Some people are starry-eyed over Hillary Clinton claiming to not be a “single issue candidate” after her closing remarks during last night’s #DemDebate, and with that, implying that Bernie Sanders is a “single issue candidate”.
In hearing those closing remarks, I felt that they were truly illuminating to where the campaigns have been, and will go. Hillary might be great at name-dropping of groups of citizens who fit certain classes or statuses or occupations, but is she as great at actually representing all of those people? Also, for those concern-trolling about the details, where are all the details from Hillary’s campaign?
On Wall Street “Not being allowed to wreck the economy...again”
First off, the acknowledgement that it has happened once is a “no shit” kind of moment. We all know it happened. But the notion that Hillary, she of “I represent(ed) Wall Street” and “That’s what they offered” fame, would actually do anything meaningful to prevent Wall Street from getting a second chance to fatten their wallets at the expense of Main Street...is laughable.
Bernie Sanders has been fighting against this sort of gross inequality for many years, and though he may not have been able to stop it all by himself, his prescience when it came to blasting Alan Greenspan many years ago while others couldn’t hail him a Very Serious Person fast enough is a pretty stark contrast.
On Flint
Income inequality is just a much of a part of the Flint scandal as anything else. That the sufferers are disproportionately lower and working class, and in many cases non-white. Sad to say, but if they were in a better socioeconomic position in life, perhaps this number of citizens wouldn’t be poisoned the way they were. Of course, the corrupt Republican administration in Flint was surely bought and paid for by the mega-rich as well, once again wielding outsize influence on the lives of ordinary citizens
On “Poor miners being left out and left behind in coal country”
The world needs to move away from such dirty sources of energy as coal, but here’s Hillary giving a shout out to the poor people who have seen their economies decimated by the fall of coal. What is she planning to do to help these people out? Does she have a shovel-ready green energy program to transition these people to? Or does she plan to fire up as many coal mines as she can and get as much of that black gold out of the ground as possible? Where are the details?
Again, income inequality talk and fighting against the greed of the 1% may not solve their problems instantly, but in a system better suited to care for the individuals who do the work, perhaps coal country wouldn’t be as impoverished as it is now.
“Racism...sexism...LGBT discrimination...”
We obviously all believe these things are bad, or we’d be at RedState right now.
But let’s not gloss over just how badly income inequality has been shown to disproportionately affect non-whites and women. I’m not sure if there’s statistics out there regarding our gay friends and family members and their economic mobility, but there’s plenty of states where they can be terminated at their job just for being gay, to say nothing of the harassment they receive at work just for even being suspected of being gay.
That women still are not paid an equal amount of wage for an equal amount of work as men.
Bernie’s quest for a livable minimum wage, for example...would not automatically solve issues of systemic hatred and bigotry, I get that. Bernie’s not saying it would do that, to my knowledge.
But things like the Fight For $15 would immediately benefit many of the “oppressed” groups that Hillary checked off her checklist, and that would improve their standing in life for themselves, their children, and families. For many in these scenarios, the racism and sexism is just a vile frosting upon the cake of poverty that they may have in front of them.
On unions
It’s great that in Scott Walker’s backyard, Hillary touted her desire to strengthen unions.
Except that her questionable relationships with union-busters in Wal-Mart and others who would break up what should be a storied American tradition instead of a feeble shell of what it once was means that I can’t believe many union members — not leadership, but the rank and file — would take her seriously that she’ll do anything to benefit them and their membership.
On “Wall Street, big financial companies, insurance companies,” etc…
Hillary rattles off a list of terrible organizations and acknowledges they all have too much power.
Hurray!
Except that in her next breath, she goes on to say that even if we solved all those problems immediately, there would still be “negligence like in Flint”, “racism holding people back”, “sexism preventing women from getting equal pay...”, “LGBT people who are married on Saturday and fired on Monday”.
Well, let’s see here.
First off, if you actually were to address the massive problems of income and wealth inequality, the equal pay issue may not evaporate, but you certainly remove the stain of sexism from low paying jobs disallowing working moms from taking care of their families.
Fixing income inequality may not “solve racism”. But when non-white families have nonexistent net worth, compared to their white neighbors...that’s real progress, and a real chance for mobility when there isn’t any.
Fixing massive wealth gaps doesn’t solve LGBT issues overnight. But when power is returned to the workers, these odious policies and laws might actually change one day. Economic mobility that would come from a stronger, democratic socialist society might allow people to better move between jobs as needed, and a stronger workforce could have more leverage against the oligarchy if they are brought down a peg.
But the big thing I’d like to point out here?
Were Sanders able to achieve anything resembling his vision for restoring economic prosperity to the middle class, guess what he and other Democrats would have time and energy to focus on?
All of the other societal ills.
A prosperous society could help be a good step forward to a more social society.
Bernie’s message resonates with so many — even conservatives at times! — because everyone at our core, if we’re not already wealthy to not have to care...we care about our day-to-day well being, our ability to make ends meet, and then to give a good life to our families and ourselves.
That’s the American Dream. And it’s restoration for the Middle Class is such a profound and overarching issue, that there should be no problem with it being Bernie Sanders’ Issue #1. Because at the end of the day, his issue affects everyone.
Well, everyone outside of the 1%, that is.