Bernie Knows

By Shlomo Maital  

     I am as tired as you all, of reading the Democrats’ weary post-mortems of why they lost decisively.  This blog is the last about this topic, quoting someone who gets it.

      Senator Bernie Sanders, Vermont,  former mayor of Burlington.

      Why are the Democrats surprised that the working class did not support them?  He asks.  When  —  for years, the Democrats have not supported the working class. He said this to Michael Barbaro, on the New York Times” The Daily podcast.

       Go back to the Clinton administration, when NAFTA shipped America’s factories to Mexico and Canada, $5 an hour labor rather than $25, and free trade brought a flood of cheap Chinese goods into the US, throwing many Midwest factory workers out of a job. 

        What specifically did the Dems offer working people in this election?  Did they propose $18/hr. minimum wage legislation? Uh, no.  National health care for all?  No.  Support for day care?  No.  Make groceries more affordable?  Uh uh. 

        Virtually every ethnic, racial, and demographic group voted in the majority for Trump.  And for the first time in a long time, the Republicans won the majority of votes for President.   The Dems warned Trump would bash democracy.  Well, he will, and has.  But most Americans say,  hold on.  What did democracy do for me in the past 20 years?  Put power in the hands of the educated elites, while I was shut out of a college education, unable to afford the tuition or the steep interest rates on student loans. 

          Unless the Dems (who spent a billion dollars in ads in the three blue-wall states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,  ineffectively) start listening to working Americans, and speaking to them in their language, look for J.D. Vance to become President in 2028.

          Yikes.