Bernie Sanders’s Brutal Verdict on Harris Campaign Pisses Off DNC
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders’s scathing take on the Democratic Party’s election night losses seriously irked party leaders already licking their wounds.In a statement Wednesday, the senator from Vermont offered his two cents on the sweeping defeat:It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.Sanders cited inflation, historically low wages, artificial intelligence, exorbitant prescription drug prices, billions of dollars towards Israel’s “horrific” war on Palestine, and rampant corporate corruption all as issues that the Democratic Party did not adequately communicate to voters, or address at all. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison—previously an aide to Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and then a corporate lobbyist—called Sanders’s take “straight up BS.” “Biden was the most-pro worker President of my life time- saved Union pensions, created millions of good paying jobs and even marched in a picket line and some of [Kamala Harris’s] plans would have fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial wealth gap for working people across this country,” Harrison tweeted Thursday morning. “From the child tax credits, to 25k for a down payment for a house to Medicare covering the cost of senior health care in their homes. There are a lot of post election takes and this one ain’t a good one.” Regardless of the merits of Harrison’s defense, there is a clear disconnect between the Democratic Party and the huge swaths of working class voters who soundly rejected their platform this election cycle. Does it really matter that President Biden stood on one picket line when 67 percent of voters nationwide said the economy has been bad for them under his leadership? Biden and Harris, even with policies that help working class people, still had to defend a status quo that, economically, actually wasn’t great for working class people regardless of race. That’s a difficult position to be in when your opponent is running on upending said status quo. Members of Team Biden have anonymously spilled that they wish Vice President Kamala Harris had continued to campaign on the dangers of corporate greed and corruption to counteract her weaknesses on inflation and the economy. According to The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer, a Biden aide told him that the vice president “steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer.” Harris mostly abandoned this angle and instead started campaigning more with billionaire Mark Cuban. Whether you think Sanders is right on this or not, it’s clear that it’s time for the Democratic Party to seriously reevaluate its messaging, and win back the voters it used to always have.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders’s scathing take on the Democratic Party’s election night losses seriously irked party leaders already licking their wounds.
In a statement Wednesday, the senator from Vermont offered his two cents on the sweeping defeat:
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.
Sanders cited inflation, historically low wages, artificial intelligence, exorbitant prescription drug prices, billions of dollars towards Israel’s “horrific” war on Palestine, and rampant corporate corruption all as issues that the Democratic Party did not adequately communicate to voters, or address at all.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison—previously an aide to Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and then a corporate lobbyist—called Sanders’s take “straight up BS.”
“Biden was the most-pro worker President of my life time- saved Union pensions, created millions of good paying jobs and even marched in a picket line and some of [Kamala Harris’s] plans would have fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial wealth gap for working people across this country,” Harrison tweeted Thursday morning.
“From the child tax credits, to 25k for a down payment for a house to Medicare covering the cost of senior health care in their homes. There are a lot of post election takes and this one ain’t a good one.”
Regardless of the merits of Harrison’s defense, there is a clear disconnect between the Democratic Party and the huge swaths of working class voters who soundly rejected their platform this election cycle. Does it really matter that President Biden stood on one picket line when 67 percent of voters nationwide said the economy has been bad for them under his leadership?
Biden and Harris, even with policies that help working class people, still had to defend a status quo that, economically, actually wasn’t great for working class people regardless of race. That’s a difficult position to be in when your opponent is running on upending said status quo.
Members of Team Biden have anonymously spilled that they wish Vice President Kamala Harris had continued to campaign on the dangers of corporate greed and corruption to counteract her weaknesses on inflation and the economy. According to The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer, a Biden aide told him that the vice president “steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer.” Harris mostly abandoned this angle and instead started campaigning more with billionaire Mark Cuban.
Whether you think Sanders is right on this or not, it’s clear that it’s time for the Democratic Party to seriously reevaluate its messaging, and win back the voters it used to always have.
