With an imminent climate catastrophe only 12 years away, healthcare being the number one cause of bankruptcy in the wealthiest country on earth (with 78% already insured), the oligarchy’s stranglehold on the working-class now stronger than ever, stagnating wages that haven’t kept up with inflation, a human rights crisis in the middle-east, and a student debt crisis that stagnates economic growth, there is only one proper agenda that can address these key issues. Vermont Senator, “Amendment King” Bernie Sanders’ has been fighting for these very New Deal style democratic policies his entire life. While the Democratic party moved right on the political spectrum, policies supported by the majority of Americans – those at the core of Sanders’ agenda – became deemed ‘fringe.’ This is what makes Senator Sanders the strongest, most viable candidate for the 2020 Presidential election. No more fossil fuel pawns with charismatic authority, mortgage fraud criminal defenders, big pharma gatekeepers, or more plutocrats selling the middle-class increased domestic survellaince powers and voting for $716 billion military industrial complex spending bill and deregulating Wall Street. Lesser of two evils doesn’t suffice.
Bernie Has the Poll Numbers Across Demographics. Republicans Like Him More Than They Like Democrats.
The American people have overwhelmingly spoken in favor of Bernie Sanders: 58% of non-white voters, that is 73% African American support among voters, 68% among Hispanics, 62% among Asian-Americans, 56% among women, 62% among 18-34-year-olds and 78% among Democrats. These are your ‘Bernie Bros,’ mainstream media.Please continue lecturing us millions of simpletons on why we should vote against our best interest and for corporate pawns.
Sanders has also proven to be an effective, mediating, bipartisan voice, reaching across the aisle in CNN town halls and making Trump voters ‘feel the bern.’ Time and time again, his centered economic message has reached coal country effectively with none of the dripping ‘liberal east coast elite’ condescension. Recall the West-Virginia townhall where a county of Trump voters thanked Bernie and clapped for raising taxes, Medicare for all, and free college. His working-class message would’ve obviously resonated with disgruntled Trump voters on it’s own, but his ability to effectively communicate across the aisle would’ve done numbers.
There is a reason Sanders, who proudly calls himself a socialist, remains the –most popular politician in America per a Fox News poll. There’s a reason he has a higher approval rating than any democrats or republicans on the hill. It’s not just his unwavering earnestness, pseudonym as the “amendment king,” or clean corporate-interest free record. It’s media obfuscated fact that the majority of the country supports progressive policies and the majority of the electorate identifies as independents.
Bernie Would Have Won
Americans made their voices heard in the 2016 primaries, but like with everything supported by middle-class, was drowned out by the corporate party elite. In 2018, ex-DNC chair Donna Brazile revealed the Democratic Nation Committee essentially rigged the primaries in favor of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This confirmed what we all suspected. With Sanders’ rallies regularly turning out by the tens of thousands, the results puzzled us. Undemocratic superdelegates aside, hundreds of individual reports had surfaced of voter suppression against Sanders voters. Donna Brazile, revealed the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign collusion ran deep – the victory fund agreement was signed four months after Hillary announced her candidacy, a year before the nomination. Hillary Clinton’s campaign had control of the party before voters decided. And there has been no Congressional investigation, no FEC investigation for interfering in an election.
Polls during the primary season consistently showed Sanders handily defeating Trump by 10 points or more, while Clinton led him by only a few points. This is easy to fathom considering Trump secured the nomination when Hillary lost the three historically blue states that Bernie did well in during the primaries. Sanders beat Clinton in Wisconsin and Michigan. And the DNC chosen candidate lost Pennsylvania. Narrow margins of eight-tenths, three-tenths, and 1.2% in these three Rust Belt states where Sanders’ message resonated, handed the election to Trump.
Bernie Has the Rust-Belt Part of the Obama Coalition
What happened? These states usually swing blue. Well, working-class whites who previously voted for Obama were fed up with establishment politics and an unresponsive plutocracy in general so they voted for the only general election candidate who wasn’t bought by Wall Street and promised to remedy working-class struggles. Who else had an populist, working-class message and wasn’t absolutely lying about it? Sanders who made economic inequality the platform of his campaign would have obliterated policy-outline-free and economically illiterate Trump. But he won, and the country lost thanks to democrat hubris.
Left-wing policies are were the numbers are at. And analyzing the historical loss is key to avoiding the same mistakes. Unfortunately, most pundits and strategists are tone-deaf and incapable of any self-reflection. So not only did Hillary fail to draw Obama voters, but she also experienced the downfalls of low-voter turnout that come with a centrist, No-Hope, purely opposition campaign. She won 55% of the vote compared to Obama’s 69% in 2012, seeing a decrease in support from black, Latino, young voters and non-college whites. She lost the rust-belt Bernie had won the primary in, lost the millenial vote Bernie gained more votes than both Trump and her combined, and garnered only 28% of the non-college white vote where Obama had previously won 40% of in 2012.
The first female to win the nomination for president didn’t even gain 50% support from white women against the sexual assaulter and unabashed misogynist. Compared to Obama’s 93% of the black vote, Hillary garnered 88% of the black vote against a candidate who was sued twice by the DOJ for not renting to African Americans. And 65% Latinos vs 71% for Obama against a candidate who called them rapists. Most damaging, 54% millennial support, compared to obama’s 60%. Guess who draws millennials? Bernie Sanders and his progressive policies. In fact, more young people voted for Sanders than Clinton and Trump combined. He has 62% of the 18-34 voter electorate. Teenagers literally run after him screaming like he’s a rockstar. Not to mention there wouldn’t have been a spoiler effect in Florida from disgruntled Bernie supporters who voted for Jill Stein if he would have been the nominee.
Elections Should be About Issues not Cult of Personality.
As Sanders has always said, it’s not about a person but a movement. And the majority of Americans want a new New Deal. If he were to abandon his thirty-year-spanning agenda, his supporters would turn from him. This is why the independent senator from Vermont with zero campaign money, name recognition, and a self-proclaimed democratic-socialist label managed to not only run the most progressive campaign in US history but ran the most successful independent, grassroots campaigns in modern history. Against the brand-name Clinton machine at that. The crowds upwards of 20,000 were a sign of the changing political climate and rising populist revolt. His immense, insurgent success despite the political establishment’s relentless smear campaign was a physical manifestation of polls showing tremendous favorability towards progressive policies and a growing independent base. All of this ultimately forcing the DNC to to deliver the most progressive party platform in history.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans support single-payer, 88% oppose cuts to Social Security, voters in red states want Medicaid expanded, 68% think the wealthy pay too little taxes, 64% support regulating greenhouse gas emissions,58% support breaking up big banks, 63% support raising the minimum wage to $15.00, 53% support labor union law, 64% think corporations don’t pay their fair share.
The 2016 election proved people wanted populism and a platform for the working class, not career politicians grappling with being in the pockets of big money interests and trying to get reelected. Populism won no matter how much of a lie it turned out to be.
Corporatist Establishment Democrats Would Lose
There exists much misplaced hype around petroleum industry /U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke. While his election as Senator would have been tremendous progress for Texas, an examination of his highly-ignored voter record proves it would not be so much for the United States if Democrats want to beat Donald Trump. This may be tough for the cult of personality centrists to believe, but we don’t need another corporatist politician who voted to deregulate banks, voted to fast-track TPP, is number two below Ted Cruz fossil fuel industry recipients, and “frequently voted against the majority of House Democrats in support of Republican bills and Trump administration priorities.”
The same people who brought you Hillary “Secret Wall Street Speeches” Clinton, who lost in the most easily winnable election against a reality-star con-artist demand you ignore public records while the earth will become uninhabitable in many places by 2040. Their message boils down to, “Bernie old white man bad – Biden & Beto white men good!”
No more oil company shills winning on charismatic authority, mortgage fraud criminal defenders, big pharma gatekeepers, or more plutocrats selling the middle-class increased domestic surveillance powers, voting for $716 billion military industrial complex spending bill and deregulating Wall Street. We need a candidate whose agenda stands for issues the majority of Americans support – single-payer, higher wages, access to higher education, criminal justice reform, green energy – and that is Bernie Sanders. If he were to abandon these positions his supporters would abandon him. Tough for the cult of personality centrists who rally around the insurance industry, and big oil to understand, I know. Faux populism won in 2016, and Bernie so far is the only honest candidate who has made working-class populism his career-agenda.
Bernie’s New Deal
Standing against Bernie Sanders means standing against Medicare for All, the fiscally responsible $2-trillion-saving plan which is cheaper than premiums. (Because despite paying twice as much per capita as other countries in healthcare, leaves 30 million uninsured.) It means standing against economic justice – a $15 minimum wage, closing corporate tax loopholes, unions, and pay equity for women and minorities. (If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be $21.00.)
To oppose his agenda is to oppose ending Citizens United, ending voter suppression and gerrymandering, criminal justice reform in a country that spends $80 billion a year imprisoning more people than any other country. It means opposing aggressively combating impending climate change destruction by moving towards sustainable energy.
It means hating investing in the working-class who has the highest MPC, through $2-trillion-saving healthcare, tuition-free public college, expansion of social security, and green energy jobs. It means opposing foreign policy based on diplomacy and human rights, a cleaner planet, and enacting true economic justice. This is only possible when a leader isn’t beholden by corporate interests.
Reject Propaganda. Organize.
The unsubstantial attacks from the mainstream media outlets have already begun. Party Democratic elites with an agenda are throwing every trite ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative and the kitchen sink while failing to actually discuss any policy. The “Third Way” a group of Wall Street is already running opposition ads against Senator Sanders in primary states. We must halt these negative narratives about single-payer, and correct the record on Bernie’s positions and efficiency of his proposals. On his D- rating from the NRA, on that he wasn’t an effective legislator, and that he “made Hillary lose the election” by simply running a primary campaign with better politics.
The establishment has realized the Bernie Bros narrative doesn’t stick with the 58% non-white support he has. Could it be that economic inequality is decimating the middle-class as the wealth gap grows between minorities and Caucasian workers? African American women earn 64 cents and Hispanic women 55 cents for every dollar made by a white male. Despite what pundits might say, we’re seeing past the corporatist Democrats’ identity-politics-entrenched bromides, and looking for real economic justice. Because tokenism isn’t a measure of progressiveness when candidates sell us wars, vote against lowering pharmaceutical prices, and shill for Wall Street.
Amidst a political arena of corporatist plutocrats, in a dystopian hellscape where people die crowdfunding for insulin online, and millions will die in decades of unmitigated climate-change induced disaster, Bernie Sanders is the change we desperately need. Trump won because of faux populism, because of people who rejected corporatist war-hawk Hillary. What makes Democrats think Beto “Oil Shill” O’Rourke, Cory “Big Pharma Bro” Booker, or Kamala “Mortgage Fraud Defender” Harris are feasible contenders for the Rust Belt voters who crossed over to Trump in states Bernie won the primaries in? Or to millenials Bernie has 62% of the support from?
Bernie is the hero America needs in 2020, and wants according to poll numbers. The problem is he’s not the leader corporate interest groups or the colluding DNC wants. Bernie Sanders needs to run in 2020 because he’s been on the right-side of history regarding health care, economic justice, climate change for decades, and he would represent ordinary Americans’ best interest.
Leave a Reply