Bernie Sanders is seemingly back releasing what mainstream outlets are calling a “blistering takedown” of the Democratic Party after Kamala Harris’ massive defeat in the Presidential Election to Donald Trump.
The release reads:
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement in response to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election:
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 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 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 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.
The problem though doesn’t come with his statement, everything Bernie is saying here is 100 percent right. The problem lies on multiple fronts. Social democrats or progressives are still going to be dead set that the Democratic Party can be changed from within. With that, Bernie’s solutions are only going to come from within and against not only a Democratic party that has moved right but a Republican Party that now controls all three branches of government.
People are also not going to forget how Bernie abandoned progressives, social democrats, and leftists who put their faith in him to back a genocidal Biden administration that wanted to do nothing but tow some shitty centrist line. Why should anyone on the left trust what Bernie has to say this time around? But this can be said for just about any bureaucrat in Washington.
Does that mean though we should ignore what he has to say?
No, not necessarily. If Bernie is interested in lighting the DNC on fire then let him do it. Especially if his mentality as this point is “I’m 83 years old, what do I have to lose” but no one should be holding their breath that anything meaningful will come from it.
Again, electoral politics and Western liberal democracy have run their course.
