After headlining the recently concluded Democratic “Unity” tour, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declared that the losing party of the 2016 presidential election is still failing.
The former presidential candidate insists that Democrats have embraced a losing strategy for too long – as it continues to implode.
“I think what is clear to anyone who looks at where the Democratic Party today is that the model of the Democratic Party is failing,” Sanders told CBS’s John Dickerson on Face The Nation. “We have a Republican president who ran as a candidate as the most unpopular candidate in [the] modern history of this country. Republicans control the House, the Senate, two-thirds of governor’s chairs, and in the last eight years, they have picked up 900 legislative seats.”
Dems need an about-face
The self-proclaimed socialist politician said major changes must take place before Democrats see another surge at the ballot box.
“Clearly, the Democratic Party has got to change,” Sander continued. “And, in my view, what it has got to become is a grassroots party – a party which makes decisions from the bottom on up, a party which is more dependent on small donations than large donations, a party, John, that speaks to the pain of the working class in this country.”
Sanders’ comments came after the Democrats’ Unity tour turned into more of a display of disunity, as Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez was booed numerous times by those attending the event.
After losing the Democratic Primary last year to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Sanders has been one of the party’s biggest critics.
“Donald Trump did not win the election — the Democrats lost the election!” Sanders exclaimed at an event in Miami last week, according to Townhall. “That means rebuilding the Democratic Party, making it a grassroots party – a party from the bottom on up!”
It is noted that in addition to Sanders losing the primary and Clinton losing the general election, Democrats lost across the board, but it is also argued that the Vermont Senator is on the right track about one thing – that Democrats need to regroup.
“Sanders’s people may have the right idea about rebuilding the party, with the 50-state strategy stemming from Howard Dean who placed the party in good position across the board by 2008,” Townhall’s Matt Vespa ventured. “Those gains have been lost, but the Bernie wing of the Left is frothing at the mouth – and seemingly angrier with Clintonites for blowing the 2016 election. Oh, and those DNC emails showing the then-senior staff discussing ways to undercut the Sanders campaign also didn’t help build trust within the party.”
Banking on abortion – a bad investment
And with the pro-life tide sweeping America, the conservative journalist impressed that fact that touting the message, “abortion or bust” is not the way to straight-arm a victory at the ballot box.
“[A]nother issue that has brought Democrats to the crossroads: abortion,” Vespa continued. “Perez says that the DNC wouldn’t support any pro-life Democrat, which undercuts an effective 50-state strategy. Sorry folks, not everything from Washington – or the party’s urban bastions – sells in rural America, where the party desperately needs to retake ground that was lost to Republicans over the past decade.”
Democrats are constantly criticized for ignoring the fact that more than a quarter of its adherents are pro-life, and they are also derided for banking on the fact that Left-leaning urban areas on the coasts are predominantly pro-abortion.
“It’s a fact that Democrats need pro-lifers, who make up between 25-30 percent of the party, to seal the deal – especially in state legislature elections,” Vespa pointed out. “With Democrats – specifically the ones who are currently calling the shots – living in progressive bubbles of America’s cities, this will surely fall on deaf ears.”
Mixed messages
After Sanders took the stage last week to kick off a Democratic event in Maine, crowds reportedly thundered their applause for the socialist politician, but booed when the Democratic National Committee was mentioned.
When Sanders and Perez traveled south to Miami, Florida, for the “Come Together and Fight Back” tour the following day, both received awkward questions following the event, starting with the Senator, who was asked if he considered himself a Democrat.
“No, I am an Independent,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in an interview, according to CNN, before going into his take on why the Democratic Party is on a downward spiral – a party from which he failed to get its nomination in 2016.
Next up, Perez was then asked about single-payer healthcare (Medicare-for-all).
“Well, you know, we want to make sure that health care is a right,” Perez answered while squirming in his chair next to Sanders – the policy’s biggest supporter – failing to meaningfully articulate on the subject.
This response failed to impress the Leftist mainstream media.
“And so it’s been and so it goes for Democrats in the age of Trump,” CNN’s Gregory Krieg commented. “The moderate wing of the party — derisively termed ‘liberals’ by those further Left — is loath to give over power to the progressive insurgency, which holds up Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s loss as proof Democrats needs to fundamentally remake — and elevate — their economic message.”
It is contended that the divisiveness amongst liberals will impede Democrat’s hopes in the 2018 election – as well as their success in the 2020 primary before the presidential election. But some believe that blending the party’s message with Sanders – an Independent – might enliven the ticket.
“That’s why Perez, fresh off a contentious campaign to take over the DNC, is sharing a stage and sitting down for joint interviews with Sanders,” Krieg insisted. “The former Obama administration labor secretary, an accomplished progressive in his own right, is the establishment figure in this set-up. Sanders, as always, is the firebrand, though now he comes with a power base of passionate supporters the party is desperate to win over.“
Some question the Democrats’ reasoning behind inviting Sanders to come in and berate the party he was commissioned to invigorate.
“To the establishment liberal wing, Sanders’ screeds come off as something between grating and condescending,” the Leftist reporter asserted. “Why, they ask, is someone who refuses to identify as a Democrat, being given so much say in the party’s future? The nerve!”
But he then rationalized the move, noting that Sanders and his virulent neighboring senator to the north oppose the very things many Democrats despise about the establishment – represented by Clinton and Perez.
“On the flip side, many progressive Democrats regard Sanders, along with a few others, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, as the Left’s answer to the corporate influence – and political incompetence – it believes poisoned Clinton’s candidacy,” Krieg contended. “They view Sanders as a uniquely powerful bulwark against the party’s embrace of policies (free trade, austerity, privatization, etc.) they despise.”
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
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