem to be extremely hesitant to use the levers of power available to them to follow through. When one side is blatently, openly cheating, its folly to keep trying to play by old rules.
And please don’t get me wrong, nothing I’m saying should be taken as endorsement for the Republicans. I want to live in a world of rational debate and law. However, both sides have to agree to that for it to work. When one side wants to win at all costs the democrats can’t keep playing from the same old book forever.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/economic-inequality/universal-basic-income/
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/us/politics/biden-economy-midterms.html