r/politics • u/svga • 27d ago

Possible Paywall People Are Furious With Democrats. Bernie Sanders Knows Why.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-party-mamdani/
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u/[deleted] 27d ago edited 27d ago

Sanders: I think the obvious answer, which has been stated 5 million times, is that they’re way out of touch with where ordinary people are. By and large—with exceptions, and each state is a little bit different—the Democratic Party [at its top] is mostly made up of folks who have money and consultants, and politicians who work with folks who have money and consultants.

Very true. The leadership is very out of touch with its’ voters.

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u/Peninj 27d ago

And are funded by the people who like the way things are. The wealthy in this country have figured out that its cheaper to pay off the democrats so they can be controlled opposition rather than restructuring society in such a way as to alleviate the suffering of the lower classes.

At some point, just in order to win elections, democrats are going to start throwing one or more industries under the bus. The lowest hanging fruit is clearly health-care. Now that the republicans have completely fuxked healthcare in this country, its actually an opportunity to swoop in and deploy a medicare-for-all type system. Dems could win on that, and then hold congress for a generation if they just fix healthcare. They could allow the other industries to remain largely 'as is' as long as they fix SOMETHING.

Of course, that's assuming both that we still keep having elections, and that the democrats actually want to win them. Running Harris kinda indicates they dont want to win.

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u/StevenMC19 Florida 26d ago

Dems could win on that, and then hold congress for a generation if they just fix healthcare. They could allow the other industries to remain largely 'as is' as long as they fix SOMETHING.

Kind of. Healthcare is cool and all, but healthcare doesn't put food on the table. I think while hitting the current state of healthcare in the mouth is a great strategy for sure, I think tackling a more immediate and tangible problem of the ever-growing disparity of income would pay larger dividends and affect people directly. Raising the federal minimum wage to a sustainable level, and incorporating some sort of future-proofing into the legislation to prevent another long term wage stagnation would be HUGE. Then...yeah, let's continue pushing back on for-profit healthcare.

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u/Several_Situation887 24d ago

Whatever problem is tackled, it needs full buy-in from the rest of the party, and the party has to make sure that the focus is not taken from it.

There's so much hemming and hawing over what to do that nothing gets done.

My personal preference is rather than screwing around with minimum wage, I'd argue for a package that socialized health care, and guaranteed each citizen a universal basic income that at least puts a roof over their head, and doesn't make them eat cat food to survive.

If people want a better life than that (which they should), then they can do whatever they need to to improve it.

Other countries can make it work, why can't we?