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In the commentary that accompanied Senator Bernie Sanders' entry into the Democratic Party's presidential primary, skepticism was expressed about the chances of success of his second campaign. It has been argued that with a group already filled with younger and more physically attractive candidates, the moment of the 77-year-old's radical had passed with his greatest contribution visible in the rearview mirror – his post-2016 success in moving the 39, all of the Democratic Party left.
After all, do Democratic Party supporters not already support a $ 15 hourly wage, Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal? "Thank you, old man, we finally got the winning message and now we have a choice of more marketable messengers with better lenses."
And yet, in the 24 hours that followed the announcement of his candidacy, his campaign raised $ 6 million from 220,000 donors. So, what makes Sanders endure and resonate clearly in so many Americans?
It's his Brooklyn-born franchise about our current national situation and his fiery analysis linking persistent blindness to the week-to-week struggle for most Americans and media ownership.
The way Sanders responded to an interview with John Dickerson of CBS revealed the Democrats' threat of a bid for the independent presidency of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
"Oh, it's not nice?" Sanders said. Why is Howard Schultz on all TV channels in the country? Why are you quoting Howard Schultz? Because he's a billionaire. "
He continued, "I personally know a lot of people who work hard to earn a living and earn $ 40 or $ 50,000 a year. They know a lot more about politics than Mr. Schultz, with all due respect. But because we have a corrupt system, anyone who is a billionaire and can broadcast a lot of television ads on television suddenly becomes very believable. "
"So, Mr. Schultz, what does he sing against the Democratic Party?" "If you do not name Bernie Sanders, he will not show up." "Well, I do not think we should give in to that kind of blackmail."
This is its kind of shameless radical franchise that appeals to so many Americans who do not find their current situation reflected in the national policy discourse and agenda defined by "leaders". "Like Tom Friedman, the columnist for the New York Times. , whose analysis seems so far removed from the actual daily misery of tens of millions of American households struggling for basic necessities like housing.
In a recent column, Friedman presented his kind of strong reductionism that summed up the ideological battle for the soul of the Democratic Party between "mainstream Democrats – thinks Mike Bloomberg" and "Redivist Democrats – mainstream – thinks Bernie Sanders".
By weighing the relative weight of the slices, he seems to put his thumb on the scale for the Bloomberg flavor. "The growing democrats know that good jobs do not come from government, nor grow on trees, but from risk takers who start businesses," Friedman writes. "They come from free markets regulated and amortized by a smart government."
Yet towards the end of his column, Friedman admits, albeit nonchalantly, that today "most families are too weak for. . . to transmit the American dream to their children. "
This is an amazing admission and it erases the long-held idea that capitalism has a kind of moral authority, because it offers socio-economic mobility to the mass of Americans.
For several years, the data confirm this erosion of the so-called American promise for future generations. While the United States fell in the global ranking of social mobility, the concentration of wealth and income disparities in the country reached an obscene level.
These trend lines are not unrelated.
According to a report released February 20 by the Economic Policy Institute between 1979 and 2017, productivity had reached 70.3%, while workers' compensation increased by only 11.1%.
EPI researchers point to the history that, in the 30 years following the Second World War, there was no such pronounced disparity between the productivity of American workers and their earnings. Is it just a coincidence that this post-war period also enjoyed wider prosperity with the expansion of the middle class and the development of the American labor movement?
Oh, and for most of that time, there was a marginal tax rate of 90% for the wealthiest Americans.
The analysis of the EPI "State of Wages in America 2018" also shows that productivity has increased six times faster than the rate of compensation for accidents at work. The post-Great Recession IPE data showed "not only increasing inequality, but also persistence and, in some cases, worsening wage gaps by sex and race" and that the growing divergence between productivity and remuneration was "the basis of many US economic challenges. "
And so, curious minds would wonder exactly where the manna of productivity landed in the pockets of American workers?
"A significant portion of this amount has been devoted to higher corporate profits and increased income of owners of capital and businesses, but much of it has gone to the most advanced wage distribution. ", according to EPI. EPI data show that the first percent of employees recorded an overall increase of 157.3% of their annual salary between 1979 and 2017, while one-tenth of their earnings increased by 343.2%.
The recognition of the end of the American dream – children who do better than their parents – is happening because there are other signs that the country is collapsing in a way that which demands a greater urgency for our national policy.
In addition to the global collateral damage resulting from our war on terror and the pressing consequences of global warming already upon us, there is this growing crisis of affordability that manifests itself in all other ways than the corporate media. try to maintain. isolated from the economy.
It should not be just another presidential election year "ha-ha-yuk-yuk-yuk" while, for the third consecutive year, the average life expectancy of the United States has declined, which has not happened since the First World War.
Even though suicide and an opioid addiction crisis cover a growing area in America, we find that the birth rate in America is declining and the number of households under construction shows that nearly $ 2 trillion in student debt not only prevent twenty people from realizing their dream. but preventing them from going out of the basement of their parents and procreate.
It is no coincidence that Bernie Sander's radical message particularly affected the young people for whom the American experience was defined on September 11 and the Great Recession, its dire consequences, and Donald Trump's national tragedy.
There is a poetic irony that a 77-year-old man, who has lived a long life, would need to give voice to the aspirations of young people aspiring to redesign a world in order to create their own.
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