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Bernie Sanders has some scathing advice for Democrats after the 2024 election
“Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can’t represent both.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders embarked on a post-election media blitz over the weekend, doubling down on his claim Democrats have “abandoned” the working class and pitching a series of legislative priorities designed to win back voters.
“The results of the 2024 election have confirmed a reality that is too frequently denied by Democratic Party leaders and strategists: The American working class is angry — and for good reason,” the Vermont Independent wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed Sunday.
2024 election:
President-elect Donald Trump won by tapping into that anger, Sanders argued, pointing out that Trump scapegoated immigrants in an attempt to explain pervasive issues in the U.S. economy.
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“That explanation is grossly racist, cruel, and fallacious,” Sanders wrote. “But it is an explanation.”
He added: “In my view, the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.”
Democratic leaders must recognize the status quo is no longer tenable for working families, Sanders asserted.
“The Democratic Party needs to determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times, and it needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for,” he wrote. “Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can’t represent both.”
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Sanders urged Democrats to fight for a series of “working class priorities” that range from a $17 per hour federal minimum wage to Social Security reforms, universal health care, free tuition to public colleges, affordable child care, low income and affordable housing, and a progressive tax system that will force the nation’s wealthiest individuals to “start paying their fair share.”
“These are extremely popular ideas,” he wrote. “The Democratic Party would do well to listen to the clear directive of American voters, and deliver. The simple fact is: if you stand with working people, they will stand with you.”
While Sanders’s comments on the election have drawn more than a million likes on social media, his accusations of working class abandonment rankled some Democratic leaders.
“This is straight up BS,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison wrote on X, resharing Sanders’s original post.
Calling President Joe Biden “the most-pro worker President of my life time,” Harrison added: “There are a lot of post election takes and this one ain’t a good one.”
U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi likewise cited Biden’s record when she told The New York Times: “I have a great deal of respect for [Sanders], for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”
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Sanders stood by his comments during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” and responded to Pelosi’s criticism directly on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
“Nancy is a friend of mine, and we’ve worked together on many issues,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “But here is the reality: … in the Senate in the last two years, we have not even brought forth legislation to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, despite the fact that some 20 million people in this country are working for less than $15 an hour.”
He continued: “Bottom line, if you’re an average working person out there, do you really think that the Democratic Party is going to the mats, taking on powerful special interests, and fighting for you? I think the overwhelming answer is ‘no.’”
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