Bernie Sanders vs. The Democratic Party

Let’s circle back to Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I – VT) campaign appearance in Milwaukee for The League of United Latin American Citizens convention. Senator Sanders won the 2016 Wisconsin Presidential Primary and intends to do so again.

So he brought his program of Medicare of All, Student Loan forgiveness, $15 Minimum Wage, and other progressive ideas to his meetings with area activists and the LULAC convention itself. He realizes that a successful showing in the Wisconsin primary will again be critical to his campaign and Wisconsin could be a decisive factor in defeating President Trump in the general election in 2020.

But he also brought a bit of his criticism of the Democratic Party with him. Sen. Sanders has always prided himself on being an Independent…but in running for president has accepted the expediency of running as a Democrat.

Sanders said he wants a Democratic Party that “reflects what the American people want, rather than wealthy campaign contributors.”


“Is that really a terrible thing, that we have a party that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country?” he said. “The working class is in deep trouble right now. And I think our job is to represent the working people of this country, not wealthy corporate interests. And if people want to criticize me then criticize me. It’s not like I’m coming up with some crazy ideas, you know, the ideas that I’m talking about on this campaign, and that others have adopted, are ideas that exist all over the world.”

Because we want to move the party in a different direction, a party that represents not the Wall Street that he represents, but the working class of this country, the people of Milwaukee, the people who are struggling all over this country.”

So…I am going to criticize him. Because I think that he’s wrong? Hell no…he’s absolutely right. The Democratic Party needs a lot of rethinking…my problem is Bernie Sanders has wasted nearly 30 years in elected office in Washington and he didn’t get involved with the party to fix it. He caucused with them…because without their support he was going to be ineffectual in Congress. But he didn’t get his hands dirty trying to fix the party apparatus that he knows is flawed.

How successful would he have been in moving the party? We’ll never know. And admittedly he’d garner tremendous push-back just like he is now. But he’d have 30 years of progress by now…30 years.

And yes he has moved the party since 2016…hats off. But we could have been so much farther along.

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