If we don’t unrig the economy with sweeping change and tackle other pressing issues this racial and cultural resentment will grow, more left-leaning voters will stay home (especially ones who expect stuff like a Green New Deal or Medicare for All), and the next GOP POTUS could be someone scarier than Trump
Many liberal and progressive voters have started to doubt the Democratic Party’s ability to do for this century what FDR did for the last one, which is what we need at the moment.
But stagnant wages and families who don’t have enough in savings to cover medical bills, while CEOs and corporations pay little to no taxes, paint a different picture. The economy is broken, and the right uses it to pit people against each other and cultivate nationalism.
You keep laying out very basic structural reasons for supporting the only candidate running who checks all of the boxes but reject him because of age and ethnicity. Bernie not only checks those boxes but has a borderline cult following to counter that of Trump, except Bernie’s support comes largely younger and more econ savvy voters with a lot more skin in the game for our future.
Bernie’s appeal, contrary to media rhetoric, is focussed in the rust belt states where both parties have failed the people miserably in their zeal to chase deep pocket donors. Just Bernie’s method of financing his campaign is a major draw for those voters and his policies would offer them some real relief that isn’t dependent upon the market or industry’s willingness to create better-paying jobs instead of moving more offshore or moving to AI.
Bernie’s main message is that the people’s government has the ability to work in their favor and only the political will to do so is missing, which is a powerful message to people up to their chins in private debt and just a missed paycheck away from disaster. When capitalism fails the people for long enough they lose their aversion to the concept of socialism and begin to question the common rhetoric that wealth will eventually trickle down, a ridiculous concept to begin with as all social tension can be traced back to the conflict between capital and labor.
When Dems align with anti-government Republicans and proudly declare their allegiance to America’s unique vulture capitalism we can kiss off seeking any support for the people from the government that is supposed to be dedicated to their support. The fact that the house leader is actively promoting economic extremism called “paygo” and several Dem representatives have signed onto the nation-killing concept of Constitutionally mandated balanced budgets says the left is completely leaderless currently.
The Democratic party is no longer the party of FDR, but rather, the party of Pete Peterson who Pelosi eulogized with the highest praise in spite of his never holding public office or being anything except an enemy of workers. The neoliberal, market worshiping, third way Democrats have totally failed Amerca in favor of their donors and lining their own pockets and Bernie is the only candidate running who has for his entire career opposed that ideology. I think his time has come and even if he were to be a one-term President his ideas and policies would live on via necessity and popularity.
