In a speech Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) urged attendees to move away from “identity politics” and towards policies aimed at helping the working class.
Sanders spoke to a crowd of more than 1,000 mostly young people at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, according to a report from WBUR.
“The working class of this country is being decimated — that’s why Donald Trump won,” Sanders said, according to the same report. “And what we need now are candidates who stand with those working people, who understand that real median family income has gone down.”
Boston Magazine reported that an audience member told Sanders that she wanted to become the second Latina elected to the U.S. Senate and asked for his advice. Sanders responded by urging the crowd to move the Democratic Party away from what he called “identity politics.”
“It is not good enough for somebody to say, ‘I’m a woman, vote for me.’ That is not good enough,” he said, according to WBUR. “What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industries.”
Sanders also addressed what he called “the racist background of Mr. Trump,” according to the student-run Daily Free Press, and mocked the idea that Trump ran against the establishment.
“The idea that somebody like a Donald Trump could pose as the anti-establishment candidate, could pose as the candidate of change, would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire,” he said.
This post has been updated.
But on the other hand: Isn’t this the same thing as saying: “No, ALL Lives Matter”?
If you give up on supporting all sorts of hyphenated Americans, you’re giving up on supporting minorities that otherwise have no identity.
What if the Democratic Party finds a way to a future majority of “Just Plain Americans” and sells out its heart and soul in the process? What then?
I completely agree with the main point of Sanders’ argument, that Democrats need to appeal to the working class. But his discussion of identity politics is completely off base. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall a single instance of Clinton arguing that we should vote for her because she’s a woman. I do recall some talk about her nomination being historic — because it was — but it was hardly central to her campaign.
Maybe I’m reading all of the wrong Democrats, but I don’t see identity politics as being a driving force of the Democratic party. I DO, however, see it as a driving force of the Republicans: white nationalism is identity politics. So to the extent that Democrats are calling out the GOP for THEIR identity politics, well then fine, guilty as charged. Otherwise, I think Sanders is railing against a straw man here.
Here’s a novel thought: Stop the hispandering, end support for illegals, support Trump’s deportation, and provide jobs for working class folks.
We’ll see how far that gets.
She never did…this is just a weird time for this message, in my opinion. Especially considering what is happening in the wake of the election.
LOLOLOLOL. Chuckle of the day.
The democratic party, to the rural and working class, is the party of blacks, lesbians, transgenders, and illegals who are on the dole. There is no interest in the party since no one in the rural areas identifies with any of that.