Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The White Hot Rage of Bernie Sanders
Surrounded by tens of supporters, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for the White House Tuesday. Though his entry has been rumored for months, the very old, very white socialist shocked observers by delivering the most searing indictment of Obama’s America that has ever been carried on basic cable.
Looking grimly upon six years of Obama’s failed leadership, Sanders characterized the United States as a Hobbesian hellscape run by greedy oligarchs, double-dealing pols, and shadowy special interests. Delivering his speech in a state that is only one percent African-American, the white-haired, pink-skinned 73-year-old angrily denounced an America that has passed him by.
I have gathered Sen. Sanders most incendiary attacks on the leadership of America’s first black president:
Obama’s America is utterly corrupt.
“Enough is enough. This great nation and its government belong to all of the people, and not to a handful of billionaires, their Super-PACs and their lobbyists.”
“Stale” Obama offers no new ideas.
“Now is not the time for thinking small. Now is not the time for the same old – same old establishment politics and stale inside-the-beltway ideas.”
Obama has destroyed the middle class and sacrificed America’s leadership in the world.
Now is the time for millions of working families to come together, to revitalize American democracy, to end the collapse of the American middle class and to make certain that our children and grandchildren are able to enjoy a quality of life that brings them health, prosperity, security and joy – and that once again makes the United States the leader in the world in the fight for economic and social justice, for environmental sanity and for a world of peace.
Obama has driven America to its lowest point in modern history.
“This country faces more serious problems today than at any time since the Great Depression and, if you include the planetary crisis of climate change, it may well be that the challenges we face now are direr than any time in our modern history.”
“In America we now have more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on earth, and the gap between the very rich and everyone is wider than at any time since the 1920s.”
“In recent years, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires at the same time as millions of Americans work longer hours for lower wages and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth… This grotesque level of inequality is immoral. It is bad economics. It is unsustainable. This type of rigged economy is not what America is supposed to be about.”
Obama is lying about unemployment.
“The truth is that real unemployment is not the 5.4 percent you read in newspapers. It is close to 11 percent if you include those workers who have given up looking for jobs or who are working part time when they want to work full time. Youth unemployment is over 17 percent and African-American youth unemployment is much higher than that. Today, shamefully, we have 45 million people living in poverty, many of whom are working at low-wage jobs. These are the people who struggle every day to find the money to feed their kids, to pay their electric bills and to put gas in the car to get to work.”
Obama has caused citizens to lose hope, abandon democracy.
“It is no secret that there is massive discontent with politics in America today. In the mid-term election in November, 63 percent of Americans did not vote, including 80 percent of young people. Poll after poll tells us that our citizens no longer have confidence in our political institutions and, given the power of Big Money in the political process, they have serious doubts about how much their vote actually matters and whether politicians have any clue as to what is going on in their lives. Combating this political alienation, this cynicism and this legitimate anger will not be easy.”
Obama is literally starving Americans:
Let us be honest and acknowledge that millions of Americans are now working for totally inadequate wages. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised.
As you can see, Sanders’ announcement was a 35-minute dog whistle playing to the worst fears of the angry, all-white crowd. His croaking screams for “revolution” would make a rock-ribbed constitutionalist like Ted Cruz blush.
Only time will tell if the Father Coughlin-style jeremiads of Sanders’ youth can still motivate a modern, pluralistic America. But at least in one corner of White America, there are tens of people who will never accept the leadership of Barack Obama.
Published in General
There is a portion of the Democrat Party which was hoping for Pocahontas. They’ll probably have to settle for Bernie whom they’ll find much more attractive than Bubba’s chief of staff.
We all laugh at crazy Bernie….but, while his solutions are nuts, he has correctly identified a number of problems….and unless others step forward and acknowledge those problems and point out better solutions, then a not insignificant number of people may be willing to follow him off the cliff. (e.g. Venezuela)
As an example, he is right, crony capitalism has turned this country into an oligarchy.
Exactly my thoughts.
Bernie’s seething with rage.
In this particular point what’s at issue is we would be blaming the exact opposite people :)
Exactly right. Laugh at his solutions, but not the diagnosis (with exceptions, of course)
What Senators Sanders and Warren fail to address is that the malnourished child is sitting in a rent-subsidized, air-conditioned apartment, playing video games while he sips an energy drink and eats something made by Grupo Bimbo, pausing occasionally to talk on a free cell phone or take a free insulin injection. Conservatives should create their own new social program, call it Life Boot Camp, and make it mandatory for anyone seeking any of the above subsidies.
direr?
Jon,
Com’on Jon, Bernie’s got everything or almost. He needs Minions.
BANANA!!
Regards,
Jim
I think they’d look more like this:
I agree, Bernie Sanders has the wrong solutions, but he identifies many of the right problems. The US government is fundamentally corrupt from the top down. Even a Republican President and super majorities in Congress are not enough to change things.
Buy Bernie’s Mandatory Deodorant.
It’s the law! (TM)
I’ll often hear public service announcements declaring that 1/5 or even 1/4 of American children are going hungry. Now we know why. It’s because those soulless hucksters in corporate America have got the parents of America spending so much money trying to keep up with the Joneses on deodorant. There’s no money left to buy food for their starving children. “Sorry Billy, I know you’ve had nothing to eat but bread and water all week, but Daddy’s saving up for the new scent by Mennen.”
You wouldn’t be able to pin Bernie down on the specifics of his deodorant-brand-reduction plan any more than you’d be able to get him to explain why the optimal minimum wage is some figure higher than $7.50 or why the optimal top marginal tax rate is some number higher than 39.6%. The key word here is “higher.” The progressives and the socialists will always believe they should be higher.
How wonderful it would be if a journalist asked a politician advocating a higher minimum wage, “If $15 would improve the lot of low-wage workers, then why not $100?” It would force even a snake-oil-salesman, populist politician to acknowledge that a $100 minimum wage would put people out of work.
Exactly. So, please show us your data that explains why $15 would not put people out of work.
And while you’re at it, explain why the top 10% – who pay 68% of all federal income taxes, though they earn 45% of all income – should pay an even greater share of the tax burden. Should they pay 75%, 90%, 100%? Enough with the vague “fair share” nonsense. What’s the optimal amount? If you had lunch with several strangers and your share of the $200 bill came to $90, would it be “fair” for you to pay $136? Would it be even more “fair” for you to pay $180?
Bernie had an event just a few hours ago within walking distance of my home. It was held at a rehabilitative horse farm (no foolin’) that in 2008 was festooned with Hillary banners.
I recall a few years back that every second fencepost on that property’s curb had a small “no trespassing” sign. One must protect one’s private property after all.
Jon did you see this yet?