Barbara Boxer recently stated that the reason young people like Bernie Sanders is because he is like a loveable grandpa
to us or something. I cannot tell if she legitimately thinks this, or
if she is trying to patronize millennials and downplay our perspective.
At best, it shows how out of touch many members of the DNC are with
millennial voters, and at worst, this is the DNC trying to subvert a
peoples’ agenda to fix the country because it would cost their donors
and cronies something. Either way, it fundamentally misunderstands the
issues that people are facing these days. Many people in this country
are PISSED OFF. We feel ignored and marginalized. The mainstream of the
democratic party is a major reason for this. We have serious problems in
this country, and the only person who is even attempting to address
them, is Senator Sanders. Whereas mainstream democrats are trying to
sell a lukewarm economic recovery, Sanders points to the many things
still wrong with this country, and actually tries to propose serious
solutions for how we can fix this. Whereas the mainstream democrat, like
you or Hillary, will say everything is fine, Sanders will tell it like
it is and say “this is broken, we need to fix this.”
The democratic establishment, however, doesn’t want anything to do with this. Clinton has tried to undermine this agenda to fix the country at every turn. She tells us constantly that we need to be pragmatic and practical, which I see as code for settling for less. Whereas Obama raised the hopes of the nation in 2008 saying things like “yes we can!”, Clinton’s motto sounds a lot like “no we can’t.” We can’t have universal healthcare like the rest of the world has, we have to settle for Obamacare, which is a mediocre implementation of healthcare, which may have been a little better than the previous situation, but is woefully inadequate in response to the problems. The democrats like to put band aids on gunshot wounds and then tell us that they fixed the problem and everything is fine. No, Senator Boxer, no, Mrs. Clinton, things in America are NOT fine. I don’t want to sound too much like Sanders here, but if I do, whatever. Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. People are graduating from college with tens of thousands in debt, with no good jobs to get into. Just the ones many people have been working since high school. Millions are still without health insurance despite Obamacare, such as this guy, who can’t even get a kidney transplant since the state deems him too old for automatic coverage. For all the talk of Obamacare being fine, of Obamacare being great, I don’t see it. Yet I doubt this would happen if we lived in Bernie Sanders’ America. I don’t see a lot of easily solvable problems existing in Sanders’ America, because Sanders actually want to solve them. We want real solutions to our problems. We don’t want band aids that kinda lessen the problem, but don’t actually solve it, only to have our politicians say that this is good enough.
Other countries try to solve these problems. But our politicians, including so called “progressives” like Ms. Clinton, say we’re not like other countries. We’re not Denmark, we are the United States of America! Hooray for meaningless patriotic circlejerking and tying our national identity to a form of neoliberal capitalism that is failing people in this country! by the way Ms. Clinton, wanna know what made us have the greatest middle class we’ve ever had in this country? It wasn’t a love affair with hardcore capitalism. It wasn’t Reaganism or the Third Way New Democratic economic ideology you and your husband subscribe to. And it certainly won’t be Donald Trump either, since he talks constantly about “making America great again.” It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his policies. It was the New Deal. It was the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was OSHA. It was Social Security. FDR is the one who made the middle class great. And he didn’t do it by tiptoeing around the issues. He took on the business interests of this country. He taxed them at 90%. He “welcomed their hatred.” He pushed for the big picture economic reforms similar to the kinds of big picture economic reforms that Sanders is for. If Sanders reminds us of any old grandpa, he reminds us of FDR, one of the greatest presidents who have ever existed, the one president of the 20th century who wasn’t afraid to GET CRAP DONE. He got a lot of crap done on his tenure, and wouldn’t take crap off of anyone. If he had to deal with a republican congress like exists today, he would use the full extent of his powers as an executive to get as much stuff done as he can. Maybe this isn’t always the kind of person who we need, but in an age where we are dealing with some of the most serious economic problems since his administration, we need someone like him to show us the way. Sanders is that person. Hillary is not. Just listen to how FDR sounded here in this clip. Who does he sound more like? Clinton and her “incremental reform” approach? Or Sanders and his “we need to fix this now” approach? I would say FDR would condemn Clinton as “twiddling her thumbs.”
FDR’s policies were not perfect, but they greatly improved the life of those in the 20th century. In the 21st, we need to expand these ideas. We need universal healthcare. We need free education. Our labor standards need an overhaul since they haven’t been massively updated since FDR’s own time. You know, France is trying to pass a law to make it illegal to have to deal with work emails outside of work? Whereas here in America, people are being more tried to their jobs by technology, in Europe, some places are trying to keep work and home life separate, a measure I highly applaud. Why don’t we do crap like this? Because we’re America, not France? Maybe the democrats gotta stop “twiddling their thumbs” as FDR would say and actually do something. European countries mostly have longer vacations than us. Here in America, you’re supposed to work that out with your employer, which is a load of garbage, because as I said before, the labor market is fundamentally biased against the workers! As a result, most are lucky to get 2 weeks, while the average European gets like a month. You know, Switzerland is actually gonna have a referendum soon about universal basic income? We wouldn’t even think of doing something like this. But you know what? These are the kinds of ideas we need to get thinking about, and these are the kinds of ideas Sanders talks about and gets people motivated about.
The other democrats? They’re worthless. They pass mediocre bills with all their teeth stripped out of them and then say “yay, we did something, vote for us!” Meanwhile, the average person doesn’t see their lives improve by much, we see all these problems remain, and then the democrats tell us we can’t actually fix the problems and we gotta settle for them, or else. They browbeat us and lecture us and tell us we need to settle for less. Again, as I said at the beginning of the post, at best they’re simply out of touch with what the people want. At worst, they know what we want and are trying to talk us down and browbeat us because it goes against the interests of the 1%. I seriously wish that the democratic party would just “get it”. This is why Millennials love Sanders. He’s honest, he’s straightforward, and he he wants to roll up his sleeves and get crap done, which is more than I can say of just about any other candidate in the race. Senator Boxer, Ms. Clinton, take note. Being “pragmatic” and “incremental” and pushing statements like “the perfect is the enemy of the good” will only get you so far. Sometimes the American public wants someone who will push for progressive change on a wide scale unapologetically, and who will use every means at their disposal to further such an agenda. In a country where the right is radicalized, we need someone who will fight for us, who will stand up for our interests. Millennials like Bernie Sanders because he is that guy. Just about no one else in this country, minus maybe Elizabeth Warren, fits the bill. And if you wonder for five seconds why so many people are angry at the democratic party, it’s because they’ve largely turned a blind eye to these concerns and push for policies that are “good enough”, when they aren’t even close. We feel like the party doesn’t give a crap about us and is ignoring our concerns and our problems. Take note, democrats, take note.
The democratic establishment, however, doesn’t want anything to do with this. Clinton has tried to undermine this agenda to fix the country at every turn. She tells us constantly that we need to be pragmatic and practical, which I see as code for settling for less. Whereas Obama raised the hopes of the nation in 2008 saying things like “yes we can!”, Clinton’s motto sounds a lot like “no we can’t.” We can’t have universal healthcare like the rest of the world has, we have to settle for Obamacare, which is a mediocre implementation of healthcare, which may have been a little better than the previous situation, but is woefully inadequate in response to the problems. The democrats like to put band aids on gunshot wounds and then tell us that they fixed the problem and everything is fine. No, Senator Boxer, no, Mrs. Clinton, things in America are NOT fine. I don’t want to sound too much like Sanders here, but if I do, whatever. Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. People are graduating from college with tens of thousands in debt, with no good jobs to get into. Just the ones many people have been working since high school. Millions are still without health insurance despite Obamacare, such as this guy, who can’t even get a kidney transplant since the state deems him too old for automatic coverage. For all the talk of Obamacare being fine, of Obamacare being great, I don’t see it. Yet I doubt this would happen if we lived in Bernie Sanders’ America. I don’t see a lot of easily solvable problems existing in Sanders’ America, because Sanders actually want to solve them. We want real solutions to our problems. We don’t want band aids that kinda lessen the problem, but don’t actually solve it, only to have our politicians say that this is good enough.
Other countries try to solve these problems. But our politicians, including so called “progressives” like Ms. Clinton, say we’re not like other countries. We’re not Denmark, we are the United States of America! Hooray for meaningless patriotic circlejerking and tying our national identity to a form of neoliberal capitalism that is failing people in this country! by the way Ms. Clinton, wanna know what made us have the greatest middle class we’ve ever had in this country? It wasn’t a love affair with hardcore capitalism. It wasn’t Reaganism or the Third Way New Democratic economic ideology you and your husband subscribe to. And it certainly won’t be Donald Trump either, since he talks constantly about “making America great again.” It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his policies. It was the New Deal. It was the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was OSHA. It was Social Security. FDR is the one who made the middle class great. And he didn’t do it by tiptoeing around the issues. He took on the business interests of this country. He taxed them at 90%. He “welcomed their hatred.” He pushed for the big picture economic reforms similar to the kinds of big picture economic reforms that Sanders is for. If Sanders reminds us of any old grandpa, he reminds us of FDR, one of the greatest presidents who have ever existed, the one president of the 20th century who wasn’t afraid to GET CRAP DONE. He got a lot of crap done on his tenure, and wouldn’t take crap off of anyone. If he had to deal with a republican congress like exists today, he would use the full extent of his powers as an executive to get as much stuff done as he can. Maybe this isn’t always the kind of person who we need, but in an age where we are dealing with some of the most serious economic problems since his administration, we need someone like him to show us the way. Sanders is that person. Hillary is not. Just listen to how FDR sounded here in this clip. Who does he sound more like? Clinton and her “incremental reform” approach? Or Sanders and his “we need to fix this now” approach? I would say FDR would condemn Clinton as “twiddling her thumbs.”
FDR’s policies were not perfect, but they greatly improved the life of those in the 20th century. In the 21st, we need to expand these ideas. We need universal healthcare. We need free education. Our labor standards need an overhaul since they haven’t been massively updated since FDR’s own time. You know, France is trying to pass a law to make it illegal to have to deal with work emails outside of work? Whereas here in America, people are being more tried to their jobs by technology, in Europe, some places are trying to keep work and home life separate, a measure I highly applaud. Why don’t we do crap like this? Because we’re America, not France? Maybe the democrats gotta stop “twiddling their thumbs” as FDR would say and actually do something. European countries mostly have longer vacations than us. Here in America, you’re supposed to work that out with your employer, which is a load of garbage, because as I said before, the labor market is fundamentally biased against the workers! As a result, most are lucky to get 2 weeks, while the average European gets like a month. You know, Switzerland is actually gonna have a referendum soon about universal basic income? We wouldn’t even think of doing something like this. But you know what? These are the kinds of ideas we need to get thinking about, and these are the kinds of ideas Sanders talks about and gets people motivated about.
The other democrats? They’re worthless. They pass mediocre bills with all their teeth stripped out of them and then say “yay, we did something, vote for us!” Meanwhile, the average person doesn’t see their lives improve by much, we see all these problems remain, and then the democrats tell us we can’t actually fix the problems and we gotta settle for them, or else. They browbeat us and lecture us and tell us we need to settle for less. Again, as I said at the beginning of the post, at best they’re simply out of touch with what the people want. At worst, they know what we want and are trying to talk us down and browbeat us because it goes against the interests of the 1%. I seriously wish that the democratic party would just “get it”. This is why Millennials love Sanders. He’s honest, he’s straightforward, and he he wants to roll up his sleeves and get crap done, which is more than I can say of just about any other candidate in the race. Senator Boxer, Ms. Clinton, take note. Being “pragmatic” and “incremental” and pushing statements like “the perfect is the enemy of the good” will only get you so far. Sometimes the American public wants someone who will push for progressive change on a wide scale unapologetically, and who will use every means at their disposal to further such an agenda. In a country where the right is radicalized, we need someone who will fight for us, who will stand up for our interests. Millennials like Bernie Sanders because he is that guy. Just about no one else in this country, minus maybe Elizabeth Warren, fits the bill. And if you wonder for five seconds why so many people are angry at the democratic party, it’s because they’ve largely turned a blind eye to these concerns and push for policies that are “good enough”, when they aren’t even close. We feel like the party doesn’t give a crap about us and is ignoring our concerns and our problems. Take note, democrats, take note.
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