Unsurprisingly, it turns out that people of color (especially women), teachers, Wal-Mart employees, Amazon employees, and Starbucks employees — those suffering most under neoliberalism’s decades-long assault on our society — are Bernie Sanders’s biggest supporters… and they’ve come out to support him in record numbers!
While the establishment smears and marginalizes him, regular, working-class Americans love Bernie Sanders and clamor for the policies that he, and he alone, is advocating. That’s why he’s breaking records — the biggest crowds gathered at the primary stage, the most small donors — two consecutive presidential election cycles running!
From the article that first appeared on yesterday’s CommonDreams.org website:
“The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders said it made political history on Thursday by receiving campaign donations from 1 million individuals in the shortest amount of time.
“‘With 1 million contributors, this is the only Democratic campaign that has more supporters than Donald Trump,’ said campaign manager Faiz Shakir in a statement.
“‘Our strength is in numbers,’ continued Shakir, ‘and that is why Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who is able to say his campaign will rely only on grassroots funding in both the primary and against Donald Trump.'”
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Now, compare Bernie’s people-powered campaign to the establishment-blessed campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (71% of whose supporters are white, typically affluent, and mostly male).
Elizabeth Warren has taken millions of dollars from megadonors over most of her political career, and she’s been adamant that she’ll take their money again in the general: “We need a lot of power, a lot of dark money, a lot of super-PACS… We play by the same rules” (as Trump and the Republicans).
Do you doubt Warren said this? Well, see for yourself (the quote I’ve offered comes verbatim from Warren’s recent conversation with Cenk Uygur) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTypAHOjy8w&t=65s
In other words, in the general election, Sen. Warren has vowed to negate her moral advantage over Trump and get down in the sewer with him, grubbing after the “dark money” and “PAC money” of fossil fuel companies, the private prison industry, charter school magnates, the Military Industrial Complex, PhRMA, AHIP, AIPAC, and the usual parade of parasites.
According to The New York Times, Warren’s “100% grassroots-funded” campaign was built on a $10-million war chest, the vast majority of which came from “billionaires,” “multi-millionaires,” “megadonors,” “old guard power brokers” and “politically connected insiders” — thanks to one lavish fundraiser after another in New York City, Silicon Valley, Martha’s Vineyard, Florida, Philadelphia…
Do you doubt it? See for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-2020.html
Only one candidate holds out great promise of defeating Donald Trump in 2020, and his name is Bernie Sanders.
The rest have simply not been vetted. And none of them are as popular in their home state as Bernie is after decades in public office.
It’s not a coincidence that Bernie is also the one candidate with a history of eschewing the corrupting influence of big money on our political system — and the one candidate with a long history of unequivocally advocating for single-payer healthcare, a robust public education system, a reduced Pentagon budget, civil rights for all (including African-Americans and the LGBTQ community), and the most progressive agenda since FDR.
I know that for many Democrats, it has become important to not make waves with the establishment. Many mainstream Democrats are coalescing around the establishment-courting candidacy of Elizabeth Warren. I understand that. The corporate media is promoting her relentlessly, and her campaign has been very slick and smart, like Warren herself.
And in the unlikely event that Sen. Warren proves capable of defeating Donald Trump — overcoming her considerable vulnerabilities in a general election — she would become our first woman president, something that is long overdue.
That would be great!
But her negative favorability ratings are consistently higher than Bernie’s, particularly among independent voters and conservatives. And her history of flip-flopping, political cowardice, and supporting the establishment, especially the Military Industrial Complex and the DNC, will all come back to haunt her in the general election.
So, for those enamored of barrier-breaking and Identity Politics, can’t we “settle” on backing the most popular politician in America — and the most progressive — the one who promises to actually defeat Donald Trump and become our nation’s first Jewish president?
Incidentally, you will note that Bernie supporters don’t go around calling Clinton/Warren fans “antisemitic,” the way we’ve been slandered as being misogynist “bros” — a slur that originated in the Clinton campaign of 2016 and was wholly unsupported by facts…
(For the record, I do not think Warren boosters are antisemitic for not supporting Bernie. I think they’re affluent, white conservatives with liberal affectations, political neophytes woefully susceptible to corporate media narratives, making them largely unsympathetic to the plight of millions of people of color, Venezuelans, Crimeans, Arab Muslims, and poor people, generally. So, to my Warren-supporting friends, please understand that I do not think of you as anti-Semites… You’re welcome.)
But in all seriousness, wouldn’t it be meaningful to have a non-Christian president in the office for once, especially considering the fact that politicized, Christian Dominionists have become the beating heart of the fascism ascendant in America today?
(Mind you, that’s not all Christians, but the Dominionists, specifically, who have emerged as a national political force in recent decades — an American Taliban, only with global ambitions and a history of genocide.)
Rather than robotically chanting “I’m with her!” — referring to the candidate of the warmongering, planet-killing 1% — isn’t it time for mainstream liberals to support the gentle, inclusive, peace-loving candidate… who also, as it happens, polls best with women, people of color, and the downtrodden?
Consider Bernie’s mantra: “It’s not about me, it’s about us!”
Establishmentarian Democrats should consider supporting the candidate of the people, for a change, rather than the candidate of megadonors, corporations, and billionaires.
And with any luck, Sanders’s 2020 running mate will be Rep. Tulsi Gabbard or Rep. Nina Turner, and we’ll have a woman president-elect in 2024 or 2028!