Progressive policies that help working Americans are very popular with voters, Sanders reminds us. Why, then, he asks, is the Democratic party allowing Republicans and corporate Democrats to dictate an agenda that fails to advance such progressive policies?
Following, with added links, is an excerpt from Bernie’s op-ed, one titled “Democrats Risk a Crushing Defeat This Year. They Must Change Course Now.”
Amid grotesque and widening income and wealth inequality and decades of wage stagnation, the existential threat of the climate crisis, a rigged tax system and crises in healthcare, childcare and housing, the American people wanted Congress to finally stand up and represent their interests, not just the greed of wealthy campaign contributors. And that’s what the Build Back Better Act was about. Poll after poll showed overwhelming support for virtually every provision in that legislation.
Yes. The American people want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. They want to lower the outrageous cost of prescription drugs, expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids and vision, address the crisis in home and healthcare, make childcare, pre-K and higher education affordable, establish a paid family and medical leave program and build the millions of units of affordable housing we need. Yes. The American people want us to invest heavily in combating global heating by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, despite strong support from the American people, despite the support of the president, despite passage in the House of Representatives, despite the support of 48 members of the Senate, two corporate Democrats – Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – both of whom received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from billionaires and corporate interests – decided to sabotage that legislation. We needed 50 votes to pass Build Back Better. We had 48.
And it has been downhill ever since for the Democrats. After nine months of fruitless “negotiations” with Manchin and Sinema, the time is long overdue to realize that this is a path that leads to nowhere except defeat at the ballot box and the growing perception that the Democrats have turned their backs on working families. We need a new strategy. We need to take on Republicans. We need to fight back.
In an extremely difficult and unsettling time – inflation, the pandemic, the heating of the planet, gun violence, attacks on abortion rights, the war in Ukraine – the American people want their elected officials to stand up to powerful special interests and fight for them. Well. The Democrats control the White House, the Senate and the House – and yet that is not happening. They are being held accountable for their inaction, and they’re losing.
Is the situation hopeless? I don’t think so. But in order to turn the situation around, Democrats need a significant course correction. And, in doing that, they can learn a lesson from the 1948 campaign of Harry Truman. In 1948, nobody believed Truman had a chance to win that election. Strom Thurmond and the segregationists had bolted the party and Henry Wallace, a third-party candidate, was taking progressive votes away from Truman. Truman responded with a simple and straightforward strategy. Unlike today’s Democrats, he took the fight to the Republicans. He didn’t let them hide behind their whining and “do-nothingism.” He exposed them for what they were – tools of special interests. He made them vote on critical issues. And, time and again, they voted against the interests of working families. Truman showed the very clear difference between the parties – and he won.
What the Democrats need to do, right now, is to make it clear: they may have 50 votes in the Senate, but they do not have 50 votes to pass the legislation that the American people want and need. They have no Republican support and there are two Democrats who will vote with Republicans on important issues.
Now is the time to make democracy work. Let us bring to the Senate floor the crucial issues affecting working families and vote, vote and vote again. Even if we lost these votes, which is likely, the American people have the right to see where their elected officials stand. Make them vote!
– Sen. Bernie Sanders
Excerpted from “Democrats Risk a Crushing Defeat This Year.
They Must Change Course Now”
The Guardian
June 16, 2022
Excerpted from “Democrats Risk a Crushing Defeat This Year.
They Must Change Course Now”
The Guardian
June 16, 2022
Related Off-site Links:
Bernie to Dems: Change Course Before You Nosedive in November – Burgess Everett (Politico, June 9, 2022).
Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Need “Major Course Correction” to Prevent GOP Takeover – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, January 10, 2022).
To Govern and Win Elections, Democrats Must Defeat Corporate Lobby – Not Surrender to It – Jeffrey D. Sachs (CNN Politics via Common Dreams, November 5, 2021).
Our Government Isn’t Progressive — But America Is – Julie Olicer (Data for Progress, October 22, 2020).
Progressive Policies Are Popular Policies – Robert Weissman (PublicCitizen.org, May 1, 2020).
Majority of Americans Support Progressive Policies – Steve Liesman (CNBC News, March 27, 2019).
The United States Is a Progressive Nation With a Democracy Problem – David M. Perry (The Nation, February 6, 2019).
They Are Not Even Pretending Anymore: Democratic Leaders Are Joining With Oligarchs to Try to Permanently Destroy the Progressive Movement – David Sirota (The Lever, May 17, 2022).
Nina Turner: Democrats Must Decide If They Are “Party of the Corporatists or Party of the People” – Democracy Now! (May 18, 2022).
UPDATE: Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class. It Will Cost Them in November – Rene Lopez (Newsweek, June 29, 2022).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• Celebrating Progressive Wins in the Midst of the Ongoing “War for the Future of the Democratic Party”
• Ricardo Levins Morales on the “Deepest Political Fault Line” Separating Democrats
• Colin Taylor on the “Moral Obscenity” of Obstructionist Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema
• Maebe A. Girl: A “Decidedly Progressive Candidate” for Congress
• Nina Turner: “A Candidate Who Can Make An Enormous Difference”
• Progressive Perspectives on Nina Turner’s Election Loss
• Hamilton Nolan: Quote of the Day – August 3, 2021
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – July 8, 2021
• David Sirota: Quote of the Day – January 26, 2021
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2020 U.S. Election Results
• Biden’s Win: “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• We Cannot Allow a Biden Win to Mean a Return to “Brunch Liberalism”
• My Summer of Supporting Progressive Down-Ballot Candidates
• Marianne Williamson on the Contest Being Played Out by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Quote of the Day – March 10, 2019
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