Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) struck a pessimistic tone the day after Donald Trump became the projected winner of the presidential election, saying Democrats shouldn’t be shocked by their losses among key demographics but are unlikely to change course.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said in a lengthy statement on Wednesday. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
Election returns so far show Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for the presidency lost footing in demographics that were key to her success in such a tight race, specifically Latinos, young people and rural residents, among other groups Democrats could once count as reliable supporters.
Sanders, who ran as a progressive against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, offered little hope that Democrats ― with whom he caucuses in Congress ― will see the error in their ways.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders asked. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power?”
To all those questions, Sanders answered: “Probably not.”
Americans’ disillusion with the Democratic Party makes sense to him, he explained, noting that 60% of them continue to live paycheck to paycheck as the wealth gap soars, and that despite massive spending, Americans pay obscene sums for health care that other developed countries treat as a human right.
Sanders, a vocal opponent of the US support in Israel’s war in Gaza, added that Democrats’ stance on that issue should not be overlooked, either.
Despite opposition, he said, “we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.”
US involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict proved to be difficult waters for Harris to navigate, and her pro-Israel stance clearly alienated some Arab American voters, even with Trump offering an even more aggressive stance on the issue. In Dearborn, Michigan, the largest majority Arab American city in the country, Trump trampled Harris despite Biden winning nearly three-quarters of the vote there in 2020.
In the final days of the election, Sanders urged Americans who disagreed with Harris’ position on Israel to still support her.
“Some of you are saying, ‘How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?’ and that is a very fair question,” he said in a video posted to social media. “And let me give you my best answer, and that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse.”
“We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing US policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing extremist ally,” he continued, noting Republicans’ opposition to sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians.