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The masses support for Bernie Sanders rest on his message authenticity and consistency for his entire political career
Bernie Sanders won a landslide, a resounding victory against Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. He beat Hillary Clinton 60% to 38%. Based on the exit polls, this was more than a resounding Hillary Clinton defeat. This was a defeat of the establishment. This was a defeat of incrementalism and inauthenticity. After-all, if one digs deep into the message of both candidates, they are both attempting to promote middle-class centric policies that on the surface, appeal to most.
The New Hampshire grassroots and rank and file Democrats reviewed the democratic socialist and the democratic establishment candidates. They found Bernie Sanders’ message consistency that spanned several decades, believable and attainable. They listened to Hillary Clinton’s incrementalism purported to attain the same goal, albeit with implicit corporate dictates, as unacceptable.
The classic example is Sanders’ health care proposal. Bernie Sanders wants to get corporations out of paying medical bills given that they deny coverage to many in order to make a profit for a few (single-payer / Medicare for all). Hillary Clinton continues to support that arcane construct that is nothing more than a transfer of middle-class wealth to the executives and shareholders of insurance corporations.
The exit polls were strikingly stunning. They indicate that the masses are finally getting it. Bernie Sanders won every demographic classification sans people over 64 and people making over $200,000. And even those were close.
Bernie Sanders more than any politicians has raised the issue of Wall Street/corporate control of American politics. He has promised to fund his campaign via the grassroots. Thus far he is fulfilling that promise. Hillary Clinton’s financing is decidedly PAC based.
Many viewed former President Clinton’s attack on Bernie Sanders immediately before the New Hampshire primary, when it was evident that Hillary would take shellacking, as faux paux. It was not. As David Brock said to Politico Magazine, it was a signal.
“I think that it’s about time that voters got a glimpse of reality, which is what’s happening, and President Clinton did that. It was a strong call to arms, particularly to her supporters — and I include myself in that — who have stayed too quiet in the face of those character attacks, and that’s over. What she correctly called the ‘artful smear,’ we need to call attention to,” David Brock, the founder of the Correct The Record rapid response and opposition research group that coordinates with the Clinton campaign, told POLITICO on Monday morning.
In other words, the Clinton Super PACs, the corporatocracy, and Wall Street are ready to pounce. Bernie Sanders will not be treated with ‘kit gloves’ anymore. One can expect the kitchen sink to be thrown at him.
Is America at a turning point? Should grassroots movements pushing for a constitutional amendment to rid our politics of Wall Street control and corporate control jump into the Bernie Sanders revolution?
Hillary Clinton has received almost unanimous support and endorsements from the Democratic establishment. Bernie Sanders is a lone ranger attempting to remake the Democratic Party into one that is middle-class centric and humane. There is much intersectionality between grassroots movement groups like Move to Amend and others.
Bernie Sanders said the following in his New Hampshire victory speech.
Tonight we serve notice to the political and economic establishment of this country that the American people will not continue to accept a corrupt campaign finance system that is undermining American democracy and we will not accept a rigged economy in which ordinary Americans work longer hours for lower wages while almost all new income and wealth goes to the top one percent.
That is a large part of the core that many of these grassroots groups are fighting for in the aggregate. Sanders also pointed out that much of the tenets he stands for are trans-partisan and trans-ideological.
The people of New Hampshire have sent a profound message to the political establishment, to the economic establishment, and by the way, to the media establishment. What the people here have said is that given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for the same old, same old establishment politics and establishment economics. The people want real change.
What the American people are saying, and by the way, I hear this not just from progressives but from conservatives and from moderates, is that we can no longer continue to have a campaign finance system in which Wall Street and the billionaire class are able to buy elections.
Americans, Americans, no matter what their political view may be, understand that is not what democracy is about. That is what oligarchy is about. And we will not allow that to continue. I do not have a Super PAC, and I do not want a Super PAC.
Sanders even touched on a subject that many grassroots groups not associated specifically with racial injustice tend to minimize. (Move to Amend makes this a central tenet of its organizing methodology). He said the following.
And when we talk about transforming America, it means ending the disgrace of this country having more people in jail than any other country in the world disproportionately African-American and Latino.
Not only are we going to fight to end institutional racism and a broken criminal justice system, we are going to provide jobs and education for our young people, not jails and incarceration.
Sanders also unequivocally came out in support of protecting mother earth. He also took a decidedly non neocon view of international policy.
The excitement and interest in the Bernie Sanders’ campaign leads one to believe that given the proper impetus, his candidacy and ultimate presidency could make a change in the body politic. It could be the necessary catalyst to finally activate an apathetic sleeping giant, the American middle-class.
The massive amount of donations to his campaign from the grassroots is probative. This just may be that instant in time when grassroots movements need to coalesce with all its might in support of a candidate that just might start the reversal from our path to fascistic Oligarchy to one of a real democracy based on the social needs of all Americans.
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