In the wake of last night's disastrous presidential loss for Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders is taking harder shots than he has ever taken against the Democratic Party, and I welcome it. I will allow it because it is necessary. [00:00:15] Now, in an open letter, he slams the Democratic Party for focusing on the wrong issues while simultaneously ignoring the needs of the American people. He writes as follows. It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic party, which has [00:00:32] abandoned working class people, would find that the working class has abandoned them. First it was white working class and now it is Latino and black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo. [00:00:48] The American people are angry and want change. And they're right. He continues today, while the rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. [00:01:03] Unbelievably real inflation accounted for. Weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity. [00:01:19] Many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. Now to my absolute favorite excerpts from his open letter. He writes today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain [00:01:37] the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right. And we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee [00:01:53] paid family and medical leave. So the reason why I love that so much is because he focuses on how much we're spending and how little we're getting in return. And honestly, it makes me think about all of the pretty little lies that the American electorate is told about. Oh, you know, Europeans have a better quality of life for sure. [00:02:11] And they get a much better social safety net, better social services. That's definitely true. But they pay such high taxes. What do you think the average American is doing? We're paying real high taxes as well, but we don't get nearly even close [00:02:27] to what Europeans get for what they pay for their taxes. Okay. What does what do our taxes fund, Jake? - War. - War. Okay. Redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top. My favorite argument from Israelis when Americans complain about funding their [00:02:42] war is, why are you guys complaining? You give us military aid, and we use that money to buy American weapons. Okay, that is the redistribution of wealth from the American electorate, the American taxpayers to a handful of executives who work at these weapons manufacturers [00:03:01] and private defense contractors. Okay, that's where the money's going. It is a redistribution of wealth, something that Republican politicians complain about because they want you to believe that it's money from the top, trickling down to the bottom. That's not what's happening here. [00:03:17] It's money from the bottom that has been trickle not trickling up, but just flooding over to the top. People who are already tremendously wealthy and we don't have health insurance. We don't have nearly the types of social safety net programs that Europeans have. [00:03:32] He also writes today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, 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 [00:03:47] the starvation of thousands of children. I'm happy that Bernie seems to be the only Democratic politician who hasn't forgotten about what's happening to the people in Gaza. Yeah. So first of all, Bernie, it's good to have you back, brother. Okay. Credit to Rashida Tlaib, of course, as well. [00:04:05] Right. So, what happened to Bernie for the last four years is, in my opinion, he believed that Joe Biden was his friend, and he believed that working with the establishment would get it, all these progressive policies that he believed in. I said he was being naive, and they weren't going to do any of that. [00:04:24] And on day one, we found out they weren't going to do any of that because they pulled his beloved $15 minimum wage as their very first act. Joe Biden said, take it out of the bill. And they did. Okay. So and then it led to a series of betrayals. And so what? He put on a happy face, and I think that he really believed it. [00:04:41] And and I think that he believed that, oh my God, we got some good things passing the Inflation Reduction Act, etc.. And it wasn't all bad. There were some decent things that were passed. But to me, the, you know, negotiating drug prices is a perfect example because there's tens of thousands of drugs. And they said, oh, we're going to negotiate prices on ten of them [00:04:59] eventually through to 2026. And we'll start with one. Now, when you do one out of tens of thousands of drugs, that's not because you're trying to lower drug prices. That's because you're trying to pretend to lower drug prices while you actually protect higher drug prices for 99% of drugs. [00:05:19] So I think that today, the reason why the Bernie we know and love is back and making these good, tough points against the establishment is because he realized, oh, no, working with them didn't lead to anything that they said would happen. They promised this, that. [00:05:34] And the other thing they promised they knew how to run a campaign. They promised they'd do it the next time around. And what happened? There is no next time around. They didn't know how to run a campaign. They never got the great majority of that stuff passed and they never meant it. So. But when you're when you play footsie with the establishment and you buy into [00:05:53] their, you know, ideas that of gradualism, and eventually we'll get there. It's a trap. They're not ever going to get there. They don't intend to get there. So so are you ready for the part that you're going to love the most? Yeah. So he gets into money in politics, which he's been talking about more and more [00:06:11] in press interviews and things like that, but he certainly touched on it. In this letter, he writes, Will the big money interests and well-funded consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens [00:06:29] 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? Probably not. In the coming weeks and months, those of us concerned about grassroots democracy [00:06:48] and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions. Stay tuned. Yeah, well, I'm staying too, and I'm curious what he's going to do, but I'm glad that he's at least at least let go of this fantasy that the establishment Democrats are going to win, do something positive, etc. [00:07:09] And look, the reason, number one reason why they don't talk about money in politics is because it would offend their colleagues. And so if you watch The Young Turks regularly, you've heard me say that a lot of times, right? And that's why even the squad went in. We said, don't take corporate PAC money. They didn't. Terrific. And we said, now go challenge your colleagues on money and politics. [00:07:26] They're like, whoa, no way, no way. Because then they would get mad at me and that wouldn't be a good team player. We didn't send you to be a good team player. We sent you to overturn their applecart. That's the whole point of being a progressive and fighting for the voters. So if you went there to be a Democratic colleague, but God, we wasted our time, right? [00:07:44] So now, look, I don't know where the squad stands. I don't know if they're angry. I don't know if they realize economic populism is the right direction to go. I don't know if they've learned anything, but at least Bernie's back and he's the the actual leader of the movement. And so it doesn't mean he's going to run again. [00:08:00] But what it does mean is he can energize and unite people and get back on the right track and not kissing the ass of the establishment, not hoping and praying and pleading with the establishment that they'll do the right thing, take them out, take them on and challenge them and say, yeah, when you take [00:08:19] that corporate money from drug companies and you vote for higher drug prices, you're not my colleague. You're a corrupt politician that's destroying our ability to win and do positive things in the world. If you enjoyed this video, that's because of our members. [00:08:35] They make us independent, they make us strong, and they make us honest. Become a member today by hitting the join button below.