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Bernie Sanders, the leftist brand who has made the fight against poverty and inequality mainstream in US politics, on Sunday called for arms to keep his progressive colleagues steadfast in the escalating battle for it. future of Joe Biden’s economic and social policy agenda. .
As the Democratic Party engages in a tug-of-war over two massive bills that could make or break the Biden presidency, Sanders said the outcome over the next few weeks would be critical not only for the future of American working families but also for the politics of the country. future.
“It’s a test of whether American democracy can work,” he said in a heated interview with ABC News’ This Week. “I hope and expect that the Democratic Party and the President – I know he will – will stand firm.”
As the White House and congressional leaders scramble to meet a new Oct. 31 deadline for passing the legislation, two flanks of the Democratic Party are at loggerheads. They are aligned with the fate of Biden’s two key pieces of legislation: the $ 1 billion infrastructure bill and the $ 3.5 billion social and environmental plan.
In a corner of the ring, key moderates, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in the US Senate and Josh Gottheimer in the House, complain that the $ 3.5 billion reconciliation bill is too big and argue for the smaller infrastructure bill be implemented on its own.
Across the corner, major progressives – Sanders along with Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal and others – are demanding that the two bills be passed together in order to give the reconciliation plan the best chance of passage.
On Sunday, Sanders was optimistic about his side’s chances of winning. “We have the American people very strongly on our side, we have the President of the United States on our side, we have 96% of the Democratic House caucus on our side, and we have all but two senators on our side. We’re going to win this thing, ”he said this week.
The current stalemate on Biden’s legislative agenda is bringing the independent senator from Vermont back to the forefront of politics. In his first presidential race against Hillary Clinton in 2016, he took the country by storm, acquiring an army of young supporters chanting “Feel the Bern” and drawn to his radical platform of a $ 15l minimum wage. time and other policies to reduce income. inequality.
In 2020, Sanders started out as a Democratic frontrunner, but was later overtaken by Biden. After conceding defeat, Sanders went on to endorse Biden and campaign for him in his attempt to topple Donald Trump.
The alliance between the two main Democrats seems to be holding in the current turmoil. The two men described the reconciliation measure as the “most important piece of legislation since the Great Depression.”
Sanders spoke passionately about some of the plan’s central proposals, including measures to address the “existential threat” of the climate crisis. He said: “Scientists tell us that if we do not act boldly in terms of reducing carbon emissions, the planet we leave for our children and grandchildren will be increasingly uninhabitable.”
He also vividly highlighted the proposal to expand Medicare for older Americans to include dental care. “The elderly in this country cannot chew their food because they don’t have teeth in their mouths,” he said.
Sanders argued that much of what is in the social plan is popular among most American voters.
“What bothers me about all of this is that poll after poll shows that what we’re doing is exactly what the American people want. It’s not what the big money interests want, it’s not what lobbyists want is what the American people want – and we have to do it, ”he said.
Sanders’ claim is backed up by opinion polls showing more than half of U.S. voters support the sweeping social overhaul plan which, if passed in its current form, would be the biggest expansion in protection. social welfare in the United States since the 1960s.
The fierce struggle now gripping the Democratic Party could be seen as the culmination of Sanders’ decades-long efforts to bring public attention to America’s unusually weak social safety net. If the White House succeeds in pushing through the social overhaul package with some of its most important elements intact, then Sanders could claim a position that for many years confined him to the political fringes.
To make sure that happens, Sanders said he was ready to do his part to reach a compromise. After initially presenting his $ 6 billion proposal – an amount which he said was still too low to deal with the climate crisis – he now concedes “that there will have to be give and take”.
But being Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, he continues to express his policies in the broadest terms.
He told This Week: “We are not just facing Senators Manchin and Sinema, we are facing the entire ruling class of this country. Right now the drug companies, the health insurance companies, the fossil fuel industries are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to stop us from doing what the American people want. “
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